Charming and brutal

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

How does veteran actor William Shatner keep a straight face? He writes, directs and stars in this bargain basement Sci-Fi flick. Just pretend this film is not that far-fetched. Kate(Amy Acker)is a young woman that knows she is dying and she wants some kind of proof that there is life somewhere in the Universe. She talks her Tom Cruise-wannabe boyfriend Andy(Dan Gauthier)into taking her to where the answer may be...the Nevada desert near the notorious Area-51 and the waterless Groom Lake site where now Commander Gossner(Shatner) conducts classified experiments with captured extraterrestrials. This is the same place that for years alien lights and spacecraft have been seen. A desert inhabited by bizarre communities of folks that are certain there is life beyond the stars. Yep...for sure. Also in the cast: Dick Van Patten, Brenda Bakke, Duane Whitaker, Tom Towles and John Prosky.

I don't know why moderators didn't insert the cast zero vote, because one is just too much for this, i recommend for those who want to laugh endless about grossness. Notes: You can notice in the groom lake cafe on the decorated back mirror a big microphone when they're shooting. the alien is just ridiculous. The cars who are running on a straight street had to turn left lane during the shoot to avoid the knockdown of cameras-men. The plot is really bad funny especially when they wanna die suddenly after climbing and crashing their car tumbled down. Began with a love excursion, then go out of plans totally: the worst guinness for this too. The purple radiation light on the skin and the UFO spaceship jellyfish could be made with a win95 software by anyone. The award for worst special effects too. The characters are totally inexpressive, too awfully acting like script-less and improvised scenes, they killed the characters mistaking their roles, like they would not have own. The scene in the military base with the purple sky and the people walking is reiterated about 5 times, even ahead on the movie end. Every scene is worth of laugh, especially Andy and kate tumbled down from a high hill, they were completely unharmed, and then they continued quietly kissing... GooooofY The shooting quality way it's the same used on the DVD backstages, where it is used for interviews. The boyfriend didn't die galvanized across the wire netting like the other intruder did, Or HE must be SUPERMAN or it's Goofy. The girlfriend instead, has been raped from that unsuspected couple, LOL, what's within the rest of plot line??? she wanted to die, what she was waiting for then? Don't waste your money, unless you want to laugh.

You know, it's a shame. I bet there are plenty of talented film school students and really good screenplay writers out there that could've made ten times the movie Groom Lake was. But because William Shatner got cast as Capt. Kirk decades ago he's the one with the big bucks, and he's the one who gets to make movies. I'm sitting back, watching the sci-fi channel and hear there's going to be a movie about Groom Lake, which is a dry lake in Nevada at Area 51 and I get excited. I should've been preparing for serious disappointment. Let me get the flaws out of the way:1. Late in the movie, Dietz and Andy break into Area 51 to get back Andy's girlfriend, Kate, and maybe even find a real live alien. This movie is only going to be watched by sci-fi fans, so those making it should pay a little bit of attention to accuracy. Since much isn't known about Area 51 the story could take plenty of exciting liberties with the plot as long as it's within reason. However, what -is- known about Area 51 is that two guys and a semi cannot break into Area 51 and sneak into facilities containing alien technology. You don't have to be a huge alien buff to know a plan like this just won't fly. I mean, I can't even drive to the gates of a PA Air National Guard base without being greeted by a soldier toting an M-16. Also, the fences surrounding Area 51 are not electrified. If anyone associated with the production of this film knew anything of Area 51 or even bothered to visit the damned place, they'd know this. And given that anyone would be able to penetrate the fenceline it's downright crazy to think that a suit of cammo with an MP armband would fool anyone or that, having entered the compound, they'd be able to get into any building without some sort of clearance. Oh, and apparently they use iMacs at Area 51. Alright, so the plot is juvenile and the details were ignored. If you're into sci-fi, you'll get that sometimes.2. I'm no big time film guy who dissects every scene for the value of it's interior framing or the colors used in the shot, but I know what's bad, and, even from a purely technical aspect, this was bad. I've heard praise for a few isolated shots in the movie that are really beautiful on the digital medium the movie was shot with, and I agree, they're beautiful. However, most of the really great shots are that of the Arizona desert. Congratulations, Bill Shatner, you've made the desert look beautiful. For the most, I found the fact that this movie was digital overly distracting. The shots inside the vehicles looked like footage from a reality tv show and the shots inside the Area 51 base or in town reminded me of colors I'm more likely to find in an Andy Warhol gallery. When I see a sci-fi movie set in the desert I'm expecting to get that old weathered truck stop feel. I want to see lots of faded colors and a lot of brown. They did a good job with putting in plenty of crotchety locals who drive pick up trucks and harass visitors, but the bright colors in the camera work just ruin things for me. At the beginning of the movie, Andy and Kate (the main characters) are tearing around in a jeep. Andy, for no apparent reason than to be a show off, decides to go off road and climb a rocky hill. The editor must have fell asleep at the wheel on this one because the trek up the hill looked far from dangerous and the camera work looked like a cheesy dramatization from Unsolved Mysteries (as did all the action shots). But, of course, the jeep ends up rolling so we have to cut to really terrible stock footage. After that, we find the two lovers at the bottom of the hill, but they've thrown up a lot of dust. It must have been the combination of the light and the digital camera but I swear it looked like someone had thrown a bunch of Tang in the wind. Once the Tang cloud clears they start climbing all over one another. Just flat out lame. I'm not knocking digital movies. Maybe I'm just saying all of this because I'm not used to movies being shot like that, but I just didn't like it. The shots were mostly lame, and the editing sucked. All this, plus the special effects are lame too. Sci-fi movies are built on special effects! How could you mess that up? 3. As I sat at home watching this, I got the idea to write my own sci-fi screenplay and sell it to the sci-fi channel and make a whole lot of money on a cheesy screenplay written by an amatuer. I figured I couldn't do any worse. It was only until I realized that the story and the direction was by William Shatner did I really become annoyed. This movie simply wouldn't fly if it didn't have William Shatner behind it probably hemorrhaging money. Granted, the movie was low budget, but I can't imagine anyone who would put it on the air. The story is just plain bad and the screenplay writing not much better.4. No movie should have a character named Captain Morgan unless he's in 18th century pirate attire and wields a cutlass and a cocky smile.5. Shatner gives himself a juicy part in the ending because, after all, it's his movie. So, even though we've seen very little of him in the beginning, he gets to be the one to save the alien and, against the orders of the Pentagon and a typical sniveling policy nerd, he becomes the maverick and orders an alien ship that looks like a jellyfish to take off with the alien on board. Of course, no one in the control room has a problem with this. So the ship takes off and the big wigs are going nuts and as Shatner is leaving someone tells him that he's going to be fired and so on and he says, "You want all this [area 51]? You can have it." And he tosses him the keys ... to Area 51(keys!?). Apparently a nice zinger delivered with a Kirk-esque badboy smile can get you out of a court martial. All in all, if you really want to be entertained by good film, don't watch this. But if you want to get a bunch of friends together a poke fun at cheesy camera work, bad acting, foolish plotline, and all the other typical aspects of a B-Movie, this is an absolute gem. Had a good time watching it, but it sure won't win any Academy Awards.

You know you have to wonder what's going on with Bill Shatner. He's a talented actor with a beautiful speaking voice, capable of superior performances.But some of the stuff he is involved in makes you want to shake your head. And this stuff isn't off-the-wall good. It's off-the-wall poor. Poorly made, poorly paced, poorly edited, poorly written, etc. It's as if he is someone who is not quite in touch with himself; and it shows in the projects and people with which he gets associated.And now we have 'Groom Lake'. It wouldn't make you winch so hard, if it hadn't also been written and directed by Shatner. The logicalness and continuity is uncomfortably close to what you'd expect from an Ed Wood-level production.Here's this bonehead boyfriend risking life and limb roaring up a treacherous hillside with his dying girlfriend, all the time assuring her that it'll be all right. Well, it's not all right, Mr. Genius. Their vehicle overturns and rolls completely down the hill. And this is only one part of a heavily fragmented, unsupported story line. The negative comments could go on.For the record this viewer would like to be a full-time fan of Shatner. But, Bill, somehow you just aren't getting the job done. You are capable of a much more brilliant body of work.