A platoon of soldiers become trapped behind enemy lines in
Italy during WWII. While on the run from
the Nazis, they stumble upon a crashed rocket ship. Naturally, the Nazis want to use the ship for
their own devious purposes. The troops
eventually befriend an alien and together, they team up to fight the Nazis.
This premise sounds like it can't miss, but it does. The problem is that it's 75% war movie and 25%
sci-fi action. The budget was frankly just
too low to support either genre convincingly.
The war scenes are OK, but we all know you came to the party
for the sci-fi cheese. Unfortunately, it
takes its sweet time getting going. Because
of that, you’ve got to wait a long while before anything remotely
science-fiction-y happens. That being
said, the end where soldiers and aliens stand side-by-side to blast Nazis with
ray guns is appropriately silly. There’s not nearly enough of it to make it
worthwhile though.
The grunts are well cast. Tim Thomerson
is good as the gruff, seemingly unkillable “Sarge”. Art LaFleur does a fine job
as the stone-faced “Mittens”. Timothy Van
Patten is a lot of fun as Joey, the “aw shucks” guy with a Brooklyn accent who
feels like he came right out of a B war movie from the ‘50s. They can only do so much to enliven this
middling, if well-meaning cornball flick.
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