It Came from Outer Space II

Despite its poor reputation, I really wanted to see this sequel that's actually a remake. I'm a big fan of the original It Came from Outer Space. I missed this when it originally aired and these days it's hard to find streaming. Finally I got a copy of an old dvd set that has a bunch of 90s sci-fi tv movies on it. Having just finished the film I can say it's nothing great but also not the compete dud its ratings would suggest. It's a perfectly watchable time-passer. I don't regret watching it.

The cast is nice even if many of the notable character actors that make up the supporting cast aren't given much to work with. Of the main cast, Elizabeth Peña is the best. Brian Kerwin does fine. He's just a little vanilla and the wide-eyed expression does start to remind you of the kazoo kid meme after awhile. The child actor in this is annoying but tolerable when onscreen with Peña. The stock music and poor 90s CG effects are strictly no-budget. The script is nothing special. Not a lot happens in the movie until the final third. Still, I was never really bored which is a testament to the actors I think. They're a mostly likable bunch who did well with what they were given.

The photographer Jack Putnam (Brian Kerwin) returns to his hometown in the desert, where he meets old friends. The boy Stevie Fields (Jonathan Carrasco), who is raised by his mother Ellen Fields (Elizabeth Peña) alone and with no friends, tries to draw Jack's attention and invites him to go to a hill in the desert to take pictures. They go together and Jack lends a camera to Stevie. Out of the blue, they see something falling from the sky with a storm. Out of the blue, the water disappears, there is a power-cut and the temperature becomes unbearably high. Soon people realize that they are trapped inside the town. When some residents change their behaviors and Stevie is missing, Jack drives to the hill and sees a rock growing bigger and bigger and finds that there are aliens in town.

"It Came from Outer Space II" is an unnecessary sci-fi and a waste of time to the viewers. The teleplay is boring, with a corny conclusion. The romance of Jack and Ellen has no chemistry and does exist only to give a happy ending. Jack's friend Alan Paxson is one of the best characters of this movie and is the only to die in the story. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "A Ameaça que Veio do Espaço" ("The Threat that Came from the Space")

I've seen this movie more than once. It isn't the greatest scifi flick I've every seen, but it is not a bad movie. The acting is good and the characters are more "real" than most in low budget sci fi. (At least it isn't full of dumb bimbos like so many other low budget scifi.) I especially like Elizabeth Pena. She is a good actress and she does worried single mother as well as any and better than some.

Don't let the nay sayers run you off. See it for yourself and judge it for yourself.

It was Ray Bradbury's name that brought this movie to my attention. Just before Christmas and before I started reviewing I had watched, and enjoyed, the original. So there wasn't much choice but to view the sequel... even though it's not. This is actually a brought-up-to-date remake.

However, even though it has Bradbury's name it wasn't as good as I hoped it would be. That is probably due to him not having his screenplay filmed. He actually had four screenplays for the movie and none of them was chosen, not for the original and not for this remake (Harry Essex scripted the original while Ken and Jim Wheat have written this one.) I've not read the Bradbury versions, though being a fan I can honestly believe they might be better than what we received here. Since he was still alive when this was filmed I would have asked him to update the script for the modern age. Had there been issues with the original, his gained experience from 1953 to '96 should have been able to smooth them out.

That said, Ken and Jim Wheat don't do a bad job of bringing this film up to date. However, they're not too good at characterisation or flow. Though some of this could be down to the director Roger Duchowny. What this needed was an injection of excitement and relatable characters. Most of the people in the town are bleak and depressing; though this is believable, the way they are handled makes them more two-dimensional than possessing deep personalities and was a major cause of my boredom. Even the likes of Elizabeth Pena, Dean Norris, and Mickey Jones who are good actors and had a few decent scene's still couldn't inject life into the dullness.

The other cause of my dissatisfaction is the slowness of the pace. This could have been used to create atmosphere and draw the viewer in. Sadly this wasn't the case and only added to the films dullness.

The special effects are okay for the period and there are some nice ideas though due to the slow pace and the way they were shown their impact is dulled and not fully utilised.

This is one of those films I would recommend to only the die-hard sci-fi fans and lovers of the original film. However, if you want to watch a decent film I'd say watch the original as it's much better on every count, especially if you've never seen it. There's a reason it's a classic and this one is seldom heard of.

This is a pretty pointless remake. Starting with the opening title shots of the original was a real mistake as it reminds the viewer of what a great little period piece chiller that was. The new version that follows is an exercise in redundancy.

Brian Kerwin plays a 'city boy' photographer who returns to a semi-abandoned desert town populated by a scattering of underdeveloped clichéd stock characters: the lollipop sucking Daby-Doll Lolita, the 'ornery old coot prospector, the crippled vet and his Asian wife, etc...

Kerwin's character witnesses the crashing of 'something' into a hillside and shortly after strange things start to happen as pieces of weird blue rock are scattered around. The temperature starts to rise, all the water in the area vanishes, people start to act weirdly, things explode. Kerwin's character gets in and out of his car more often than is humanly possible in one movie. The film develops no sense of place, no character development, no humour, no tension. Everything that made the Jack Arnold's original a creepy little Cold-war paranoia classic has been abandoned. It just runs through its minimal hoops and then just ends.

The special effects aren't very special - the interior of the ship looks like bits of cling film wrapped round some ropes which were then dangled in front of the camera to frame some of the most uninspired and clumsy wire-work ever put onto the screen. The script is repetitive - everyone says everything at least twice, Kerwin gets to say "let's get out of here" at least three times during the movie, twice in one scene. Loads of things are left unexplained at the end - why do the aliens need all the heat and water for example? - not that anyone watching would care; if the film makers didn't care why should we?

The acting is adequate - better than the script, which at times, has an under-rehearsed improvisational quality, deserves. Though often the actors look like they just want to get the thing over with as quickly as possible - a notable example of this is when Elizabeth Peña registers the briefest, token moment of "frustrated despair hands to face gesture" before following sulking son Stevie outside to watch him do "angry sulky teenager smashing something off a table" gesture.

Continuity errors include the (GB) sticker on the back of Kerwin's jeep appearing and disappearing, a double action of the gas in the exploding car, a towns-person being in two places simultaneously - once in the Alien Stevie's POV shot then immediately afterwards in a reaction shot, Elizabeth Peña appearing to shut a car door twice... you can tell I was gripped can't you? The movie commits that greatest of errors. It's boring.