Xtro 3: Watch the Skies

Xtro 3 takes place on a deserted island where a group of Marines try to figure out just what happen at their Japanese intern camp. Once they land, they find an alien spacecraft and an ET looking creature living inside it; thereupon, all hell breaks loose. I actually enjoyed this sequel more than Xtro 2. The film has an enjoyable plot and alien effects; nonetheless, it can become too rakish for some people. Look closely for Tom Hanks's brother Jim Hanks, who has a supporting role.

Lieutenant Marin Kim (Sal Landi) tells his story to a reporter of how he accompanied Captain Fetterman (Andrew Divoff) to an island 200 miles off the coast of the United States allegedly to clear the island of explosive ordinance, but once there with his team they uncover an extraterrestrial secret left forgotten for 50 years that has its sights set on revenge on humans.

While the in name only sequel to Xtro, Xtro II: The Second Encounter was a troubled production, the home video market at the time meant it was successful enough to warrant this third entry which according to director and producer Harry Bromley Davenport was a much more pleasant experience than Xtro II. Xtro 3: Watch the Skies is a superior effort to Xtro II, but not to the point where I'd call it passable or serviceable.

While Xtro II took inspiration from Alien/Aliens with its tight corridors, creature effects, and general character set, Xtro 3 takes inspiration from Predator with a jungle/island setting and an alien antagonist with cloaking abilities and mixes it with aesthetic and thematic similarities to the X-Files. The movie is way better made than Xtro II and also features more engaged characters including one character named Banta who, no joke, has a backstory inspired by Tonya Harding for some reason. The alien in Xtro while a very generic design is at least more dynamic and articulated than the xenomorph like creature from the predecessor. While being better than the bottom of the barrel Xtro II, it doesn't elevate itself to good as it's still padded with thin characters who don't have the chemistry or presence of its inspiration in Predator.

Xtro 3 is what it is, a below average direct-to-video film. It doesn't do anything wrong like its predecessor, but it doesn't do anything to distinguish itself from a crowded field either.

I haven't commented on a film here for three years, but now I've returned to warn you for this piece of crap. It baffles me that people say Godzilla 1998 is the worst film they ever saw. They obviously never saw this one. I can't believe some people actually like this and there is a DVD of this film.

I never expected a good movie, but sometimes cheap cheesy sf-films can be enjoyable. But this flick sucks big time. The general that gives Major Kints (Sal Landi) his orders has his office in a shed. The marines are plain stupid. The alien isn't scary or impressive at all. The explosions aren't even real.

There are many continuity errors. Backpacks and guns appearing and disappearing. An alien with small fragile hands that seems to have medical instruments to dissect his victims. On broad daylight, you can see the alien in a dark background. Kint and Fetterman (Andrew Divoff) fight on a boat and seem to be the only two people on the rather large looking ship. And after 40 years, the alien decides to take off and breaks his ship out of the concrete bunker he was trapped in. Doh.

Here's another example of the bad script: When everybody is walking towards a bunker to hide, private Banta stops for a moment because the batteries of her flashlight are dead. She's left behind by the other soldiers and soon she's stuck in the alien's slime web. Kint wants to look for her but private O'Reilly thinks she's dead because she stopped screaming. This all happens in the dark, and when it's daytime again, the alien comes to dissect Banta. The following night Kint decides to look for Banta after all, and when it's daylight again O' Reilly (with backpack) joins him. They look and look, but can't seem to find her. Luckily the Major climbs in a tree and spots the alien still dissecting Banta. He aims (with a sniperrifle he didn't bring) for the alien but misses and then ends Banta's misery by shooting her. Then they go back to the bunker, however Kint no longer has the rifle and O' Reilly no longer has his backpack. And this is just a small sample of the stupidity of this film.

When the remaining people are building a raft, two of them, O' Reilly and Watkins (Karen Moncrieff) go for a swim. However not in the brook where they are building the raft, but they walk a mile to the beach. I was hoping that the woman would show her breasts but alas, nudity is not an option in this flick.

believe me, this movie stinks. It's crap. It's a waste of celluloid. With worthless movies like this, it's uncanny that people are bashing fun movies like Anaconda or Godzilla 98. Hell, even Deep Star Six is even better than this junk. I'd rather watch the dumb Tammy and the T-rex again than Xtro 3 (at least Tammy had a nice striptease in the end).

Don't buy, rent or watch this one (unless you want to spot all the goofs).

I rented a bunch of sci-fi movies last Saturday and was surprised that two were outstanding afternoon fare. I don't know about the previous parts of Xtro but Part three had it all. Good special effects, a worthy script, fine acting and some interesting direction. I liked everyone, character wise. The plot made sense. Marines are sent to a Pacific island to rid it of WW II mines - but they were really sent to find the sole survivor of an old air force secret and the Marines finds themselves at the mercy of a chameleon-like alien locked up (not for long) in a block of cement. The flash back sequence, the humorous filmreel at the start of the film and the story within a story worked well. I had a good time. Sci-Fi's only...........

The XTRO-trilogy (if you can call it that) is an odd phenomenon. The three movies are totally unrelated, except for the fact that they all were directed by Harry Bromley Davenport and they all deal with extra-terrestrial encounters. The first XTRO was a peculiar little sci-fi/horror/drama-gem. A weird mixture of genres, but a good flick nonetheless. XTRO II: The Second Encounter was a shameless ALIEN rip-off, solid in creature-terror, but over-all bad. And XTRO 3: Watch The Skies unfolds more like a 90 minutes episode of THE X-FILES mixed with military stuff and ripped details from PREDATOR. So go figure.

Now, XTRO 3 is slightly better than the second one only because it actually has a bit of a plot. It has also another rather unique aspect: it's a sort of alien-revenge-flick (there aren't many of those, are there?) A group of expendable military misfits are send out to clean up a remote island, for the military has plans to build a base there. Soon they discover that there's actually an all different purpose to their visit as they encounter an alien on that island.

The actors are unknown & mediocre and the characters are all clichés. Except for Andrew"Djinn"Divoff. It's nice to see him again, but his performance is rather unnoticeable, and you get the idea that he's only any good when he can deliver witty one-liners. The camera-work is pretty bad too. The musical score is at times really cheap, but sometimes they surprisingly use the right scary sounds. But it was at those moments that I suspected they used parts from other movie's soundtracks.

As for the alien effects: they're pretty good, especially the moving facial features. There are some decent gore-effects too, but the rest of the special effects look crappy.

At times you will have to fight off boredom while watching this flick, but the occasional voice-over from the main character makes you want to know how it all will end. So, if your looking for an off-beat sci-fi quicky, XTRO 3 might be worth a watch. More demanding sci-fi fans should better ignore it.