6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
High Schooler Saves Humanity from Aliens, May 19, 2002
This review is from: Alien Arsenal [VHS] (VHS Tape)
Alien Arsenal" is a fast-moving, fun, low-budget film mixing high school drama with science fiction action.
Ralph (Josh Hammond) is a bespectacled nerd who doodles comic-strip superheroes and has his eye on cheerleader Felicia (Michelle Nordin), who is already an item with football jock, Flash (Krisztian Kovacs). The movie starts with three preppie-types bullying Ralph.
The real story begins with Ralph and long-time best friend Baxter (Danielle Hoover) being assigned to clean a wall in the basement of their high school, Mount Limbaugh HS. Ralph discovers the bricks are loose. Pulling them away, Ralph and Baxter discover a chamber filled with mysterious equipment and suits of Star Wars Imperial-like armor. Ralph and Baxter decide to carry away and hide the moveable goods. Unfortunately, opening the chamber alerts nearby aliens in space, causing three to transform and teleport themselves as goth-like high school students to Mount Limbaugh HS. The aliens had been planning to use the equipment in the chamber to capture a stellar death ray that would wipe out all humans while sparing property. ...
What to do with the bullies? What to do with Flash and Felicia? What effect does the newfound power have on its possessors' attitudes? Getting more serious, what to do with the aliens? Will humanity survive? The outcome is very close.
The script is pretty good, and the director (whom I believe is David DeCoteau, ...moves the picture smartly along. The best part is the convincing relationship between Ralph and Baxter, the two best actors. ...The very blue-eyed aliens are a hoot too but do not need to show much acting range.
It's clean fun. The actors seem to do their own fighting. No sex [A kiss or a shirtless Flash in the gym is the limit]. ...PG-13.
One can make fun of some of the special effects, like having a shot bounce off armor be proof of invulnerability, when the throat and lower face targets are uncovered. One can notice that Ralph is a great shot with unfamiliar guns and that the opposition is not as accurate.
One annoyance came from the video box promising "Includes Bonus `Behind the Scenes' Featurette!". My copy started with a one-minute montage of Full Moon movies and then an ad for puppet action figures taken from the "Puppetmasters" movie series. Then came the movie, then nothing. ...
For the low price, "Alien Arsenal" delivers a lot of fun.
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