Once again David DeCouteau and Charles Band re-invent “Laserblast” for a new audience. The wretched original is once again re-conditioned in to a teen friendly adventure in the vein of “Power Rangers,” and it’s an apparent attempt to market on the audience. The movie is silly and often makes no sense, but I do tend to miss the old days when Full Moon and Charles Band attempted to appeal to children and teenagers. Ralph and cute Tomboy Baxter are nerds in their school, both of whom spend their time riffing on science fiction and being picked on for reasons I have tough time fathoming. Truth be told, they don’t stand out really.
But nonetheless, they’re tormented, especially by a local jock, who insists on making Ralph’s life miserable. One day when they’re ordered to help construction in the school’s basement (do schools really enforce this kind of punishment?), Ralph and Baxter make a shocking discovery. Deep within the bowels of the school, they find shelves filled with Alien Arsenal (hence the title), and decide to steal the stash left over for the sake of experimentation. What begins as a fun trip of fantasy for two geeks becomes a full on tirade of revenge against school bullies. Once again, like the previous “Laserblast” and “Deadly Weapon,” the alien weapons become a key point of their revenge on the tormentors in their lives, cue attempts at comedic retaliation.
“Alien Arsenal” is fitted more for younger audiences, and though it has slight swearing in the dialogue, it’s mainly aimed for teens that enjoy a bit of a tongue in cheek Nickelodeon fantasy. The budget is very low, thus “Alien Arsenal” is never able to really have fun with its premise, instead opting for a lot of clumsy fighting, badly made outfits, and pretty piss poor special effects. Considering the year, it’s sad that there’s nothing that really stands out in the CGI. Ralph and Baxter also never have much to do, except discover the weaponry, and use it to taunt bullies. All the while three blond students enter the school, and seem anxious to find the arsenal and take it to their home planet, for some reason. It’s all very paper thin in the way of narrative and characterization.
If you look closely, you can even see that the helmets for Ralph and Baxter are just repurposed Hockey and Bike helmets. There’s still some creativity to be mined from the premise of a tortured individual who uses alien tech to seek revenge on their tormentors, and “Alien Arsenal” is a third outing that fails to realize the concept, fully. Seriously, you have amazing alien tech that can render you near invulnerable and you torment the school football player? And do schools really punish their students by making them perform construction? That’s too much of a stretch. It’s a very clumsy and forgettable science fiction attempt, and one that really could have benefitted from a much larger budget and a more creative writer.
I’m still holding out hope for a “Planet Patrol” reboot.