What a great movie. With a dark, dusty visual style every bit as good as "Bladerunner", with costumes & props every bit as good as "Mad Max", with a totalitarian theme every bit as good as "THX-1138", and with a satirical wit every bit as deadpan as "Robocop", this film was quite an achievement.It has so much going on... For me, one of the strange highlights was seeing Deep Roy (who played the oompa loompas in the recent "Charlie & the Chocolate Factory") as the sinister crime boss... sort of like the Godfather meets Tattoo from Fantasy Island. Another winning performance was Kathy Ireland herself who managed to pull off a sort of Alice (in Wonderland) but with a voice like Betty Boop. How she did that & keep a straight face is beyond me.The plot is simple yet bizarre, a sort of pastiche of "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" mixed with "Wizard of Oz" and maybe some bits of "Sixteen Candles" thrown in for good measure. I don't understand how MST3k could mock this film as it already clearly mocks itself. I mean, come on, with Kathy Ireland's crazy helium voice, it's pretty obvious that nothing is intended to be taken seriously. Still people just don't get it, thinking this is a bad movie. On the contrary, it's so good at making fun of itself that nobody realizes it.In that sense it's a lot like "Barbarella" except with the sexiness considerably toned down (yes, so if you came here expecting to see some gratuitous cleavage & booty shots of swimsuit models, you're better off with Baywatch). I'm not sure what its official MPAA rating is, but I'd say it's a very tame PG. And that's precisely what makes it so unexpected and hard to categorize. You'd think it would be a scifi sex farce like "Barbarella" or "Galaxina", but it is definitely not (although I wouldn't discount an occasional adult double-entendre or two).Expect something maybe like "Labyrinth" but with a harder edge and a much stronger sense of satire, and I think you'll have a blast. Like Labyrinth, it's clean & family friendly, but there's definitely a darkness & sophisticated sense of humour that makes it clearly for grown ups too.Pay no attention to the MST3k lemmings who rated this a 2.5 out of 10. If you go into this expecting to have a good time, you won't be disappointed. The visuals alone are worth the price of admission.

Golan Globus, you've done it again!Done it as in found a highly effective means of inducing a coma through viewing. I've seen Alien from L.A. before and, I will kid you not, rewatching this one had me under the anesthetic TWICE in the same viewing. The dark Atlantean decor, faux Aussie lingo, and Kathy's lulling vocal quality make it very tough to pay attention when you have no idea what's going on and have little or no concern for anything or anyone in the film.Perhaps the film would have fared better if Wanda just hung out in L.A. and never bothered looking for her dad. Then, the movie title would have been way out of context. I guess there's no saving this one. Still, much less painful than Loaded Weapon.

Back in the 1960's, those of us who were bad movie aficionados thought that "Plan Nine From Outer Space" was the worst movie ever made, and would remain so for all time. To put things in perspective, though, we also thought that $3,000 was a lot to pay for a new car.As we grew older, our innocence was gradually stripped away as we were exposed to movies like "Hercules in New York" and "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank," which completely redefined the "bad movie" genre. In this context, last night, my son and I saw "Alien From L.A.," which pushed the envelope to an extreme unimaginable just a generation ago. To call this movie "bad" (or wretched or execrable) completely fails to do it justice, as does any other label existent in the English language. Even if there were words with which to accurately describe this movie, it would be of no consequence, since they would be banned in civilized society.The Alien referred to in the title is played by Kathy Ireland, who apparently took some time off from modeling swimsuits for Sports Illustrated, to kick off her cinematic career. Her casting might seem some sort of recommendation, until you actually see the movie. The makeup artists earned their money by making Kathy look so drab and unappetizing you would not want to touch her with the far end of a broomstick -- no mean feat. To put it bluntly, in this movie she has a face that would freeze Medusa. Even worse than her look, though, was her voice, which was so raucous that I initially failed to credit it as originating with a human being. Throughout the movie, I found myself longing for a chalkboard to drag my nails across to cover the screechy twang of her dialog. At the end of the movie, Kathy finally gets a makeover and finds herself in her beloved swimsuit. I suggested to my son that the movie would have been better if they had put her in the swimsuit at the beginning of the movie, so at least we would have had something to watch. My son perceptively pointed out that if they had then removed the swimsuit and stuffed it into her mouth, it would have considerably improved the movie on two counts. I defer to the plain brilliance of his observation. If you have any doubts, compare this dreck to "Barbarella," in which a competent filmmaker shows how to exploit the assets of an ethereally beautiful leading lady in the fantasy genre.Of the plot, itself, there is little on which to comment, since there was so little in evidence. It is said that if a million monkeys typed unceasingly for millions of years, eventually one would come up with "Hamlet." By the process of elimination, the rest of the time they would come up with something approximating this screenplay. Imagine, if you will, a modern-day Alice falling into a hole and dropping 500 feet onto a rock slab, following which she gets up, dusts herself off, and starts looking for her long-lost father in the city-kingdom of Atlantis. Once in Atlantis, she spends most of her time running, fighting, or climbing stairs and ladders, and basically trying to keep out of the hands of a general who seems to have no soldiers to do his bidding, and who would make Tiny Tim look macho. This summation, as abbreviated as it appears, is probably longer than the shooting script.On the plus side, as you revel in the production values and take in whatever you can of the sets and costumes through the smoke and haze, you realize that this is one movie in which you can actually see on the screen where all $20 of the budget went.The thought that kept going through my mind was that filmmakers ought not be given access to drugs and alcohol while they are shooting a movie, or perhaps prior, if it leads to results like "Alien from L.A.," though in fairness I have to acknowledge that I don't know whether they were actually involved in substance abuse, or were simply brain dead at the outset of the project.

Every boy eventually learns the lesson that just because a girl is good-looking, it doesn't mean she's good. Well, lemme tell you, at age 19, lesson learned. It's hard to tell what's worse: Kathy Ireland's acting skills, or her ultra-high-pitched voice; the one that sounds like a screeching mouse on helium scratching its tiny little claws down a blackboard. With an incomprehensible plot set in outer space with dwarves that want Kathy Ireland's bones for some obscure reason, this movie is just wrong on so many levels. If there were ever a candidate for a Mystery Science Theater 3000 revival, this would be it.