Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out

Saw this back at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

Okay I get it, this is a children movie. Children movies are meant to be entertaining for young viewers to sit back and be in awe with something funny, fast paced and highly enjoyable. I understand. But "Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out" is one of the worst children films that I have seen.

The film suffers from a lack of charm as the characters, setting, and environment doesn't offer much to make the story creative or interesting in the slightest. The main story feels like it would work perfectly for Television either on Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon but the way it was written and it's direction doesn't make things better and very sloppy. Many of the performances were not good and the actors were trying their best but they seem to really struggle on trying their best. Most of the humor felt stale and the dialogue moments were really poor and felt forced as if the film was trying it's hardest to be in the TikTok eras. The special effects and costumes were poor as if they looked like something you would seeing from the early 2000s, the soundtrack was annoying, and the direction was all over the place.

Most of the characters were really uninteresting and if I had seen this a child, I may have been invested with them. I saw this online and I allowed my young siblings to see it since they enjoy watching science fiction stories. While he did enjoy some moments, he didn't seem to be able to fully grasp the film and did almost fall asleep halfway. That's really saying something. At the end, this is mainly for children and I understand this isn't a film for my demographic. I am sure many children might enjoy this film as there are characters and scenes they would like. But honestly, this was really really bad.

Rating: F.

I had never heard about this 2023 movie titled "Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out" prior to stumbling upon it and opting to sit down and watch it. The movie's title is what drew me to pick up this movie, as it had a distinct comedy feel to it.

And having just sat through 87 sluggish minutes of watching "Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out", I must say that this was a disappointing movie. I had initially figured that it was a movie about alien abductions, given the movie's synopsis, but instead writer Austin Osanai Everett delivered a teenage drama wrapped up in an alien abduction veil. Yeah, this movie was definitely not something that tickled me the right places, and I found myself somewhat bored throughout the course of the teenage drama.

The movie is listed as a comedy, drama and sci-fi; well, the comedy is non-existing, and the sci-fi is stretching it quite a bit. So that leaves us with a drama, which was exactly what "Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out" turned out to be.

Of the entire cast ensemble, I was only familiar with Will Forte, and he was hardly even in the movie. However, it should be said that the acting performances by the entire cast ensemble was actually good.

Visually then you're not in for anything extraordinary, should you opt to sit down and watch "Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out". In fact, this is not a movie that I would recommend you waste your time, money or effort on, unless you are a teenager or young adult.

Having sat through 87 minutes of watching "Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out", I must say that I also feel kinda left out in terms of being properly entertained.

My rating of director Jake Van Wagoner's 2023 movie "Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out" lands on a three out of ten stars.

The actors do the best they can with the poorly written dialogue and improbable disjointed plot.

The production values are surprisingly good.

Overall, most scenes are cringeworthy at best, with story development that seems full of missing parts.

Two main actors fall for each other but the moments that you would expect to see to understand this process are missing.

The protagonist who suffers from PTSD is treated like a one dimensional character something most of the characters have.

It was painful to watch this movie. If it could be re-edited with missing critical scenes added, it might improve dramatically.

If you've seen The Room (or The Disaster Artist), you'll understand why this movie is funny. It resembles a real movie just enough to be taken seriously, which adds to the humor of it. I watched it late at night with the whole family. We didn't know what we were getting into and just kept watching like it was a slow moving car accident happening on the front lawn. We turned into the Mystery Science theater audience. I was at times groaning in pain it was so bad but couldn't stop watching, and by the end... omg. I was reminded of the Furlings in episode 200 of Stargate SG1. I recommend watching with friends when you're too tired to think critically.

I thoroughly enjoyed this film, not expecting the gut-punch it provided. The two leads, Jacob Buster as Calvin and Emma Tremblay as Itsy, provided outstanding performances. They were adorable, even though they both played outcasts. (Lesson: It's okay to be different. You don't have to change so you can belong to a certain group.)

It was a movie of laughs and tears, a movie for the entire family. It had the annoying little brother with his uncool antics as well as the parents who were deemed uncool by Itsy. There was the typical high school politics with the mean girl and the lone boy who was ridiculed. It was heart-warming to see the two main characters evolve.

I'm anxiously awaiting distribution of this entertaining film so I can see it again.