Synopsis: Political pressure from the American public forces the Air Force to provide a few well-known reporters with limited access to the most secretive base on the planet: Area 51. When one of the base's hidden "long term visitors" exploits this unprecedented visit as a chance to liberate himself and his fellow alien captives, Area 51 turns from a secure government base to a horrifying destination of terror.Bits and pieces from various films like "The Thing", "Alien" and "Resident Evil" sort of all come together in a very cheap B-movie sort of way to form "51" or "Area 51" from the After Dark Films folks. There are several plots twists and plenty of soldiers vs alien creatures with some blood and gore, but it's all pretty cheesy and generic for the most part. Let's just agree not to talk about the special effects, which consist of blood-spattering and men in costumes as aliens. But hey, all the big fancy effects can be way overdone and I'm sure are way overpriced. It's good to see some old-fashioned movie making for my money (well, it was free... but still).
Jason London (who was actually in another movie called Showdown at Area 51... seriously) stars with Bruce Boxleitner (Babylon 5) and Rachel Miner (Dani on Californication) and they all sort of do their thing, seemingly knowing they're in a tongue-in-cheek (at times... other times it's taking itself pretty serious) schlockfest.
The direction (Jason Connery) isn't bad and the script is actually sort of fun while doing a bit of character building along the way, despite the mostly cliched characters. For the budget, it's about what you should expect and better than the typical Saturday night SyFy Channel fare I thought.
4/10
