ALIEN APOCALYPSE

Three astronauts return to Earth after a forty-year mission and discover that the planet has been invaded by a race of giant termites from space that have reduced humanity to slavery. The astronauts are immediately imprisoned, but one of them manages to escape and goes in search of the President of the United States, who, it is said, is about to unleash a rebellion. The title and poster are not very appealing, and upon learning the plot of "Alien Apocalypse," one can immediately smell a Z-grade movie from a mile away. However, the genre enthusiast will not fail to notice that the poster features in large letters the name of the legendary Bruce Campbell, Sam Raimi's favorite actor, who entered the heart of every horror movie fan for portraying Ash, the hero of the "Evil Dead" saga, thus bringing the work in question to absolute attention and practically mandatory viewing. Once finished watching "Alien Apocalypse," however, in the mind of the astonished viewer begins to parade a whole series of questions about why Bruce Campbell took part in such a film. The most certain motivation for Campbell's participation in the film in question is to be sought mainly in the friendship that binds the actor to Josh Becker, director of "Alien Apocalypse," who has often shared the cinematic adventure alongside Campbell (they have been colleagues since the times of "Evil Dead" and the collaboration has continued in the two sequels of Raimi's film and in the TV series "Hercules" and "Xena"). Campbell is the absolute protagonist of the film, and the entire project rests on him: although the actor has a non-negligible charisma and does his best to add sympathy to a dull story, the result, unfortunately, does not rise above the insufficient product. The staging of "Alien Apocalypse" is extremely poor: the sets are completely "natural," since the film takes place entirely on a lawn that seems recycled from the set of "The Lord of the Rings," and the special effects are ridiculous (the green pea-sized insects that walk in an upright posture, brandish toy guns, and speak with a metallic voice, are really from the trash anthology!). The actors, then, styled as if ready to participate in a sequel to "Planet of the Apes," are all, except Campbell, poorly involved and rather mediocre, while Becker's direction, who has directed several episodes of the series "Xena" so far, is unprofessional and very approximate. This nonsense that goes by the name of "Alien Apocalypse," however, manages to create a lot of sympathy in the viewer, proving so shabby as to induce the genre enthusiast to take sides. A misstep for Campbell, who manages to hold up an entire feature film alone, a quality that can only be attributed to true actors, a status that, unfortunately, has never been fully attributed to the ex-Ash, always relegated (unjustly) to the ghetto of B-character actors. Only to be recovered if you are a Campbell fan, for everyone else it is just a faulty toy to throw at the bottom of the closet. It deserves half a pumpkin more.