Dark humor for video game generation

Rating: 1/10 (22 August 2009)

What kills this vastly overrated film from the start is that it is the most nonsensical plot I've ever seen in sci-fi cinema. What's more, it has the most hapless extraterrestrials ever seen on screen since those water-phobic melon-heads from "Signs."
The story is allegorical to mankind's cruelty: genocide, racism, and intolerance. But the aliens should have been smart enough to known that before the came to this backward little planet.
These masters of the universe live in shantytown slums and eat cat food, even though they brought far-future weapon technology with them. What demolishes credulity is that an alien species is advanced enough to travel light-years to Earth and then inexplicably gets stranded in South Africa of all places. In all of anthropology there has never been a case of an advanced society being subjugated by a less advanced society.
Their city-sized mothership, inspired by the film "Independence Day," just hovers like it's out of gas. The Air Force does not even tow it to Area 51, despite the fact it clutters airspace for 20 years.
Even more bizarre, the aliens' ticket home relies on a pint of some inexplicable black liquid that also inexplicably turns humans into aliens. Gee, a floor wax and a desert topping too!
This is so outrageously nutty, that for the first 30 minutes I though it was some tongue-in-cheek parody, like "RoboCop." The plot just lunges along with lots of bullets and mayhem. The cinematography and editing is modeled after a Halo-style shoot-'em-up video game. Not doubt to hook younger viewers.
The aliens are very well done as CG characters, even if they look like the Terminix man's worst nightmare. Thank God they don't speak English, unlike those sappy Star Trek humanoids.