Alien Raiders (2008/Warner DVD)
Picture: C Sound: C Extras: C Film: C
Though
Ben Rock’s Alien Raiders (2008)
starts out with a suspenseful invasion of a supermarket by some strange,
violent gunmen who have some psychic type with them, it soon turns into another
formula flick after a few reels and that is a shame. It is under the Raw Feed line of genre
releases Warner Bros. has been issuing for a while now and is the best one we
have seen by default, which explains why they are pushing it, but even by
keeping the setting in the invaded supermarket, it eventually does not go far.
The cast
of unknowns are not bad, but it is just a shame that this stops short after
such a good start and by the end of 85 minutes, just too short to really
achieve anything. Turns out the gunmen are
searching for aliens taking over the planet and a disease invading the bodies
of others. There is even some energy
here, but it is somewhat misplaced. The
only good thing we can say is that it is a step above the cheap B direct-to-DVD
genre product that is glutting the market.
The anamorphically
enhanced 2.35 X 1 image is weaker than expected for a new production, digitally
degraded to some extent and color limits, but there is still some good scope
composition, but this should have more detail.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 Stereo mixes are surprisingly troublesome
and not by design, with compression, inconsistent soundfields and awkward
mixing. Be careful of playback
levels. Extras include seven featurettes
and Raw Feed trailers.
- Nicholas Sheffo
