Whatever hot streak The Asylum has been on this year just came to an end. Alien Origin is the worst film they’ve churned out in years. You have to go back to the days of Allan Quatermain and the Temple of Skulls and Monster
to see an Asylum movie this painfully boring, this devoid of well…
anything. There’s no plot, no sense that what we’re watching is actually
building towards anything, no intrigue or suspense, nothing, nada,
zilch. Not even any unintentional laughs. A complete step backwards
from the progress The Asylum had been making thus far this year.
So boring is Alien Origin that the opening title sequence
features a montage of lame action moments that do not occur until the
last third of the movie; a montage I believe to be a desperate ploy to
ensure the audience that if they watch long enough, eventually there
will be some action. Lies, I tell you.
Soldiers slowly creep about the jungle for the majority of the
interminable 90-minute running time. We’ll also watch them examine
strange tree markings, talk to locals, stare at more unusual tree
markings, talk to some more locals, talk to each other about whatever,
react alarmed by strange noises in the woods at night, slowly explore
the interior of several locations, build traps so astonishingly chintzy
they look like Predator booby traps built by the Little Rascals,
and periodically shoot indiscriminately into the jungle when attacked by
something never actually seen.
Remember the classic scene in Predator where they all empty
their guns into the jungle even though they have no idea what they’re
actually supposed to be shooting at? This movie recycles that scene
repeatedly, and not once is it ever even remotely exciting.