This film has a host of technical flaws. For example, a Tomahawk cruise missile does not need site tagging for guidance. They are guided by rather precise mapping and/or satellite navigation. Saying that a targeting beacon needs to be within 100 yards? Gee, that would mean that the payload would have to be big enough to obliterate more than that, say 200 yard radius. So what would it take to obliterate an area with a diameter of 400 meters? More than a single cruise missile with a conventional payload which has a blast radius of about 30 ft. Those missiles which do use targeting beacons are generally targeted by painting them with an infrared light or laser (eg. laser guided missile) and not a rather inaccurate radio signal.
The acting/direction is mediocre at best. I doubt that the writers/director have any real knowledge of the military. They are obviously extremely poor at research. The soldiers are supposed to be special ops ... my guess is they were pulled from basic training after the first day and taken to a secret base where they were trained as private school crossing guards and issued airsoft weapons.
The graphics are lousy. Interactions with the aliens are clearly overlays and poor ones at that. The quality of the "special effects" in this regard would be right at home in a 'B' movie from the 1950's or 60's. The blood coming from the throat of Dr. Taggert when she joins the list of Darwin Award candidates near the end is a prime example.
The aliens also show absolutely no signs of higher intelligence in their actions/interactions. There is nothing which makes them appear as anything more than the raptors from that well known movie ... except that they are slower, less intelligent, and less deadly.
Storyline/plot elements were fairly hackneyed and poorly executed. Military/civilian initial accidental meeting/clash. Studly civilian types seek revenge in bar where they are resoundingly humiliated by the military types, then seek revenge again and end up ... as far as the rest of the story goes, vanished from the island in the middle of the night - one being a photographer who just leaves what would be thousands of dollars of his equipment behind. Nothing odd there, just forget him. (Viewers are gifted with an utterly lame death scene where the two are killed by an alien.) Then there is the model clawed and lying in the surf ... the military type just leaves her lying there rather than pulling her up on the shore and checking for vitals. Then the head model/photo shoot organizer is told that her whereabouts are unknown. Unknown? She's a hundred yards or so away lying in the surf, probably drowning as the two claw marks to her back weren't deep enough to be lethal. In the meantime, one of the "special ops" team sacrificed himself by holding a grenade until it went off in order take an alien with him in dying. Not only is his body missing from the scene, but that of the alien as well. Apparently, the grenade used utterly vaporizes flesh and bone while leaving things like jeeps intact.
Finally, lets not omit the glowing red eyes of the alien or the on/off glowing eyes of their one body snatch victim. Such tell-tale signs are a requirement of such a genre, right? We wont' discuss what makes them glow or switch from regular to red based upon the dominant intelligence of the victim ...
There are two reasons I gave this film a rating of two instead of one: D.B. Sweeney and Danica McKellar. First, D.B. Sweeney plays his part about as well as the script and directing allow. Then there is Danica McKellar. While her acting can't be rated highly in this, she radiates that wholesome beauty that just won't quit and is worth enjoying regardless of how bad everything else is.
Sadly, this film fails to be campy or a winner in any regard. It would be good for laughs if it attempted to be funny, but it was trying to be serious and failed horribly.
The acting/direction is mediocre at best. I doubt that the writers/director have any real knowledge of the military. They are obviously extremely poor at research. The soldiers are supposed to be special ops ... my guess is they were pulled from basic training after the first day and taken to a secret base where they were trained as private school crossing guards and issued airsoft weapons.
The graphics are lousy. Interactions with the aliens are clearly overlays and poor ones at that. The quality of the "special effects" in this regard would be right at home in a 'B' movie from the 1950's or 60's. The blood coming from the throat of Dr. Taggert when she joins the list of Darwin Award candidates near the end is a prime example.
The aliens also show absolutely no signs of higher intelligence in their actions/interactions. There is nothing which makes them appear as anything more than the raptors from that well known movie ... except that they are slower, less intelligent, and less deadly.
Storyline/plot elements were fairly hackneyed and poorly executed. Military/civilian initial accidental meeting/clash. Studly civilian types seek revenge in bar where they are resoundingly humiliated by the military types, then seek revenge again and end up ... as far as the rest of the story goes, vanished from the island in the middle of the night - one being a photographer who just leaves what would be thousands of dollars of his equipment behind. Nothing odd there, just forget him. (Viewers are gifted with an utterly lame death scene where the two are killed by an alien.) Then there is the model clawed and lying in the surf ... the military type just leaves her lying there rather than pulling her up on the shore and checking for vitals. Then the head model/photo shoot organizer is told that her whereabouts are unknown. Unknown? She's a hundred yards or so away lying in the surf, probably drowning as the two claw marks to her back weren't deep enough to be lethal. In the meantime, one of the "special ops" team sacrificed himself by holding a grenade until it went off in order take an alien with him in dying. Not only is his body missing from the scene, but that of the alien as well. Apparently, the grenade used utterly vaporizes flesh and bone while leaving things like jeeps intact.
Finally, lets not omit the glowing red eyes of the alien or the on/off glowing eyes of their one body snatch victim. Such tell-tale signs are a requirement of such a genre, right? We wont' discuss what makes them glow or switch from regular to red based upon the dominant intelligence of the victim ...
There are two reasons I gave this film a rating of two instead of one: D.B. Sweeney and Danica McKellar. First, D.B. Sweeney plays his part about as well as the script and directing allow. Then there is Danica McKellar. While her acting can't be rated highly in this, she radiates that wholesome beauty that just won't quit and is worth enjoying regardless of how bad everything else is.
Sadly, this film fails to be campy or a winner in any regard. It would be good for laughs if it attempted to be funny, but it was trying to be serious and failed horribly.