Alien Nation (1988) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - October 6, 1988

There were several reasons for why I was looking forward to seeing Alien Nation on its opening weekend, beyond its basic premise, that is.

The film was produced by Gale Anne Hurd (1984's The Terminator, 1986's Aliens) and Richard Kobritz (1979's Salem's Lot, 1983's Christine), two people whose past productions I both enjoyed and admired. Something similar could be said for the director, Graham Baker, who had made The Final Conflict (1981) and a wonderful little disaster thriller called Impulse (1984).

Then there was screenwriter Rockne S. O'Bannon, a name I recognized from a short story titled Slippage, which I had read and enjoyed in the pages of The Twilight Zone Magazine. I also knew that James Cameron had done some polishing of the script, to pump up the film's action content. Which is why I walked into a matinee screening of Alien Nation certain I was about to see a polished little cinematic gem.

Well... Alien Nation turned out to be not all that great. While the film was not all that bad, it was neither all that good. It was just a pedestrian buddy cop movie that, for whatever reason, never rose above the level of modest entertainment.

The biggest thrill, the first time I saw it, was spotting character actor Peter Jason, who I recognized from Prince of Darkness (1987), in a small role as bigoted asshat of a cop.