IMDb meta-data is a speedy run time of 1 hour and 43 minutes, rated 6.4 by 20,994 misers.
Genre: All, including Sy Fy.
Buck is a brain surgeon, rock star singer, and scientist extraordinaire, among other things. He can drive a car through a mountain, perceive the aliens amongst us, and sing up to New Jersey standards with the Hong Kong Cavaliers. Get it?
One of the aliens is there to help, but most aren’t. Did I mention satire? Shoulda.
The major defence contractor building the newest, fastest, most invisible warplane is in fact Aliens Incorporated which is using the appropriations to build a spaceship to blast the earth as they leave in it. Dastards! They have been there for years voting for ever large defence budgets. Obviously Republicans.
Dr Emmett Brown leads the alien field unit, while John Lithgow blows the lights out as Emilio Lizardo, the brains behind the operation. Did I say brains? This man can p r o j e c t.
It all centres around Grover’s Mill in New Jersey which still doesn’t exist. Turns out Orson Welles was right all along. To prove it Citizen Kane puts in an appearance.
Lithgow’s speech rallying the aliens to one final effort will remind viewers of many political speeches, but it is funnier, wittier, and delivered with more conviction than most.
The result is a pastiche and homage to Sy Fy films from the opening credits to the closing ones: ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Them,’ and many points in between. Hey, John, don’t forget ‘Terminator!’ Even Vincent Canby of the ‘New York Times’ seems to have stayed awake through this one. It bombed at the box-office. Such a genre mash-up is impossible to market, say the oracles.
No comment is sufficient without some vinegar: It is fast but not fast enough. If it had been edited more tightly it would reduce to 90 minutes, the length of feature film intended by Apollo. It is especially slow at the beginning, as if waiting for the audience to be seated. There are some dead spots later, too, that serve no purpose. One less punch-up would have been no loss.
The two women get vituraly nothing to do. One opens the door, twice. The other mopes around. Ellen Barkin demonstrated athletic ability in other films around this time, but here she just sits and chews her lip.
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