it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

It was a low budget film people! But it has a great story. Even the alien is more believable then the big budget crap we get now days. The actors were not the best, but again, low budget. I thought even they did a great job considering what they had to work with. Its an independent film remember. If we would support stuff like this there would be better scifi out there.Look at it this way when you watch it. It was someone with little money trying to put a great idea on film. I'm sure if given a 200 million dollar budget it would have been fantastic!Okay, so here goes, the acting I give a 6 plus, the story a 10, the production with budget considered a 10. Try to watch the story and not be too hard on the films special FX. It isn't easy to create a monster on the screen (alien, wolfman etc.) Not everyone can afford the big time SFX companies or the computer time to make it work.

Lifeform (AKA Invader) 1996 RThis film is about a team of scientists and military yahoos that end up fighting an alien creature. It's that simple. It's yet another film like Alien or Leviathan (which itself was a direct rip-off of Alien) or Species. In this one, intelligent life that reproduces asexually sends a Viking probe back from Mars (because Mars is new territory in the world of alien encounters you know), and that probe has been modified to carry this creature along with it. Of course, the alien gets out and gets hunted and gets killed. Overall, the acting isn't too bad, and the special effects are competent. The alien is intelligent, so of course, the one woman in the film feels sorry for it. The design of the alien itself is kind of like those half-human, half-horse creatures. You know, a centaur. It looks all terrifying on the outside, but then it extends it's little alien body up (the part where the human part of the centaur goes) out of the normal trunk (the part that is the horse), and it looks all benevolent. The military base they're on is rather bland, and of course, Big Brother shows up and spoils the show. The Army folks saunter about trying to kill the alien and they're all afraid it may have some contagion that it's spreading around.The atmosphere isn't bad, but the film is somewhat shallow—it's just a straight-forward science fiction/horror flick with some decent gore and a humorous kill (guy is stabbed with the blunt end of an M-16). Nothing really special, but nothing really horrible. Recommended to hardcore SF/horror buffs. And that's about it.5/10

'Invader' is a decent aliens film, no more but no less either. It is done in the mid 90's, is is clearly a low budget film - so the effects are far from what big studios succeed in similar movies. Directing and acting are quite routine, nothing memorable above the usual TV series level. However, the script is quite decent, and despite some inconsistencies, it keeps somehow the interest high. The end is quite good, kind of justifying the viewer surviving the 90 minutes the movie lasts. Science fiction fans may like it, though we have seen much better. 6/10 on my personal scale.

The picture is not as a bad as I feared it would be and although I was perplexed by some anomalies in the Cotter Smith character, I thought it more than passable. One amusing sidelight, however: the director was determined to keep nineties cutie-pie Ryan Phillipe front and center throughout the film. Thus, we have "Private Ryan" involved in every critical aspect of the plotline from alien stalking to emergency surgery on a fellow soldier to an exobiological autopsy. One is given the impression that, in Hollywood, it is impossible to consider doing hard science or carrying out military maneuvers without the handy presence of a pretty slack-jawed youth.