Rating of
2/4
"Alien Nation" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 03/19/12
A race of alien beings known as newcomers crashland on Earth and become the newest immigrants in Los Angeles. When some of them are found executed a bigoted detective and his rookie newcomer sidekick investigate. Alien Nation is a buddy cop/sci-fi hybrid that contains a lot of the usual 80s action flick cliches; the burned out, alcoholic cop, gratuitous car chases and stranger in a strange land analogies are all very familiar. The sci-fi spin does give it all a little freshness however, and although the racial metaphor is a little clumsy, Caan and Patinkin's deadpan delivery show some decent chemistry together with some amusing odd couple comedy. Unfortunately the script is purely by the numbers including a couple of major plot elements that are just sci-fi mumbo jumbo. Terence Stamp also might as well have phoned in his performance as the villain leading up to a particularly weak conclusion which drags an otherwise entertaining film back down to mediocrity.
