It's "War of the Worlds" set in the Old West. Just as a legendary train robber is about to be hanged in a small Western town, a bunch of mechanical creatures invade the town and kill everyone in their path. A mother ship also begins to hover overhead. The outlaw and several others desperately battle the space invaders, but they quickly get picked off one by one. By the time the dust has settled ... well, you can guess the outcome. A Canadian job, this has some interesting characters but very poor CGI for the invaders. And the action sequences are clumsily staged. You never believe for a moment that humans and monsters are battling one another. A little more production money and attention to script details would have helped. As it is, we were just relieved when it was over.

Where to start...While there were some good actors in this, in addition to some horrible performances, nothing could save this train wreck.The writing was awful. The dialog corny. And the weaponsmaster should have been shot.Let me explain. The setting is Colorado in 1892 if memory serves. The actors are turned loose with modern double-action revolvers. While you might find a model available back then, it would not likely have been in Colorado. Worse, two actors square off, the sound effect for cocking the gun is heard, and neither weapon is cocked.Then, up against powerful badguys, the goodguys don't grab the long guns available in the Sheriff's Office...they ignore them at a time they need more firepower.I could have put up with the cheesy CGI. But the movie just felt so amateurish, par for the course for a SyFy production these days.Even Spike couldn't save this travesty.

In the Old West of 1892, a bank robber is about to become guest of honor at a neck tie party. Suddenly, giant metallic scorpion type things appear and break up the party. But just when this looks like it will be another body-count sideshow, an interesting story emerges.The budget isn't extravagant, but much is accomplished with what they have. The style of the story is a tip of the hat to the vision of Jules Verne (who is mentioned in the film), and it shows some real imagination. The invaders also look to be of the sort H.G. Wells might cook up after a bad nightmare. The plot draws you in, with an intriguing mystery of just what do these rampaging creatures want, why are they here, and where did they come from. The film wisely withholds some of that, and releases just enough information to the characters and you at a very well constructed pace to keeps things interesting. It isn't even too clear if these things are machines or organic life forms until deep into the movie.A weakness might be that the characters are written as western clichés, but they are developed in an adequate fashion. The acting is actually superior, and most of the cast rises above any limitations the script gives their roles. CGI effects are done well enough to make these hostile invaders threatening. The dialog supports the action, and doesn't fall into the cornball quips trap that so many films do. The ending is perhaps too abrupt, with no epilogue given at all.Overall, not a bad watch.

Caught it on-demand. Surely bound for the Sci...SyFy channel, but actually not too shabby. If you're gonna do low budget CGI, sure, you can do a snake that doesn't really look like a snake, but why not go for alien uranium suckers. I mean, how would you know what one would really look like anyway? The effects aren't too bad, and the cast of unknowns led by James Marsters (Spike from Buffy/Angel) does a good job. While the ending seemed kinda abrupt to me, I would have liked to see more of an epilogue, the script is engaging and doesn't drag. In the all-too-small genre of Cowboys vs. Aliens, High Plains Invaders is worth checking out.