The Bad Action Film Society: Alien Apocalypse (2005)

Overall Rating:

AA received high marks in all action categories, however the lack of boobies and swears brings its overall score down to a mediocre level. Throw in some nudity and profanity and AA would be top-tier bad action movie. Overall, it’s a decent watch, but there are many bad action movies I would recommend over AA.

Why We Rented It:
Bruce Campbell stars as Dr. Ivan Hood, a cocky astronaut who returns to Earth after a 40-year cryogenic space nap to discover civilization destroyed and the planet enslaved by a race of giant alien termites. But when Hood is captured, he begins to plot the impossible: escape his captors, track down the long-missing President, and build a rebel army to destroy these insect overlords. In a desperate time ruled by head-chomping bugs that spew green crap, can one brave hero lead a not-very-bright world to freedom?

Our Synopsis:
Like the back cover says, some spacemen come back to Earth and it’s been taken over by giant alien termites that sometimes repeat the end of their sentences. These termites mostly enjoy biting off black dudes’ heads, but they also like to eat wood (being giant termites) so they enslave all of humanity to work in their lumber mills. Bruce Campbell, of course, isn’t all about this so he escapes, tries to find the leader of a rebel human army, finds the leader but there is no army, heads back to saw mill to fight termites and ends up being the leader of the rebel army. Hooray!

Big Ol’ Naked Boobies:

I believe that is now the third movie, in a row, with no nudity. I guess I should’ve known that this one was coming when the front cover said that this movie was the highest rated original movie in Sci-Fi channel history. Still, AA being a Sci-Fi movie is no excuse for a boobie-less motion picture.

Profanation:

Ok, so I honestly can’t remember a single swear in this movie, however I will give AA 1 star in profanation for one reason, and it is the following line: “Those bounty hunters are all fags. I can handle 'em.” What?! I don’t recall any homosexual tendencies between any of the bounty hunters, but if Bruce Campbell says it, it must be true. 1 star!

Ninjocity:

This is definitely the first movie that has made me sit back and wonder, “which category should ‘attacks with a rusty cutlass’ be put into?” I’m also not entirely sure if the bow-and-arrow would fall into this category, but I’m digressing. Now, on to the ninjocity! There is plentiful bow-and-arrow firing, as this seems to be one of the only weapons that the humans of 40 years in the future still know how to make. AA also contained much alien slaughtering with the aforementioned rusty cutlass. This included the chopping off of alien heads and limbs. Bruce Campbell also stabs an alien in the gut with a drill bit. There isn’t much hand-to-hand combat so our score for this category, while still good, is less than perfect.

Cannonry:

It’s interesting that people being repressed under termite rule for 40 years still remember how to make weapons for fighting against the termites. Perhaps they should have remembered this about 40 years before and they wouldn’t have been enslaved in the first place. As for cannonry, there were Molotov cocktails, alien pulse guns that exploded stuff on impact, rockets from the alien assault vehicle. Oh and Bruce Campbell’s spaceship had something of an explosive quality to it when it landed. All in all, solid but sometimes confusing cannonry.

Other Factors:

So, not surprisingly, the black dude who you think is going to be a main character gets his head bit off. Gotta off that minority actor before they get a substantial part in the movie, I guess. In fact, it seemed like there were very few minorities in the movie at all. I counted two black guys, the one dies and the other is just some random slave. Good diverse casting.

Alright I’ll be honest, the movie-defining quote left something to be desired. Bruce Campbell shoots a dude with a crossbow and says, “Your stupidity is terminal. And now you're cured.” I’m shaking my head and laughing right now, that’s how bad it was.

And what was the deal with the fastest recorded rape of all time? That dude must have super-premature ejaculation problems! It was also interesting that the rape seemingly occurred without either party taking off even one article of clothing. This leads me to conclude that the dude had to have somehow gotten his willy out of the hole in the front of his pants (ouch!) and the girl had to not be wearing any underwear.

Going back to our talk of primitive weapons, where did Bruce Campbell get that sword from anyway? I understand the bows-and-arrows (they are in a forest, so all of those could conceivably be constructed), but where would you get a sword, and one that appears to be from the civil war era at that? I can only assume that they robbed an ancient museum that for some inexplicable reason the aliens did not blow up. Talking of those bows-and-arrows reminds me of that arrow-launcher contraption. How exactly did that work? It seemed like it never needed reloading, and it also seemed to have an endless supply of arrows. That is the coolest!

Overall Plot Line:
I’m still confused about how the human race became subjugated in the first place. If a crack team of freed slaves and villagers, with no apparent training in the use of bows-and-arrows, can take down a squadron of aliens, why couldn’t the army do the same with guns and ammunition? I shouldn’t even ask that question though, because almost all of these alien-overlords-overthrown-by-human-from-the-past movies deal with old technology ruling the day. Sometimes there’s even a throwback to old timey values put in there, but luckily not in AA. This plot does raise about a million questions though, which is a sign that it is an excellent plot for a bad action movie.

As far as slave life goes, this movie showed that it isn’t always that bad. Sure the slaves had to live in a hole (where they built fires and would’ve suffocated to death) and work all day, but the work seemed fairly easy (lifting a 2x4 from one pile and setting it on another pile) and you could easily survive if you didn’t try to escape. The aliens usually didn’t even kill them right off when they tried to escape (they just cut off a finger), so really you could try escaping about 6 times before they would kill you for running out of enough fingers to work with. They are practically letting you to escape, and with 6 tries most of the semi-intelligent humans should’ve been able to flee successfully.

It was also quite humorous how the part of the president seemed to be written exclusively for William Shatner. They even made the guy up to look like Shatner, and have him speak like Shatner in some identifiable ways.

I was just thinking how incredibly disappointed I was that the end of AA did not consist of Bruce Campbell fighting some giant termite, one-on-one, for the planet Earth. Come on, you know you all either were expecting it or wanted to see it. That would be an excellent, and confusing, end-boss fight! So I guess I can’t give the plot line a perfect score, since it did not contain the ideal ending.

Other items this film contains: