Time Enough: The Alien Conspiracy (2002)
Review by Doc Ezra
Film:
DVD:

Written and Directed by Ron Ford, Kevin J. Lindenmuth, and Alexandre Michaud
Starring John Fallon, Anthony Pereira, Neil Napier, Vito DeFillipo, and a host of other people that you've never heard of (for good reason)

Released by: Delta Entertainment
Region: 1
Rating: SFH (Suck Factor High; actually, it's NR, as getting it rated would have doubled the budget)
Anamorphic: No.

My Advice: You'd be better off gnawing on a broken lightbulb. Don't, for the love of all that is holy, see this.

Once, before I began my DVD reviewing career here at Needcoffee, I was blissfully unaware of the depths to which film could actually sink. Why, I remember a day when I thought Star Slammer was the absolute nadir of science fiction film-making and Ishtar was the worst thing anybody could do on film and still think they were "film-makers." I weep for those lost days of foolish innocence. For now, I have looked into the depths of the abyss, and found Time Enough staring back at me. I will never be the same.

To say that this "movie" is bad is to do great disservice to that most useful three-letter word. As some movies raise the bar for movie lovers everywhere, this one hucks it off the edge of the Marianas Trench and laughs maniacally as it sinks out of sight. Shot in glorious handheld video camera, with "actors" that can't be anything but buddies of the creators, on sets that I suspect double as the filmmakers' living rooms, Lindenmuth and Ford weave an incoherent tale of alien conspiracy, rife with bad writing, worse acting, and the cheeziest costumes this side of MST3K.

The plot (what there is of one) revolves around a conflict between two different alien species. One group wants us to blow ourselves up, the other wants to preserve the Earth and its people, but their motivations are unclear. In the midst of all this, there's a human (or not) agent planted in NYC that's trying to keep himself locked in some sort of time loop so he can spend time with his girlfriend before the world ends. In other (seemingly completely random and unrelated) plots, a chubby Bible-thumper gets infested by some kind of alien parasite, which basically has the effect of making him swear, murder people violently, and generally make Jesus cry with bad behavior. And then there's a slew of twenty-something friends at somebody's house when bizarre MiB types show up and start killing everybody. And then, there's dinosaurs ripped from a really bad Harryhausen screen test. All making sense? Good, thought not.

The real kicker, of course, was the discovery that this little gem is part of a trilogy. That's right. A trilogy. Peter Jackson has to argue with multiple studios to get a three-picture deal on one of the best fantasy series of all times, and these yahoos crank one out and get some sucker to burn 'em on DVD. To quote the inestimably wise Spider Jerusalem, "there is no balance in this place." In a half-hearted defense of the film's creators, I figure every generation needs an Ed Wood, and maybe twenty years from now somebody will get Johnny Depp's grandson to play these guys in a major release, but I doubt it.

The DVD itself features the incredibly shaky, grainy, and color-skewed video one would expect if you broke out a bargain-store handheld and shot a feature direct to VHS, using the same VHS cassette that you'd been using to record X-Files episodes for the past six or seven years. Audio is arbitrary, consisting of, I suspect, the pickup mic on the video camera for all sound. There are no features to speak of, which is hardly surprising.

In short, don't see this film. Don't mention this film to anybody you know, for fear they'll want to rent it or pick it up "just to see." In fact, forget I mentioned it. Move along. Nothing to see here. Nothing at all.