PLOT: An all-time rager of a teen house party turns to terror when aliens attack, forcing two warring siblings to band together to survive the night.
REVIEW: Kids vs Aliens is schlock through and through. This shouldn’t come as a surprise since it comes from tJason Eisener, who brought us Hobo With A Shotgun but, even still, it can be a little oftputting. As such, there’s a ton of stuff that I could go after with this movie. The unevenness in tone from moment to moment, the insane story progressions are easy annoyances in any other movie. But I went in expecting grindhouse and that’s what I got. But is this on the same level as the similarly themed Psycho Goreman? Well…
The story follows a group of kids as aliens invade their coastal town. The oldest of the group is aging out and wanting to do more adult things, while the younger ones are busy making silly home movies and wrestling. Everyone feels more like more of a caricature than an actual person. Though the kids do still feel like regular kids. They aren’t doing Sorkin-level walk-n-talks and having all this amazing insight on life. They’re just children who want to play with their friends and their toys. As such, I thought they all did a good job. Phoebe Rex really stood out amongst the younger cast.
While I’m sure it’s part of the charm, I was really disappointed in the aliens. These are simple grey rubber suit aliens and you can see the seams in their costumes. I can forgive a lot of bad story beats if you can provide a satisfying creature but this is just a generic disappointment. The creatures that the aliens create from the humans have a little more substance. They look more like monsters and less like something from Spirit Halloween. And while I waited for them to make up for that with gore, they mostly just provided colorful goo.
Getting into the more technical side, Kids vs Aliens is oversaturated, with damn near every single shot being color corrected to death. The landscape and outdoor shots are particularly distracting as you can practically see where they’re vignetting/boosting certain colors in the edit. It gets to be a bit much and really makes the production look shoddy. Thankfully most of the film takes place at night though, so most of this color boosting works to the film’s advantage. Though, maybe that’s just my love for neon speaking.
I don’t usually mind swearing in movies as they add a layer of realism. Even Joe Begos’ recent Christmas Bloody Christmas had an insane swear-to-speak ratio in it, yet it mostly went unnoticed for me. Here though, I couldn’t help but cringe at nearly every f bomb thrown as they don’t really fit. I believe it’s done intentionally as they’re trying to represent the dialogue of a typical pre-teen/teenager but even so, the boat crew at the begin also ironically swear like sailors. So it may just be a case of a screenwriter with a hard on for curse words. I felt lame even typing that.
Kids vs Aliens feels like the sort of story you’d act out as a kid with your friends. It’s all over the place and spastic, not making a lot of sense when you dissect it closely, but that’s not what it’s about. It’s about the thrill of the experience and coming out the hero in the end. While this isn’t quite the level of fun I was hoping it’d be, it’s not a terrible way to spend 75 minutes.
Kids vs Aliens is IN THEATERS AND ON DEMAND JANUARY 20TH, 2023.