In Italy, an American military patrol discovers a crashed spaceship and its alien crew. It also finds itself up against a Nazi flank packed with soldiers and tanks. Also: Hitler gets punched in the face.Written by Paul De Meo (Eliminators) and directed by Danny Bilson (who also wrote The Rocketeer), this is a film long on humor and crazy ideas but short on plot. If you like Trancers, well, you'll like this as it shares a lot of the same actors. Tim Thomerson is great as the near-mythic Sarge, a man who never dies no matter how many times he's shot. If you've ever read Sergeant Rock, he'll seem pretty familiar.If Empire Pictures was around today, they'd be talking about a shared universe where characters from ReAnimator would battle Jack Deth from Trancers and The Dungeonmaster. Oh man - don't forget RoboJox, Dolls, The Eliminators and Klaus Kinski from Crawlspace!

An interesting flick from the 1980's that I am sorry to say I only watched for the first time today. I distinctly remember the cover art and recall seeing the VHS case several times while scanning the titles at my local rental stores over the years. I just never took the time to rent the film; always choosing some other flick - some good (Critters, Fright Night, Return of the Living Dead), and some not so good (Creepshow 2, Terrorvision, Spookies).A unique sequence of events led to me watching this film. A violent electrical storm hit early this morning and I was awoken to the sound of our dogs barking their heads off. I found myself unable to fall back asleep afterward so I decided to watch a bit of TV. I started scanning the guide and I happened to run across "Zone Troopers" on a local station and decided to finally watch it, and boy was I surprised. The movie was actually entertaining and I felt kinda bad for not giving it a chance years ago. Although the story is as far fetched as they come and the believability factor scores an 0.01 out of 100, I still found myself entertained and quite amused. 'Zone Troopers' is a solid 1980's Sci-Fi offering and is definitely worth the 1 and 1/2 hours it takes to watch it.

This movie was pretty much a hoot. Being a fan of WWII and Science Fiction films it had everything a growing boy needs. Charles Band and his company have a good track record turning out good cheesy fun. Tim Thomerson is "Sarge" the battle hardened vet with the tommygun. His character may have been inspired by Lee Marvin's in "The Big Red One" because they both are evidently impossible to kill. It struck me funny that the guy blew himself up,(along with a Nazi) but when he reappears at the end of the film his buddies take it as granted. The young punk kid is the only person with a clue to what's happening because he reads comic books, (see,I told you Mom) A spacecraft crashlands in Italy and the sole survivor is captured by the Wehrmacht. It is important enough that ol' Hitler hisself comes down to take a look and gets punched in the face by one of our boys that was captured. Well, Dogfaces team up with Bugeyes and proceed to kick a little Kraut behind with some nifty rayguns. Some waxy looking dudes who look kind of human show up to rescue the bugeyed alien. Were they the same species? I don't know. The dialog was fairly spot on and the weapons looked authentic. There was a very weird looking German tank that shows up. I'm sure it was homemade. All in all a pretty entertaining film.

Why are some people reviewing Zone Troppers as if the makers had intended to make a serious sci-fi film? This movie was intended as a satire of both alien invasion flicks and cliched World War II movies. While not all the jokes worked, I found the movie throughly enjoyable, and so did several friends who watched it with me at a later date. Band's Empire Pictures did indeed make some real clunkers. But this is no clunker. This movie reunites most of the cast of the earlier Charles Band production "Trancers." That movie was also a satire, though Band's direction was so flat it was hard to tell. Danny Bilson, who directed Zone Troopers, seems to understand the spirit of fun much better. Some of the movie's best bits have been mentioned by other posters, but I would add the beginning sequence when the young Lieutenant rashly runs over the hill thinking reinforcements have arrived, and is machine gunned by the Germans. "Damn green kid," Thomerson (as the tough as nails NCO) mutters, in perfect deadpan echo of hundreds of B war movies of the late forties and early fifties. And did anyone catch the "Buy War Bonds" tag at the end of the credits? How about the fact that the first shot morphs from the cover of a comic book Mittens (Art Lefleur) is reading? That should have served as a hint of the filmmakers' intentions. This movie is a hoot, and was intended that way. I have never seen Bilson's follow up, the Wrong Guys--equally low rated by most posters. But based on Zone Troopers, I sensed he might have the talent to go a long way. However, it appears he was only able to find a career in TV.