Pretty Good

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

In 1983, the people of Earth were going about their normal business when a fleet of 50 ships came from another planet and scared everyone! Michael Donovan (Marc Singer) a cameraman and his companion Tony Leonetti (Evan Kim) were filming the war in El Salvador when one of the alien ships floated by. Julie Parrish (Faye Grant) a young med student and Ben Taylor (Richard Lawson) were doing research on an antibiotic in the lab when the TV came on to announce the arrival. The Bernsteins, a nice Jewish family and the Maxwells, a Christian family were also going about daily life when the ships came. Robin Maxwell (Blair Tefkin) and Daniel Bernstein (David Packer) talked about how life would change for them and the earth with the aliens. Robin feared she would never lose her virginity because she thought the aliens were enemies. Polly (Vivika Davis) Robin's younger sister brought them into the house and they watched as the alien leader John (Richard Herd) came out of a fighter ship and told all the Earthlings the aliens came in peace. The aliens would help out the Earth with environmental problems and other issues if the inhabitants would help them by gathering chemicals and food the aliens would need. Julie, Donovan, and Abraham Bernstein (Leo Cimino) are unsure about this while the other humans embrace these alien saviors. Soon things begin to go downhill. Scientists are targeted as the ones who want to get rid of the aliens and there is a made up conspiracy that involves Julie, Ben, and anthropologist Robert Maxwell (Michael Durrell) the father of Robin, Polly, and little Katie. Polly is beat up at school because she wins the science fair and her mom Kathleen (Penny Windust) and Abraham come to her aid. Ruby a neighbor widow (Camilla Ashland) tells Abraham not to worry and it will pass. Abraham said he believed that in 1938 in Berlin and the Nazi trouble didn't pass and this led to the death of Abraham's wife. It doesn't help the Visitors have uniforms, guns, a symbol that resembles a swastika and Daniel has joined the Visitor Friends and wears a brown uniform like the Nazi sympathizers did! Mike Donovan's mom also becomes a sympathizer for the aliens too and so does his ex-girlfriend Christine Walsh. One night, Mike and Tony sneak aboard the ship but while following Mike, Tony trips and Mike enters the ship all alone with his camera. He sees alien scientist Diana (Jane Badler) talking to alien Steven (Andrew Prine) about the conversion process she invented to turn some of the scientists to the Visitor cause and then Steven reaches into a cage and grabs a white mouse he swallows down in one gulp! Diana goes one-up on Steven and swallows a live guinea pig whole! This explains why at a party Steven attended with the Maxwells his aversion to cooked foods and the fact when he walked by a cage of lovebirds, the birds crashed and moved around in panic! Steven's hands also feel cold to Robert too! In another room, an alien man is doing something to his eyes and it looks to Mike like he is removing or inserting contacts. Soon the eyes are revealed to be red with black slits! Mike rips off the man's mask and the big reveal is the Visitors are alien reptiles! Later on Martin (Frank Ashmore) shows Mike the captured humans in cocoons. All of them are unconscious and for some reason one of the kids is hanging upside down in a cocoon. These people will be used as cannon fodder and food. Another bad thing the Visitors are doing is stealing the water, but taking people and knocking them out to be used as food seems worse! "V" is an excellent, creepy retelling of the rise of the Nazi Party. Instead of human Nazis persecuting human Jews, there are aliens persecuting doctors and other humans! The Visitors snacking on live animals like we do on cookies is startling to say the least! All of the actors are excellent and I like this version of "V" much better than the 2009 version by a long shot!

This is probably as good as it could have been for a 1983 TV (Miniseries). All the ingredients are here for some fine Small Screen Entertainment. It is the stuff Sci-Fi is made of, fantastical gadgets and spacecraft, Visitors with mysterious intentions, an advanced Society making contact with a more primitive Culture, pockets of skeptics, Native sympathizers, Freedom Fighters, and so on.This is more than cliché. It is the bedrock of the Genre and everything from Jules Verne to H.G. Wells to Arthur C. Clarke to Rod Serling to Gene Roddenberry to George Lucas to, well you get it, is homaged by Kenneth Johnson's little TV Epic as he just tapped into this Mythos and delivered an allegory that was top-notch TV.The Cult following that this Phenom has is well deserved and is mostly based on this Original Miniseries with some reservations on the follow-up and the Weekly Series that ran for two Years. None of the aftermath Shows diminished the Power of the Original and even today it is thought provoking and great Entertainment. It has Heart and is a timeless Horror/Sci-Fi Tale of caution and is rightfully placed as one of the best Miniseries TV has offered.

i loved this series growing up as a kid, it was one of my fav's along with the movies,, this movie seems to have it all it sets the stage for the series,, you have michael ironside, robert englund jane badler faye grant evan c kim,, the list goes on and on,, what a great story , you got aliens visiting our planet and trying to deceive us by saying they are our friends,, all the want is water they say , for their dying planet,, well a couple of our main heroes don't buy into that idea and they are off to prove to the whole world that the visitors are not who they appear to be. they are called the resistance led by Mike Donavan , and Julie, there is also something called the 5th column a secret society of V's that are against the leader,, they are led by Martin,, Dianne is the captain of the Mothership and no one dare crosses her ,, she is assisted by Lydia who doesn't get along well with others.. all in all this is one of the better TV movies of all time i think,,

If a ninety-nine out of a hundred science fiction films fall into being cliché ridden, one will stand out above the rest. V, in its original miniseries, would be one of those that stands above the rest. V is anything but your typical science fiction story of an alien invasion. It is a tale of a fascist (alien) takeover of our society and the resistance of a few in a society to it. As a result V, while a product of the technology and culture of the 1980's, is a timeless piece of science fiction.One of the elements to V's success is its cast. Leading, so to speak, the cast of human characters are Marc Singer as cameraman Mike Donovan and Faye Grant as med-student turned rebel leader Julie Parrish. Both Singer and Grant give nice performances that, for the most part, come across as real people in extraordinary situations. In fact the performances of the entire cast be described by that last phrase as well ranging from the Maxwell family (Michael Durrell, Penelope Windust as the parents with Blair Tefkin, Viveka Davis and Marin May as their daughters) who find themselves persecuted to the point of joining the resistance much like the Taylor family (Jason Bernard, Richard Lawson and Michael Wright) to the Bernstein family (George Morfogen, Bonnie Bartlett) who find themselves torn between their Visitor friendly son Daniel (David Packer) and the Holocaust survivor grandfather Abraham (Leonardo Cimino). In fact the single best scene involves Abraham, who is wanting to hide the persecuted Maxwell's, reminding his son that this whole situation is all too familiar for the consequences of them not being hidden means "we haven't learned a thing". This is a scene that is not only well acted and well written but incredibly rare in your average science fiction story as well. There's also many other fine members of the cast including Neva Patterson (Donovan's mom), Evan Kim (Donovan's camera partner Tony), Jenny Sullivan (reporter turned Visitor spokeswoman Kristine Walsh) and Kristine Walsh (as Gardener turned rebel Sancho) amongst many others. The human side of the cast is just the tip of the iceberg though.There's also a fine cast playing the alien "visitors" as well. They range from their seemingly benevolent leader John (played briefly and well by Richard Herd) to Andrew Prine as the authoritative Steven. Then there's the innocent abroad in the form of Robert Englund as Willie and the resistance from within the visitors themselves in the form of Frank Ashmore as Martin and Jenny Neumann as Barbara. Then there is Jane Badler as Diana, perhaps the most attractive and conniving of the alien visitors, who plays the role with a seriousness not usually found in this kind of role. Together they form one of the best, and definitely one of the most diverse, cast of alien invaders ever assembled.V is also aided by fine work behind the camera. There's the cinematography of John McPherson especially the tracking shot of characters watching the first contact sequence and the scenes in the mother-ship. The production design in the form of the mother ship interiors are fine examples of science fiction sets. There's also the special effects work ranging from the excellent shots of mother-ships (a decade plus before Independence Day) to the aerial dogfight at the end which all work marvelously for the most part despite a very few shots which don't look quite finished. No review of V is complete without mentioned the fine prosthetic work of the miniseries which range from the Visitors true faces to some rather uncomfortable dining sequences. Last, but not least by any means, is the fine score by composer Joe Harnell which takes puts together classical music influences and choir in one of the most unusual and best scores produced for any science fiction television piece I have heard, especially for the opening and closing credits of any part. In short: strong production values go a long way.To my mind V's ultimate success lies in the script and direction of Kenneth Johnson. V was originally conceived not as a science fiction tale of alien invasion but as the tale of a fascist takeover of the U.S which can still be found deeply embedded in the final product. In fact that is what separates V from many other alien invasion stories. V is about fascism, how people can be lured in by it, how far those in power will go to secure their position, how the average person will react and what happens when ordinary people stand up to resist it. There's also more then a few hints of Nazi Germany as well from the Swastika-like symbol of the Visitors to Friends of the Visitors youth groups (the Hitler Youth) and, before the miniseries is over with, a strong allegory with the Holocaust as well (see the miniseries to get it). Wisely Johnson also puts a fair (but not gratitude) amount of action in as well which helps to compliment the story and move it along. V is embedded in the technology and culture of the 1980's when it was made to sure but that doesn't date the story at all. Instead V becomes, like H.G. Welles War of the Worlds before it, a timeless tale of alien invasion and human resistance to it.What makes V successful? Well it's large cast of fine actors, nice cinematography, good special effects work, excellent prosthetic work and fine score go along way. Yet the true success of V lies in its script and story. Why? Because ultimately V is not about spaceships and ray-guns but is about people and their reactions to the extraordinary events around them.