Good concept, poorly executed.

Best movie of this year hands down!

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Sometimes you watch a movie and just know a few minutes in that in a week's time you won't remember a thing about what you just watched. Alien from LA is that kind of bad movie, where it's just a bland level of schlock - well, except for one thing, which is the voice that Kathy Ireland decided on (or probably with Albert Pyun's expert auteurist direction). This is also a misleading title from the start: while there is an alien in this movie, it's not some other person from another planet or dimension, it's Ireland's character herself, going into some subterranean piece of crap place where everyone considers her the alien presence. Those going on thinking at, from the look of the poster, Kathy Ireland may be playing an alien as some like possessed being (ala Species) think again.In what I imagine must have been the production design inspiration for the look of the Super Mario Brothers movie, this place that Ireland goes to is dreary looking and the designs for the characters are either really ugly and not in any kind of interesting or charming way (the short guy with the LONG eyelashes) or just off or odd (the woman who looks like discount Helena Bonham Carter). All that happens here is that Ireland, who is a bubble-headed nerd (if that makes sense) gets dumped by her boyfriend at the very start of the movie (because she doesn't, you know, GO places and stuff, sheesh what a lame-o), finds out her father may have died and goes to Africa where he was excavating, and falls down the same "bottomless pit" that he did.It would be nice if there was anything like, say, engaging characters or good humor, but in absence of that there isn't anything lively enough to mock. I have to wonder how the MST3K episode of this went, and it must have been a slog to come up with enough good jokes in the writer's room (how much can you say about Ireland's squeaky voice that makes Betty Boop sound like Mariah Carey?) It's a dreadful experience not because of its low production value (albeit I will say some of the sets look like they got some work and a few shots are clever with the lighting, but just a few), but because it's just boring. You know where this is going to go, the characters are undeveloped, and the music sounds like it was created in an hour and in all the wrong places for MAXIMUM emotional stuff. Pass.

I've done that, so I know for fact it's true. It really is. I'm pretty forgiving when it comes to bad movies too. I could even say that I enjoyed watching Manos: Hands of Fate after watching this.I can't really say exactly why this movie was bad, as it was so horrible I've blacked out all memory of the plot. Or was there a plot at all? I suppose it's just as well.Not even Crow, Servo and Mike's humor could make this movie tolerable. I suppose if they created a version where they muted out Kathy Ireland's voice, then it might resemble something that's a slightly more annoying than Chinese water torture. But as is, I'd take the head crusher, the rack or even the Spanish tickler, anything but this movie.Avoid at all costs.

I watched the MST3K version, but if I saw the full version on DVD or video for £7 or less, i'd definitely buy it. That price isn't a reflection on the quality of the movie either, I just don't like buying movies much.Alien from L.A. is watchable in two ways. I thought the design of the production was, for the most part, excellent. I liked the cramped, fuzzy-smoky-steamy atmosphere and lighting, and I liked the costumes. I'm a sucker for "futuristic" dystopias, and one set of villains looked like Fat Sam's gang from Bugsy Malone grown up and glammed up. I like Bugsy, I like glam. I also like Flash Gordon and Dune, and the governmental bad guys(though some of them weren't..) would've fitted right into either. The world design of "Atlantis" made me happy.The second reason I couldn't look away from this movie was that I just couldn't *believe* Wanda (the main character). She starts the movie as such an unbelievable drip and the way she reacts to the letter that tells her her father is dead.. a mildly interested "O my gaahd~". NO KATHY IRELAND, THAT IS NOT HOW.Other people have mentioned her lack of sensible character development, but not the fact that when her glasses get smashed, she looks around for them from a distance, seems to SEE them, and shrug it off never needing them again. Maybe she's long sighted I guess, but that's never suggested by the movie.It is also not a good move to use an actress with a voice like that. Coupled with her bizarre reactionless acting it makes Wanda seem a complete space case and fairly impossible to sympathise with (as well as confusingly young before close-ups), and if you feel the need to hang a lampshade on a personal quirk three times in a film then you should just take the damn thing out somehow.Having said that though, if you took Wanda's weirdness and lack of expectable human qualities out of Alien From L.A, you'd have to replace it with something really amazing. The confusion that her character causes in the watcher is compelling. You might call it car- crash-watchable, but I think it's something rarer. There's almost no substance to the part at all, though she does things and goes places, changes clothes and follows a plot of a sort. It's like watching tightrope walkers; you think to yourself "can that really be happening?"-- but it is.Watching Alien From L.A. felt like watching a lot of other movies I've seen all at once. It reminded me of Tank Girl and The City of Lost Children and Garuda and The Worst Witch (the one with Tim Curry), Total Recall, 1984, there are these cool, kinda noir-y bits..This movie basically confuses me on a base level. The main character, performance and story are not good; perhaps just the average for some romantic/empowering made-for-TV. But they somehow found their way into another movie. A movie we never see the characters or plot of, a movie which takes place in an 80s-future city state that's averaged out from various previously existing sci-fi but which nevertheless carries it, adds a little of its own zing, and ends up workin' for me. Maybe that movie is about Gus's girl, or why the city is run by a revolving man, or why anybody listens to that guy on all the TVs, or why everybody is so interested in bones.I just really want someone to make that other movie. I really, really do. But until then, I am satisfied with Alien From L.A.

And the title says it all: a cheesy sounding title that is a cheesy sounding joke of a film known as "Alien from L.A." Why not just call it "Alien from South Africa," as this is the place where this movie was filmed? My advice for watching movies that have been featured on "Mystery Science Theater 3000:" do not watch the original version of the movie at all! Period! Always watch the movie with the theater shadow at the bottom of the screen, with a man trapped in space with his two funny, wise-cracking robot friends sitting at the lower right hand corner of the screen. It just seems better that way.Movie as it was originally seen: Awful! Movie as it was seen on MST3K: Genius!