I forgot how bad this was
Added 5/18/2009
I watched this as a teenager with friends, and we liked it, even though it was trite and had horrible special effects. I bought it out of nostalgia, and WOW, it is really a BAD movie. Kathy Ireland is still pretty, and there are still passages that are cute and make me smile, but I had to fast forward through parts of it because I couldn't stand to watch it. Plus, she plays up the squeekiness of her voice, and it is sort of painful to sit through.
It was recommended in other reviews to buy the Mystery Science Fiction Theater 2000 version, and I REALLY wish I had.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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This movie goes waaay down under!
Added 2/29/2008
"Alien from LA" is one of Kathy Ireland's few cinematic ventures;this clearly shows why. Ireland stars as a geeky,squeaky-voiced teenager named Wanda whose boyfriend thinks she's "boring." She decides to join her father in Africa,where's he literally boring into the earth to find the subterranean spaceship of Atlantis. Wanda,like Alice,falls down the hole... but there's no Jefferson Airplane to sing "ask Alice." Unfortunately.
Wanda ends up in a place that looks like bargain basement Blade Runner,a dictatorial dystopia where everyone sounds like Australians. Could she be getting help from Mad Max,or battling it out with Tina Turner in the Thunderdome? Sadly,no. She hangs out in a lot of dive bars,befriends some miners,and it's pretty boring. Even the chases are BORING. It's one of those "when will this movie end?" movies.
Along the way,Wanda is transformed,so "Alien from LA" is a "My Fair Lady" of sorts without the great songs. In the end, Wanda escapes to land,she's hot,and her boyfriend is suddenly smitten with her. Her squeaky voice is gone. The audience is relieved.
On its own,"Alien from LA" exemplifies the cheesy AND the boring. Do yourself a favor and get the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version instead. The Satellite of Love knows how to handle a supermodel&an awful sci fi film!
3 out of 4 people found this helpful.
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"Subterranean homesick alien blues" or "A fish out of water called Wanda"
Added 10/4/2007
The fact that this movie stars Kathy Ireland is enough to buy this and add it to your little home-alter to Kathy. (I'm not the only one who's built one of these right?) In this film, Kathy plays Wanda Saknussum, squeaky voiced, beglassed, teenager and whiner who works part time slingin' hash. Her boyfriend dumps her because she's "no fun." No, no, he means she never wants to go anywhere with him. This guy travels the world once every weekend so it's apparent why this would annoy him that much.
She makes a last ditch effort to win him back by sqeaking, "What don't you like about me? Just tell me and I'll change!" You have to be an ignorant beach bum not to take her up on this offer...he is. Meanwhile back at the dive, Wanda gets word that her daddy's dead. Get this, the letter literally says he "fell down a bottomless pit!" Her mom's already dead so she's all alone in the world. She really doesn't seem that upset though! She just mopes around and whines a tiny bit more than usual. As MST3K puts it her reaction is "dull surprise."
Facing her fears Wanda sets out to Krapastan or wherever her dad was exploring. She goes to the ruins where he disappeared and she falls down the bottomless pit as well. She survives this fall with little internal bleeding and permanent bone and organ damage. Underground she stumbles upon a civilization...Atlantis. The production value drops a couple budget ratings as well. The costumes and make up look worse than your local community theater could dig up.
Here she meets her first partner in crime, Gus(typical Atlantian name), who reluctantly brings her along in exchange for saving his life. Kathy's glasses break along the way, in the first step in hotting her up. Anyway, yadda yadda yadda, tons of bad makeup and clothes, Kathy looks hot, a gangster midget with foot-long eye lashes, Kathy looks even more hot, and a Prince Charming character called, appropriately enough, Charmin.
Oh yeah, they keep saying Kathy has "Big bones" for some reason. Maybe she was supposed to be taller than them or something, I don't know. There were a couple large portions of her anatomy, but they were certainly not bones.
Does Kathy make it back home? Does she find her father? Does she down a can of WD40 to get rid of that squeak? Watch and enjoy...Alien from LA.
1 out of 5 people found this helpful.
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I remembered seeing this on Mystery Science Theater 3000 a long time ago, so I thought it might be interesting to get the original movie and see how it stands up.
It doesn't.
We start with Kathy hanging out on Malibu Beach (wearing a big oversized T-shirt), getting dumped by her boyfriend. Then she gets a letter informing her that her father (who she hasn't seen in 10 years) has been killed. He was an archaeologist working in Africa. He had a theory that Atlantis was a giant spaceship that sunk to the center of the Earth after a volcanic eruption. So, Kathy goes to Africa and ends up falling down the same bottomless pit her father fell into. (It's about 30 feet deep, all the way to the center of the Earth!). Anyhow, she finds Atlantis and the government puts a price on her head - they don't like "aliens" from the surface. So various people chase her around while a couple of guys she meets defend her.
Overall, this movie is just silly and boring. Imagine "Space Hunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone", except instead of being done for a teen audience it's done for an audience of nine year old kids. You can't take any of the action the least bit seriously because it's all done in such a silly way. Really, this would make a great double-bill with "The Goonies". What the heck is the point in hiring a supermodel to star in a film for little kids?
Overall, very disappointing. If you wanna see Kathy, but one of her exercise videos instead. They're much sexier than this silly thing.
9 out of 12 people found this helpful.
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Only to be watched on MST3000!
Added 7/18/2004
Awful awful movie, but Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans will recognize it fondly. Pass this disc up, and go for the MST3k treatment of it!!
9 out of 12 people found this helpful.
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I forgot how bad this was
Added 5/18/2009
I watched this as a teenager with friends, and we liked it, even though it was trite and had horrible special effects. I bought it out of nostalgia, and WOW, it is really a BAD movie. Kathy Ireland is still pretty, and there are still passages that are cute and make me smile, but I had to fast forward through parts of it because I couldn't stand to watch it. Plus, she plays up the squeekiness of her voice, and it is sort of painful to sit through.
It was recommended in other reviews to buy the Mystery Science Fiction Theater 2000 version, and I REALLY wish I had.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
This movie goes waaay down under!
Added 2/29/2008
"Alien from LA" is one of Kathy Ireland's few cinematic ventures;this clearly shows why. Ireland stars as a geeky,squeaky-voiced teenager named Wanda whose boyfriend thinks she's "boring." She decides to join her father in Africa,where's he literally boring into the earth to find the subterranean spaceship of Atlantis. Wanda,like Alice,falls down the hole... but there's no Jefferson Airplane to sing "ask Alice." Unfortunately.
Wanda ends up in a place that looks like bargain basement Blade Runner,a dictatorial dystopia where everyone sounds like Australians. Could she be getting help from Mad Max,or battling it out with Tina Turner in the Thunderdome? Sadly,no. She hangs out in a lot of dive bars,befriends some miners,and it's pretty boring. Even the chases are BORING. It's one of those "when will this movie end?" movies.
Along the way,Wanda is transformed,so "Alien from LA" is a "My Fair Lady" of sorts without the great songs. In the end, Wanda escapes to land,she's hot,and her boyfriend is suddenly smitten with her. Her squeaky voice is gone. The audience is relieved.
On its own,"Alien from LA" exemplifies the cheesy AND the boring. Do yourself a favor and get the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version instead. The Satellite of Love knows how to handle a supermodel&an awful sci fi film!
3 out of 4 people found this helpful.
|
"Subterranean homesick alien blues" or "A fish out of water called Wanda"
Added 10/4/2007
The fact that this movie stars Kathy Ireland is enough to buy this and add it to your little home-alter to Kathy. (I'm not the only one who's built one of these right?) In this film, Kathy plays Wanda Saknussum, squeaky voiced, beglassed, teenager and whiner who works part time slingin' hash. Her boyfriend dumps her because she's "no fun." No, no, he means she never wants to go anywhere with him. This guy travels the world once every weekend so it's apparent why this would annoy him that much.
She makes a last ditch effort to win him back by sqeaking, "What don't you like about me? Just tell me and I'll change!" You have to be an ignorant beach bum not to take her up on this offer...he is. Meanwhile back at the dive, Wanda gets word that her daddy's dead. Get this, the letter literally says he "fell down a bottomless pit!" Her mom's already dead so she's all alone in the world. She really doesn't seem that upset though! She just mopes around and whines a tiny bit more than usual. As MST3K puts it her reaction is "dull surprise."
Facing her fears Wanda sets out to Krapastan or wherever her dad was exploring. She goes to the ruins where he disappeared and she falls down the bottomless pit as well. She survives this fall with little internal bleeding and permanent bone and organ damage. Underground she stumbles upon a civilization...Atlantis. The production value drops a couple budget ratings as well. The costumes and make up look worse than your local community theater could dig up.
Here she meets her first partner in crime, Gus(typical Atlantian name), who reluctantly brings her along in exchange for saving his life. Kathy's glasses break along the way, in the first step in hotting her up. Anyway, yadda yadda yadda, tons of bad makeup and clothes, Kathy looks hot, a gangster midget with foot-long eye lashes, Kathy looks even more hot, and a Prince Charming character called, appropriately enough, Charmin.
Oh yeah, they keep saying Kathy has "Big bones" for some reason. Maybe she was supposed to be taller than them or something, I don't know. There were a couple large portions of her anatomy, but they were certainly not bones.
Does Kathy make it back home? Does she find her father? Does she down a can of WD40 to get rid of that squeak? Watch and enjoy...Alien from LA.
1 out of 5 people found this helpful.
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