STABFORD DEATHRAGE’S NETFLIX NASTIES – AE: Apocalypse Earth (2013)

Adrian Paul, Richard Grieco, and some other folks try to survive on a hostile planet in this dreadful Asylum film.

As a spacecraft shoots laser beams at a city, people frantically try to board a spaceship as the spaceship says, “For your own safety, step away from the spacecraft”, which sounds pretty reasonable. Some people aren’t allowed on the spaceship due to overcrowding, and as they’re chased by the military and confronted at gunpoint, the terrified people say, “We just want to live!”, which seems pretty reasonable. Then The Highlander and the dude from 21 Jump Street act as though they’ve been launched into space, which is pretty unreasonable, and this so-called acting goes on for a while, which is also pretty unreasonable.

The spaceship crash lands, and you can tell it does because the cast looks very worried in close-up and the camera shakes. An invisible Predator-type creature causes the crash survivors to run around and scream amidst the spaceship wreckage. A disposable extra falls on some conveniently-placed palm fronds before being attacked by the invisible Predator-thing, The Highlander rubs mud on his face, and a guy in a flannel shirt runs with a pointy stick. Get used to the idea of palm fronds, mud-smearing, and pointy sticks because they’re recurring themes. The cast keeps asking why The Highlander is in charge as though they hadn’t read the script, someone attempts to act like an android, 21 Jump Street tries to act like he’s hurt, and The Highlander sweeps the ground with a palm frond.

Large CGI’d insects attack while the cast tries to fend them off, and you can tell this is happening because the cast thrusts their pointy sticks at the camera because the insects are always conveniently just out of frame, and then The Highlander offers an absurdly bosomy woman covered in body paint a Clif Bar. Although the setting is apparently a distant planet, the cast only slightly questions the fact the woman in body paint knows English, and I’m assuming while she was supposedly being exiled by her native people she had a chance to download a copy of Rosetta Stone. More spaceships attack, and another disposable extra is burned alive while he screams the Wilhelm Scream. The cast walks through some picturesque jungle while carrying pointy sticks for about forever, and the monotony of walking through the jungle carrying pointy sticks is briefly interrupted by a swim in rapids where a disposable extra hilariously cracks her head open on a rock, resulting in face-up, partially-submerged instant death.

The Highlander slides under a CGI’d dragon using palm fronds in a spectacular stunt, and by “spectacular” I really mean “crappy”. The movie continues for a while amidst cinematography of lush, green panoramic vistas of jungle waterfalls, the cast runs around and sometimes communicates in gibberish and whistles, and several more of them die. The Highlander hides under more palm fronds, then finds an anachronistic rubber raft covered in more palm fronds. The movie continues for a while, and no one once says the phrase, “Those damned dirty apes”, although one would almost expect them to.