Fugitive Alien (review by Butch Miller)
“Fugitive Alien” is a piece of feces spewed forth by the evil, sadistic little jackass responsible for such other cinematic fertilizer as some “Gamera” flicks and “Fugitive Alien 2” (as if I’m going to bother looking anything else up). Yes, none other than that sower of nightmares, Sandy Frank, is the guilty party here. But not the only guilty party, oh dear God no. Where to start…
“Fugitive Alien” is an incomprehensible science fiction film (with no science and damned if I can see any kind of story to call ‘fiction’), apparently made by attaching episodes of some lame television series together. Prominent in this movie is Ken. Which Ken? Take your pick — anyone familiar with low budget Japanese films is aware of the Ken Factor.
Cheap Japanese movies have two constants. This can be summed up in the formula Cj=a, where Cj equals cheap Japanese movie and a is either (k) or (bs). (k) equals at least one character named Ken, and (bs) equals boys in too-tight short pants. Sandy Frank basically invented this formula (may his/her soul rot in hell); Fugitive Alien uses a variation on this, namely Cj=(k)10^10. In other words:
Everyone in this movie is named Ken. The good guy, who starts out as a bad guy, is named Ken. The plot revolves around an incident (the only incident that is explained clearly — explained clearly some FIFTEEN THOUSAND TIMES) wherein Ken is going to shoot a little boy called Ken. Then, it gets confusing. I think the boy’s mom is named Ken, and Ken (the bad guy Ken, not little boy Ken or Ken’s Mom Ken) is cheered on by Ken (bad guy Ken’s partner, also named Ken). Bad guy Ken becomes conscience Ken when he hears Ken (boy Ken’s mom) cry out for Ken (the boy) to “come back, there’s danger, blah blah blah”. Ken (bad guy, now conscience Ken) holds his fire… “He’s named Ken, too! I can’t! It reminds me of… of ME!” That isn’t said as such — the acting is far worse than that. Ken (bad guy’s partner) encourages Ken to shoot Ken and Ken. Ken rushes up to save Ken, and Ken drops the rifle. Ken comes up next to Ken, declaring that he will do it, and Ken wrestles with him to save Ken and Ken. In the fight, Ken shoots Ken, who dies calling Ken a traitor. Meanwhile, Ken and Ken escape, never to be seen again — aside from the fact that Sandy Frank used this scene to pad the movie from 20 minutes to it’s 2 hour-or-so running time.
This is a good thing, because the rest of the movie is less coherent than the above paragraph. Stuff flies cheaply about in space. There’s some stupid subplot about a Japanese alien blonde chick who was Ken’s sister (now Dead Ken) and Ken’s lover (bad guy-cum-conscience-cum Good guy Ken) who is required, by Yul Brenner (hey, I’m serious, and no I don’t have a damn clue why Yul Brenner is the alien king) and Japanese alien law to kill Ken (ibid). She dies, and then, well, after that it’s a clusterfu … gitive of the first order.
This movie wasted 2 hours of my life and basically it did nothing except made me realize just how much I would like to strike Sandy Frank on the head with a red patio brick. This movie gets 1/2 a yak because I’m in an exceptionally good mood today. Sandy Frank, you talentless, androgynously named bastard, BITE ME.