“Your stupidity is terminal. And now you’re cured.”

Justin’s rating: You notice that aliens always hew to the color green for a color theme?

Justin’s review: I’m down for an apocalypse as much as any geek movie lover, but you can’t use the end of the world as a shortcut to be lazy. Just saying that you’ve nuked or plagued the planet doesn’t let you get off with telling lame stories with third-rate effects. If anything, I’m going to be judging you harder if this is the approach you’re going to take.

So consider the Mutant Court is now in session to review the case of the Alien Apocalypse. Egads, even the name is bare minimum effort. This is a pre-Sharknado Scifi channel original that Bruce Campbell and writer-director Josh Becker pitched along with Man with the Screaming Brain. They should’ve kept on pitching, I say.

A deep space probe crash-lands back on Earth 40 years after it left, spitting out four rather unprofessional astronauts. Two end up dying early on, leaving us with Doctor Ivan (Campbell) and Kelly (Renee O’Connor). The pair are caught up on the events that happened cheaply off-screen since their departure.

Apparently, bug-like aliens — called “Mites” — took over the world for its precious resource of wood. A few humans were left to serve as slaves or slave masters to process the wood into planks, and if anyone tries to escape, their fingers get chopped off to become (ahem) finger food for the aliens. Even worse, if you try to stand up to these jerks, you get your head bit clean off.

While humanity might have given up, our heroic astronauts still have some spunk left in them. So they start to inspire their fellow slaves by digging a comically big Hogan’s Heroes tunnel, making speeches about hope, and eventually fighting back.

It’s all fourth-rate Battlefield Earth shenanigans — and Battlefield Earth was already third-rate. You can predict exactly where this entire story is going in the first 10 minutes and subsequently have to endure the remaining 80 with a stiff upper lip.

The only points of amusement were the occasional exasperated quips that Campbell spits out and the weenie chatter that the aliens use. These invaders are so frail and unthreatening that I wouldn’t be surprised if they were named Phil, Percy, and Penny. Every time they speak, one gets the impression that they’re all lower management sent on an unauthorized junket.

Let’s not rally to the defense of Alien Apocalypse, however. It’s simply not worth your breath. If it wasn’t for Campbell’s name on the marquee, there wouldn’t be a single thing to mark this as notable. The soundtrack is painfully generic. The CGI is marginally more realistic than Veggie Tales. Everyone is wearing terrible wigs for some reason. And the acting was the first casualty of the alien takeover of the planet.

Bruce Campbell’s mugging can’t turn this travesty into a mere tragedy, nor will your viewing infuse it with purpose. Alien Apocalypse can’t be bothered to try for your entertainment, so you’re under no obligation to give it the time of day.

Intermission!

• Aliens make human slaves wear masks, the jerks
• Space capsules can land without parachutes and their inhabitants will be mostly fine
• You can breathe high levels of radiation
• Portland is toast
• If you walk slow in the future, you’re gonna get shot
• And now, “How planks of wood are made” educational segments
• Wait, they’re cutting off fingers to use as snack food? That’s unnecessary.
• Aliens like to bite off your head if you sass them too much
• That old guy is 35
• Aliens give them one day off a month to rest
• Two chest compressions and then you call it a day? What a doctor.
• Start yelling for “freedom” and nobody cares
• He’s a doctor of… slugs?
• The alien funeral is a lot like Ewoks chanting
• That “operation” looks like he’s butchering the guy
• “The president lives!”
• The Lord of the Rings journey shot
• I am Sparticus too, you know