A few years into the future, a culturally diverse team of astronauts (male/female, black/white, heroic/comic, stoic/hysterical) are sent on a deep-space, deep-sleep mission to set up a Space Probe: 20 years out, 20 years back. Yet upon their return, crash-landing in the desolate wasteland that was once Portland, Oregon, they discover no NASA recovery team, no cheering crowds, no ticker-tape parades. Instead, during their absence, Earth has been devastated by…you guessed it…. an alien apocalypse.

Debuting last month on Sci-Fi and garnering record-setting ratings for an original stand-alone film for the channel,
“Alien Apocalypse” is the latest in a string of made-for-cable, Saturday night creature features shot on a shoe-string budget in central Europe (usually Bulgaria.) Like spaghetti westerns of the 60’s and kung fu films of the 70’s, most of the dialogue is spoken by the B-list leads (often Lorenzo Lamas or one or more Baldwin brothers) and the rest of the cast are locals, their voices dubbed by Americans in post-production. While these invariably attract a decent (by cable standards) audience, what no one could have expected last March 26th was a tight, witty, visually pleasing little genre opus like AA, as it depicts something far more entertaining and thoughtful than the threadbare humans vs. monsters/aliens plot so common in this sub-genre, while never taking itself too seriously.

Quickly captured in classic Planet of the Apes fashion by bounty hunters – human thugs/collaborators who round up escaped slaves – our astronaut heroes are taken to a sawmill/work camp. See, it turns out Earth’s new masters are 50’s B-movie-style insectoids: giant termite-like beings who killed off most of mankind from space, and enslaved the rest to harvest timber. That’s right, wood is valued like gold by the aliens, and earth’s rich natural resources made our puny species ripe for domination.

Naturally, it’s up to our heroes to save humanity and take back the planet. There’s the handsome, rugged mission commander, the beautiful blonde co-pilot, and a slightly hysterical brunette (who’s convinced they’re doomed, long before anyone ever sees any signs of danger, let alone aliens.) And then there’s Ivan. Ivan’s a bit of a wiseguy, who ends up in the Air Force when his grades are too low for med school, and hopes to fly jets. But his grades are too low for that, so he finagles his way into osteopathy school, and ends up as the mission doctor when no M.D. wants to be frozen for 40 years. As the rest speculate on what has befallen the Earth, Ivan envisions himself proclaimed as the Great Healer in this brave, new, post-apocalyptic world; it’s simple laws of supply and demand: he may be the only doctor left.

What’s with this guy? How did this slacker ever make it in the Air Force, or osteopathy school for that matter? He sounds better suited to hawk blue light specials in the housewares department at the local S-Mart. And in fact…. it is! It’s Bruce Campbell! Everyone’s favorite sarcastic, suburban schmo-turned hero. The genre icon who confronted medieval zombies with a chainsaw and a shotgun from the trunk of his Oldsmobile in the “Evil Dead” films, and who faced down a soul-sucking mummy as a geriatric Elvis in “Bubba Ho-tep.”

Campbell has turned in plenty of serious dramatic performances in his career, but he’s best known to his legions of fans as the slightly smarmy, slightly shifty, reluctant hero with feet of clay, the irreverent rogue with a soft side, a post-modern, low-budget version of a hero, who is always halfway winking at the audience as if to say “Yeah, I know this is a little silly, but c’mon – lighten up and enjoy it!”

Campbell’s supremely defining moment for this type of character came in 1993’s “Army of Darkness;” as mankind’s only hope against the onslaught of evil, he is required to recite the mystical incantation “Klaatu verata nikto” (sly references to other films is a hallmark of Campbell’s work) but cockily dismisses any need to rehearse. The moment arrives, and he intones “Klaatu…verata…err…necktie...nickel…it’s an “N” word, I know it!” Shadily looking from side to side like a kid about to steal cookies, he decides to bluff his way through, frat-boy style: “Klaatu…verata… (coughing) … Nifhrfhrfrmrhfrmm…!” And of course all hell breaks loose.

AA represents a fine return to form, as Campbell’s Ivan character (the name is a nod to real-life sarcastic osteopath Ivan Raimi, co-writer of “Army of Darkness”) finds greatness thrust upon him, whether he’s ready for it or not. In fact, all he’s initially trying to do is to rescue his girlfriend, Kelly, the aforementioned beautiful blonde, played by Renee O’Connor. An imminent threat to her life sparks Ivan to finally take his destiny into his own hands.

And that’s where AA differs so much from traditional made-for-cable or direct-to-video fare. While we’re never hit over the head with it, there’s a lot of subtle commentary going on about the nature of our species, how fragile our grasp on this planet may be, and how quickly we might fall into subjugation, simply because no one bothers to do anything about it. Ultimately Ivan leads his fellow slaves in rebellion simply because he doesn’t want to live in a world like this. Hero by default.

Much of the pleasure of “AA” is in little things. Campbell and O’Connor lament on how low humanity has fallen as slaves scramble and fight over scraps of food…and yet soon they too frantically dive into the line for swill. The slaves believe urban legends that the American president still lives, and is forming an army to free them all…. yet do nothing about it, beyond a few occasional half-hearted escape attempts. A bounty hunter explains how he can betray his fellow humans: “It’s better’n bein’ a slave.” In the vast lumber yard o’ death, you have to wait until someone dies, then snag a splinter-protecting glove from their body; an unspecified amount of time passes… and we see that Ivan and Kelly each have two gloves.

And speaking of that lumber yard – this has got to be the most *beautiful* film ever shot for Sci-Fi. The majority of these movies are either shot indoors in dark labs, caverns and control rooms, or at night in shadow-filled streets and alleyways. Almost all of AA was shot on location outdoors, in beautiful, lush, verdant Bulgarian spring time. Another thing I found refreshing was simply how well-lit this was; much of the action takes place in broad daylight, and even interior scenes - like the cramped slaves' quarters, or a late night campfire scene - are all very clear, with amber or bluish light illuminating the action.

That said, you know you’ve been watching too many of these Bulgarian-filmed movies when the characters approach a little creek, and you find yourself thinking "Hey! That's the radioactive stream from ‘Raptor Island!’ “

Being a Bruce Campbell movie, and written and directed by long-time friend and collaborator Josh Becker (who directed O’Connor in some of the funniest “Xena” episodes ever) there’s plenty of laughs as well. Ivan and Kelly grab whatever weapons they can find to attack their alien captors – Kelly has a baseball bat…. and Ivan looks down to find himself holding a drill bit. Just knowing that a mass jailbreak will erupt, Ivan shouts jubilantly
“Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!” as the slaves, their spirits broken long ago, stand silently, and wonder just what he’s on about. Two characters use the old vaudeville “Get it? Got it. Good.” exchange. An alien leader comes storming out of his (its?) headquarters, pushing aside two alien guards – a stock move of a gruff leader in an old Nazi movie – except this is a computer-generated alien! And when Ivan – attempting to inspire confidence and enlist other escaped slaves in his quest – is reminded of the menace of the bounty hunters, the best he can come up with is “Aw, those bounty hunters are f*gs – I can outrun them.” Straight out of politically incorrect, 7th grade study hall.

Strangely enough, the alien effects (a mix of “practical” marionettes and cgi) work surprisingly well. They’re somewhere on the level of the insectoid Xindi from
“Enterprise,” or Tim Burton’s “Invaders from Mars,” but for a film like this, they work just fine.

Mind you, this isn’t "Jurassic Park" by any means. The film betrays its low-budget roots at every turn. The bounty hunters, for example, wear matching outfits (it’s unlikely the alien overlords would care about quasi-uniforms) and the remainder of the cast are basically clad in bad caveman outfits. The wigs and beards are obviously fake in many cases. The dubbing is awkward and distracting at times. Unlike most of the Bulgarian-shot work for Sci-Fi where dialogue is limited to three or four lead actors imported from America (while the rest of the cast simply has to scream while getting chomped by the boa/python/gargolyle/raptor/chupacubra of the week) AA has 12-15 speaking roles whose dialogue is fairly essential to the plot. As a result, young and old alike often sound like the same two or three California-accented voice-over artists; this is especially annoying in large crowd scenes where everyone is yelling at each other in the same few voices.

Likewise the voices of the aliens are the same generic computer-synth sound we hear in Saturday. morning cartoons. The climactic battle of human slaves vs. their alien masters is essentially a montage of Campbell and O’Connor hacking and stabbing at the camera in slo-mo, as we see severed alien appendages flying amidst fountains of green alien blood. And the preferred alien mode of disciplining slaves – biting their heads off in one chomp - results in extremely fake-looking torsos thrashing about, gushing Monty Python-ish blood. And at times the film seems rushed – it could have had another 30 minutes at least: more character development, more depiction of the life of the slaves, and more time spent with Ivan as he begins his grass-roots rebellion.

But then again… this is a made-for-cable film called “Alien Apocalypse;” you were expecting maybe Shakespeare? And most of the cast acquit themselves well. O’Connor manages to be both spunky and tender, and plays Kelly as a tough officer who’s every bit a match for Campbell’s reluctant hero. When they make their escape attempt, she coolly picks off pursuing bounty hunters with a rifle one-by-one, as Ivan struggles and fumbles to make a captured alien weapon work. Billed as the female lead, she’s really a supporting character at best – apart from one early scene of plot exposition where she’s clearly in command, she is essentially a plot device: the imperiled love interest who inspires Ivan to go to extraordinary lengths to rescue her.

Americans Michael Cory Davis, Jonas Talkington, and Remington Franklin all do fine in supporting roles as the mission leader, a scumbag bounty hunter, and a young slave respectively. (Talkington is the recipient of a classic Bruce-ism that may rival “Groovy” and “Come and get some,” in audience-appeal.) Bulgarian model Rosi Chernogorova, looking a bit like Raquel Welch in “1 Million Years B.C.” manages to seem quite earnest and sincere in her scenes; in one of the film’s many ironies, it’s the buxom babe who first takes Ivan seriously as a leader, and compels others to follow her example. The unnamed actress who dubs her has a nice quality to her voice, as does the man who dubs “Jeff,” an older slave who provides plot exposition. The gruff, rural twang to his voice provides much needed diversity in the otherwise generic mix of voices. Also praiseworthy is the stirring score by composer Joseph LoDuca (another long-time friend and collaborator of star Campbell and director Becker.)

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