JoeB131 This film was okay, but not great. Apparently, it's original title was Alien vs. Alien, but it was released as "Showdown in Area 51".The plot is that two aliens land on Earth, one with the intention of allowing a weapon called the Omega Seed to wipe out all life on Earth so they can harvest our pollution. It really doesn't seem like much of a plan, as others have noted. (Love the Bizarro World comment!) The key to the weapon was lost on the spaceship that crashed in Roswell in 1947, but the real Area 51 is in Missouri guarded by the Forest Service. Yup, the Forest Service is the real Men in Black. Who knew? Okay, so you have slacker dude Jake who got kicked out, introduced by his brother who still works there, doing all the exposition before being vaporized by alien baddies. Slacker Jake teams up with the good alien and looks up his old girlfriend, Farscapes Gigi Edgely. I really wasn't a fan of her performance here. I think she was trying too hard to hide her Aussie accent, and for some reason her posture was bad for much of the film.So after some confusion as to which murdering alien they should trust, they manage to deactive the doomsday device. The aliens decide that they are going to retreat after that. Again, makes no sense whatsoever. If you have a whole invasion fleet, why would you only send down one guy to make sure your bomb goes off. Why not send down a whole team of these guys, and secure the thing? Why not just attack with your fleet and take out the inferior Earth forces? Still, it's better than average for a direct to DVD release.

Sollus This movie was bad within the first 5 minutes. It only takes minimal research to find out some basic info about Area 51. 1. It's on a dry lake bed in the Nevada Desert. Not a whole lot of lush green vegetation in the countryside there. 2. It's an actual military installation, not a disguised park. The people at Area 51 are military and in uniform, again no disguises are necessary. So think of a dry fenced in airbase with soldiers. Not a National Park with Rangers. Anyone in uniform has his hair trimmed short and neat. Just putting on a uniform won't fool anyone closer than 50 ft. That was what I noticed in the first 5 minutes. It went downhill from there when I found out that most of the cast can't act and the plot was thin. This doesn't even belong in the Bargain Bin, If anyone makes a DVD of this it's worth more as a coaster.

eliz7212-1 I'll tell you why. It wasn't the best film in the world, and it certainly wasn't the worst. But what it was not, well, it was not BORING!!! And for me, to sit through a two hour TV movie, well, I just sat and watched and enjoyed. The special effects were very well done. I didn't watch it for the acting. I watched it because I enjoy sci-fi and with all the crap out here and yes, most of the crap is on the SCi-fi Channel, with their reptiles, and snakes and whatever, it was nice to just enjoy an Alien movie without having to think about it too much.So if you just want to chill in front of the TV, grab some popcorn, grab your wife or girlfriend and sit and enjoy a not too complicated sci-fi movie.I'm so tired of zombies, vampires etc. We need a sequel to this one. Well done Sci Fi Channel.

lastliberal It is hard to imagine that my attention would be directed away from Christa Campbell, but Farscape star Gigi Edgley managed to do just that. Campbell (Death by Engagement, Revamped) was very evident in the first part of the film, but Edgley took over and saved us from the evil aliens. Well, Jason London (Dazed and Confused) helped her a bit.It was the aliens that really stole the show. The good alien (unnamed on IMDb) was trying to stop the evil alien, with massive tricks up his sleeve, from destroying Earth to harvest our spent nuclear fuel. We would have gladly given it to them! The alien battles were very reminiscent of the Terminator.References to Area 51 and the crash at Roswell in 1947 made this more interesting for conspiracy fans.