Morons from Outer Space (1985)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Better Late Then Never

How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Ugh. MORONS FROM OUTER SPACE is a chore to finish. I've now seen it twice and both times I lost total interest and played games on my phone for about 15 minutes or so in the middle of the movie. It challenges you to watch it from start to finish and I failed each time. It's 90 near insufferable minutes of juvenile gags and thoroughly unlikeable characters. Many of the worst movies have a charm that I love but comedies don't often reach that level of "so-bad- it's good". They're so bad at being intentionally funny that it becomes almost painful to witness. Let's start with the "plot": four human aliens are wandering lost through the universe. For whatever reason, they get tired of the one named Bernard (Mel Smith, who I only recently realized was the Albino in THE PRINCESS BRIDE) and abandon him, leaving him locked outside of the main ship on the spaceball court while they bail in the smaller shuttle. Crashing immediately on Earth, the three aliens…Desmond (Jimmy Nail), Sandra (Joanne Pierce), and Julian (Paul Bown)…are taken by the British government and discovered to be absolute fools. A low-level TV news employee (Griff Rhys Jones) bumbles his way behind government lines and gains access to the aliens, helping them to make an escape. Once they're on the outside, he becomes their manager and tours the nation with them as some sort of garbage rock band or something. Meanwhile, Bernard is determined to reconnect with his fellow idiots.The movie aspires to be a spoof of popular science fiction titles with nods to ALIEN, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, and 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. But spoofs are funny so I refuse to acknowledge this as one. My disgust stems from the fact that the movie tries so hard to be zany. I hate failed zaniness. We're talking gags like Bernard's conversation with a roadside trashcan he believes to be a dominant life form. Or his fumbling to scratch his nose through his space helmet before a sneeze covers his faceplate in a violent blast of snot. It always takes the easy route, opting for lamest of slapstick humor or the corniest dialogue. The writing, from co-writers Smith and Jones, is atrocious. The aliens come a planet known as Blob. Desmond proudly shows off a piece of alien technology: a pen. You get it everyone? They're morons! It's a joke! Seriously though, MORONS FROM OUTER SPACE feels like a movie for children, but kids aren't going to get the references. And what about scenes like the one where Bernard is rescued from his isolation by hitchhiking with an alien who looks like a mummified corpse (one of the few funny moments in the movie)? A mummified corpse who was hoping for "special payment" for the ride until he discovering Bernard is male and ejecting him into space. Dead creepers don't really have a place in a kids' movie. Who is this movie for and why are we supposed to care?There isn't a single character I care about in this movie. I have no idea who the main character is supposed to be. It might be the three aliens who become a travelling rock band. But they're horrible people, so that can't be right. They're ignorant and selfish. And Sandra's singing, that the aliens' musical career seems contingent on, is ear-splitting. She's horrible but the movie acts as if she's a phenomenal talent and we're expected to go along with it. On the subject of the aliens' musical tour, did anyone else get a Katy Perry Super Bowl halftime show vibe? The aliens dress in colorful costumes and ride out onto the stage in an enormous toy spaceship. Just me? Anyway, no, I didn't care about them. Bernard? Maybe. He's portrayed as a victim. Ditched by his fellow aliens. Nearly sexually assaulted by a space zombie. Hit by a car, assumed to be a raving lunatic, and committed to an asylum. And all he wants is to be rich and famous like the others. I don't know. I can't really stand any of them, especially Desmond who can be best described as Cousin Eddie from NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VACATION (if he were a British alien). Because the movie never wrangles my interest, it's quick and easy to forget. It's been less than 24 hours since I last watched it and it's already fading from my memory like I failed to get it's parents to make out at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance.Final nail in the coffin: if you make it all the way to the end of the movie, the credits play out over an 80's pop title song written in part by Mel Smith and performed by the Morons themselves. So…have fun with that.

This movie is a mixed bag and more than a little disappointing. The well-known Brit TV comedy pair from Alas Smith and Jones (Mel Smith and Gryff Rhys-Jones) co-star here but sadly have almost no scenes together. The story concept is that aliens have landed on Earth who are just not very bright. Earthlings look to them for technological answers to our problems and/or the wisdom of higher beings, but, well, they're just not very bright, especially having mislaid their leader (Mel Smith) the one of them with half a clue. He spends half the movie trying to catch up with his group, although the script gives him very little interesting to do along the way. Meanwhile, the aliens have been revealed to the public and create a media sensation, leading greedy music management types to attempt to cash in on their fame, despite their having no talent, in addition to being just not very etc. etc. If it sounds like a one joke movie it is, and it works its one joke to death while generating few laughs. The result is rather slap-dash and unsatisfying - there are a few funny bits scattered here and there, but there seems to be the potential for a much better and funnier Brit Com in this concept than we ultimately get. I wanted to love this movie based upon the cast (musician Jimmy Nail also appears) and the title, but I didn't and I warn anybody considering watching it to lower expectations drastically.

If you are expecting a film called Morons from Outer Space to somehow be incredibly deep and fulfilling, you're approaching it all wrong.This film presents exactly what it sets out to present: a campy, hilarious comedy without pretense. Reminiscent of films like Crime Wave and even the Pink Panther films, it is well acted by a great cast.Don't go into this film expecting the answers to life, the universe and everything (that's a different story). Watch this movie for fun and check your higher intellect at the door.Smith and Jones, who have long had great on-screen chemistry in television, are strangely separated for the majority of this film... living in two separate sub-plots.Watching the film, you would think they must have had a moderately high budget, but I have a feeling they just made good use of what they had.Don't discount this movie based solely on the other reviews here. I personally have laughed out loud so much I've had to pause it. You have to pay close attention and listen to everything to get the funniest bits.

It's tough to review this movie, isn't it? I thought I had done a write-up several months previously but, in retrospect, I remember now that I scrapped it due to lack of inspiration.Well, let's be honest...it's hard to critique because it's kind of a stinker, and in an aggravating way, too. My brother picked up the DVD, and within days he hid it amongst my collection just so he wouldn't have to face the indignity of owning it himself. It's a shame, really, because some excellent talent went into this. Verity Lambert is a classy producer, and Mike "Get Carter" Hodges is a magnificent director when his heart's in a project. Unfortunately, he agreed to do this movie as part of some package deal, so his heart was clearly elsewhere.I actually find the production values surprisingly good, by British standards; the spaceship zooming down the highway is an amusing and impressive image. And some of the acting is fine: Dinsdale Landen and James B. Sikking, two of my old sci-fi buddies, strike just the right OTT note. But the aliens themselves are played by a drippy bunch of third rate comedians with no charisma whatsoever. Their flatness sinks the whole project (the meandering story might also share the blame).Alas, sci-fi comedy is a pretty lousy genre, and this film is no exception to the rule. I can see where "Morons from Outer Space" inspired later--and similarly flawed--efforts such as "Red Dwarf," but for some reason the formula doesn't work in any of its forms. Sci-fi is dorky enough without turning it into a screwball comedy; once those genres are crossed, there really is nothing recognizable for an audience to latch on to, is there?