High Plains Invaders

Well I made it through this bizarre western/sci-fi mash up, that's about all I can say about this. It's a definite B-movie with the aliens reminiscent of (copied from) 'War Of The Worlds' only on a smaller and much cheaper scale as is the whole tone of this weird movie.

It follows (best I can figure) a condemned outlaw (train robber Sam Phoenix -James Marsters) who's eminent hanging is abruptly halted by an invasion of aliens. Outlaws and townspeople must then join forces to survive as the ragtag group find sanctuary in a church. Yeah this was a tough movie to get through. I found the female gunslinger/bounty hunter character super annoying but was strangely fascinated by James Marsters' hair which look great throughout. 05.13

Let me start off by saying that it's better than most of the pot boiler Sci Fi channel movies. It makes a tiny bit of pseudo science fiction sense.

I'll start off with a pet peeve of mine, ridiculous gun handling. They mixed extremely modern guns with period guns with no rhyme or reason. Modern Smith and Wesson revolvers in stainless steel with modern target sights and ventilated ribs are used side by side with ones that almost could be period. It's sloppy, very sloppy.

It's no gem. It's pleasant, something to watch when you've had a bad day and are just in the mood to relax to something mindless. Unfortunately I found many of the characters ridiculously bad. The worst was the woman bounty hunter. She was just too 21st century politically correct, but she wasn't the only one.

It's "War of the Worlds" set in the Old West. Just as a legendary train robber is about to be hanged in a small Western town, a bunch of mechanical creatures invade the town and kill everyone in their path. A mother ship also begins to hover overhead. The outlaw and several others desperately battle the space invaders, but they quickly get picked off one by one. By the time the dust has settled ... well, you can guess the outcome. A Canadian job, this has some interesting characters but very poor CGI for the invaders. And the action sequences are clumsily staged. You never believe for a moment that humans and monsters are battling one another. A little more production money and attention to script details would have helped. As it is, we were just relieved when it was over.

The Good:

-Neat, Original Idea; Aliens v.s. Cowboys. How can you screw that up?

-Nice set design, costumes, casting. Looks like what I imagine a real Western town might have been like if I wasn't being overly critical.

-Marsters is fun to see playing the hero.

-The production values, action and running around and hammy story-telling was all very formula, but nonetheless executed with competence. It was as good as any average hour-long TV drama, and we've all sat through enough of that stuff without complaint.

The Bad:

-Dreary lighting. This might have been on purpose, but I found it a bit tiresome. Some clear sunlight would have gone a long way.

-The sci-fi thinking is about as sophisticated as a mediocre old Star Trek episode (minus the Kirk/Bones/Spock magic). The alien bugs eat, get this, *Uranium*. -Now, if this were the 1950's when, in the minds of the public, uranium was akin to magical pixie dust; the Gee-Whiz Science of the era, then it might not have seemed hopelessly silly. But today, it's simply not that impressive a trope to run a whole story around. Though, apparently the writer slept through high school science because in his world view, uranium, being the fuel of leading-edge human science *seventy* years ago, must clearly also be the core ingredient of any super-advanced alien society as well.

And for some reason, when it comes to this particular brand of silly, other levels of child-like thinking crop up. Because the aliens don't just eat uranium; oh no! It's also their primary weapon! But they don't use radioactive space rays. No sir! They shoot big Indian arrow head chunks of the stuff out of their tails. Uranium is probably the life blood of their entire alien empire as well, but I wouldn't know, because I had to give up two thirds of the way through the story. It just got too dumb for me and I started cringing.

-The dialogue was hammy; it sounded like what a child thinks the adult world sounds like. The actors did their best with what they had.

Conclusion: "High Plains Invaders" looks pretty good if you don't examine it too closely. If you're a (young) kid, this would probably be fun. But if you're a discerning adult, the whole exercise is tiresome and unrewarding. It's not so bad that you'll feel abused, but I say that after having hit the 'eject' button before finishing.

Only watch this if you're under the age of 10, stoned or have absolutely nothing else to do.

Interesting flick. Original plot line. Mediorce cgi. James Marsters (Spike, Buffy the vampire series) plays the lead character in a sci/western about invading aliens. Faced with certain death, Marsters, (Sam) chooses to fight the alien invasion with his own resourses.

I truly wish that the Canadian company that produced this had invested the money to make this film correctly. The actors have nothing to apologize for, they did the best with a small budget.

This film is worth a watch. Pay attention to the acting of the actress playing the bounty hunter Rose. Other than Marsters, she is one to watch.