Alien vs. Ninja (2010)

I don't remember where I first caught wind of this. I know our buddy over at Mr. Gable's Reality had mentioned it, and he also reminded me (and everyone else) via his blog that this was on Watch Instantly, which meant it was only a matter of time before I made it happen. Let's see if it's as good as it looks.

Alien vs. Ninja takes place in feudal Japan, where a team of ninjas see a mysterious ball of fire come from the sky. They go and check it out, and find that there are some killer aliens afoot. Can they defeat them with their superior ninja fighting skills?



This is pretty sweet. I mean, when you're talking Alien vs. Ninja, I don't think you could ask for much better. Yeah, maybe there were a couple of dead spots, but the action and martial arts were fantastic, the gore was great, the alien looked like a cross between the Predator the Alien and a dolphin, and the whole thing was made with the idea that this was going to be a fun movie, and that's what we got. This worked on every level for me.

I'm not as familiar with the modern Japanese action genre-- or really any genre in modern Japanese cinema-- so this was a good experience. This wasn't the extreme horror gore like some of its in-country counterparts, it was more in the fun, Full Moon vein, which is more my style. I like to get a kick out of my horror, not be on the verge of getting sick. Then there were the spectacular martial arts scenes-- better than a lot of the other stuff we review on here. Usually a film that combines genres does one better, while lacking in the other; but this film did all its genres really well.



The only woman in the film was a too hot ninja played by Mika Hijii, who was also in the Isaac Florentine flick Ninja, which we reviewed a little while back. She was just too hot for words here, though, in that skin tight ninja suit. She wasn't just window dressing though, she had some nice fight scenes where she got to kick some alien ass. She also had a couple joke scenes that were like sexual double entendres, where she and her adversary were in some compromising positions that could be interpreted in more than one way. Hot, kickass, and funny, a triple threat.

These were some of the coolest ninja outfits I've seen. You know me, my standard is pretty much the Mortal Kombat ninjas, so anything that can rival that in coolness is good in my book. Often, the ninja costume is just mailed in, and for a movie like this, you'd almost think that'd be the route they'd go down, but not at all. Even for a movie that was ultimately supposed to be silly, they took a lot of aspects of the production seriously, and it showed.



Netflix Watch Instantly has the dubbed version, and I think that might actually be better for this, though I would've preferred the subtitles. A lot of the voices sounded very similar to the ones you'd hear in a Bruce Lee film. I wonder if they're the same people. Not to toot my own horn, but I've been told I have a pretty good voice. Maybe I could get work dubbing Asian movies for American markets. A guy can dream, right?...

This is a sure bet. If you look at a film titled Alien vs. Ninja and you're expecting something serious, that's your problem; but if you're looking for a fun time, you could do a lot worse-- but why would you when you don't have to? Watch Instantly makes this an even surer bet. Go for it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1592503/