Alien Armageddon Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		1.5
Audio		2.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		1.5

Alien Armageddon Blu-ray Movie Review

The Chris Paul/Blake Griffin show has been cancelled due to alien invasion.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman December 28, 2011

There’s no way out and nowhere to go.

The kindest way to describe Alien Armageddon is to call it a "mess." It's one of those rare gems that's so bad that it's difficult to describe for a lack of a real good starting spot. Everything about the movie from the top-down is in shambles, whether its clumsy editing, confused structure, haphazard dialogue, shaky pacing, terrible special effects, limited sets and set decoration, flimsy acting, or any other number of problems -- made all the worse by a shoestring budget -- that contribute to a head-scratcher of a movie that starts out promisingly as gloriously fun so-bad-its-good unintentional comedy, only to devolve into an epically bland one-location middle act that features revolving characters in prison cells vomiting and suffering through bouts of diarrhea, in between which they halfheartedly discuss escaping while two scientists work with the bad guys in an equally dingy, uninspired concrete box of a set. At least all of that contextually makes sense within the confines of the plot, as sometimes difficult as it may be to follow; the problem is that it's just flat-out boring, and not very well made to boot. The third act escapes from the limitations of the concrete set and moves into the outside world, but a decided lack of rhythm keeps the movie shackled down in the bowels of the lowest level of bad movie-dom.

I just want to find my daughter.

Jodie Elliott (Katharine McEwan) is a regular old Angeleno just trying to make it through her day, dealing with family issues and rude customers at work. Her world -- and everyone else's, for that matter -- is turned upside down when aliens appear in the sky, aliens who don't come in peace but instead with big appetites and with weapons that level cities all around the globe. It doesn't take long for them decimate the planet; only Los Angeles is left standing, bombed out and walled off though it may be. Jodie is imprisoned by the visiting Nephilim who are using human scientists to alter human DNA to make it compatible with the aliens' nutritional needs. Jodie isn't concerned about that, though; she believes her daughter is still alive out there, somewhere, and she's determined to escape no matter the cost. When a mysterious Cowboy (Don Scribner) arrives in the prison with stories of the outside world, Jodie becomes all the more convinced that she must return to her daughter. With the help of both the Cowboy and a human scientist named Franci (Rochelle Vallese), Jodie makes her move, though little does she know that she will ultimately play a much larger role in toppling the Nephilim reign on Earth.

Alien Armageddon begins promisingly, in this case "promising" meaning that it combines truly awful video game-level special effects, woeful acting, and such poor editing that the end result becomes comical rather than terrifying, even as Los Angeles "explodes" around the characters. The film's early voiceover narration and newscaster readings of the events are both lifeless, which doesn't give the movie that jolt of early energy it needs but never receives. The action scenes are grossly misshapen and poorly executed, too. Actors just sort of stand there with their guns and give no illusion that they're really in combat. It would be unrealistic to expect Saving Private Ryan realism in a movie like Alien Armageddon, but even many cheap little ventures like The Last Sentinel at least give off a semblance of honest effort; there's just nothing worse than a battle scene featuring characters nonchalantly standing with guns and so unconvincingly pretending to shoot them. Granted, Alien Armageddon isn't about action; it's instead about humanity's last stand against aliens, a last stand that's not made on the field of battle but in the laboratory and through the greater sacrifice of the flesh. The plot isn't half bad: the aliens must mutate man for food, and only by "poisoning" the food supply can man turn the tide. That requires a tainted sacrificial lamb, and the only question is whether a hero can sacrifice himself or herself for the cause. Sadly, it's just all too visually bland, structurally disjointed, poorly edited, lazily acted, and dubiously scripted to make the audience care.

Then there are all of the many things ripe for nitpicking that just pull the audience completely out of the movie. When Los Angeles is supposed to be walled off, bombed out, and occupied by aliens, the film oddly shows time-lapse footage of nighttime highway traffic like it were a regular Wednesday evening rush hour. It's a shot that makes no contextual sense whatsoever. A few scenes show a pilot on a bombing run over Chicago in a Stealth Bomber; he appears without a flight suit or a helmet, like he just got off the street and climbed into the plane. Could the filmmakers not afford a flight suit and helmet, or even a reasonable knockoff thereof, or did they just forget that pilots wear helmets? Thirdly, why is the surveillance camera inside the prison cell mounted so low on the wall that characters routinely walk right up to it and cover its lens with a dark substance? And why not just pull it down altogether? The film's general shoddiness is its final backbreaker. The movie screams "lazy" in most every scene, whether bad special effects, those phony shootouts, or so much of the action taking place in some concrete cell. At least the Nephilim shock troops, or whatever they are, look rather cool, and the film contains a few choice gore shots, but otherwise, it's just too much of a mess to recommend.

Alien Armageddon Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Alien Armageddon's 1080p Blu-ray transfer is as problematic as the movie. The image is neither razor sharp nor excessively soft, falling into a murky middle ground that favors the former but doesn't shy away from bouts with the latter. Clarity is fair, and colors are decent; Jodie's red hair and various earthen terrains seen in the film's final act appear naturally shaded. Fine detail is fair at best; faces are rather smooth, clothing textures are limited, and the concrete prison cells are mostly devoid of intricate details. Some overhead city shots look decent, but not absolutely crisp. The image is plagued by severe blockiness and banding, which becomes so bad in spots that the image seems on the verge of falling to digital pieces. It's just not a very pretty transfer, though no doubt almost all of the blame may lay at the feet of the shoddy materials used to make the movie.

Alien Armageddon Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Alien Armageddon's Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack fares only marginally better than its video counterpart. Bass is incredibly heavy but very rattly and extremely sloppy; it overwhelms the entire presentation and plays like a series of unkempt vibrations. Still, explosions and gunshots manage to play weakly and without much energy. Go figure. Music and effects are crunchy and play without much of a natural flair, though both do manage to spread out fairly well, and even into the back channels. Chapter six features some chilling screams that emanate from some distance from the action. That, and various sounds of characters farting and using the toilet are perhaps the clearest, most precise sounds in the track. Dialogue is fair, focused up the middle and generally not lost under any surrounding elements. Sadly, and like the movie and the video presentation, this audio track could definitely use some work.

Alien Armageddon Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Alien Armageddon comes a nice little assortment of extras, including a collection of deleted and extended scenes and a solid interview piece with Director Neil Johnson.

• Legacy of Nephilim (1080p, 7:41): Director Neil Johnson discusses the constant of the Nephilim in his films, the release of Battle: Los Angeles, the Biblical references to the Nephilim, shooting in Los Angeles, and more. Johnson does a fine job discussing the film and its story; it's too bad he didn't have more of a budget to work with, because he's clearly passionate about the project and well-spoken about the story's themes.
• Music Video (1080p, 4:25).
• Deleted and Extended Scenes (1080p, 15:23).
• Trailer (1080p, 0:48).

Alien Armageddon Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Alien Armageddon is a woeful experience, sad to say. Not only does the film lack the budget and technical wherewithal to succeed, it's also so starved for pacing, superior acting, smoother editing, and a more fully developed script and cast of characters that the movie just stands no chance, even if its story is at least somewhat interesting in theory. There just aren't any redeeming values here, except that in the right hands, with a bigger budget, after a massive re-working of a script, or even with a little more care and attention to detail, there might be something good enough here to pass for decent Sci-Fi fare. Phase 4's Blu-ray release of Alien Armageddon unfortunately contains low-grade video, troublesome audio, and a few supplements. Hardcore fans of low-budget Z-movies might find this one of great value and worth a rental, but audiences looking for even B-grade fun should probably turn to the films from SyFy or The Asylum that offer higher production values for a cheap no-frills movie fix.