“I had to put him in there, he was in the way.”

Justin’s rating: Go go power ranger!

Justin’s review: Whenever I feel as though life makes too much sense, that I have too great a grip on reality, and that my sanity is operating at peak efficiency, I grab the nearest Japanese scifi flick and inflict some neurological damage. Today’s brain purge is from director Keita Amemiya (Kamen Rider, Zeiram 2), who took a look at Terminator and Predator and even Critters and went, “Eh, too normal.”

Iria is an intergalactic bounty hunter who takes up a job hunting a rather nasty piece of alien work known as Zeiram, who is on his way to earth. She and her AI partner “Bob” create a huge trap that will suck the alien into a pocket dimension so that any battles won’t destroy half of Japan in the process.

The only problem is that when Zeiram shows up, a couple of dorky electric company guys named Kamiya and Teppei also pop their heads into the building to investigate — and all five are pulled into the Zone for a great showdown. Now Iria’s got to protect these two goobers while trying to take down this nearly indestructible alien.

But the two goons aren’t completely useless, and their unexpected assistance seems to throw the otherwise deadly Zeiram off-balance. He can summon minions, bite through things with his extendable puppet face, and apply a lot of lethal threats, but Iria’s got loads of gadgets, martial arts prowess, and a wicked bazooka on her side. Cue a lot of showdowns and escapades and plans between the hunter and hunter.

While low-budget, the scifi gadgets and explodey, shooty encounters are up to the task of selling us on a conflict between a seasoned bounty hunter and a powerful, Darth Vader-like bad guy. Iria even has a transforming battle suit that gives her extra powers and creates a light show whenever she starts wailing on her opponent.

Where things get really tense, however, is when Iria has to pop out of the dimension and gets trapped outside while the two earthlings are kept inside with the very cheesed-off Zeiram. So the two guys have to rise to the occasion and become action heroes (of a type) in their own right as she coaches them over a communicator.

I’ve seen an awful lot of Alien and Terminator clones, so I can tell you that it’s very rare that the filmmakers put much work or thought into making their creature distinct from the classic xenomorph or T-100. But here, Zeiram is a much different alien than what we usually get — imposing and freaky in design while sporting a lot of bioweapon surprises. The hammerheaded creature projects power and threat very well, a kind of Jason Vorhees from Andromeda.

The simple setup of Zeiram might not be wholly original, but it was good enough to kickstart a short-lived scifi franchise (1991-1996) that spanned two movies, a six-episode animated series, and a PlayStation game. As they say, an old idea done well with a few fun twists is worth seeing. And trust me, if any of the above inspirations I mentioned are among your favorites, or if you like high-spirited Japanese scifi action, you should hunt this down.

Intermission!

• I’m calling this guy “Hammerhead” and you can’t stop me
• Hope you didn’t want anything to make sense in the first minutes of this movie, because it ain’t
• Holy chonky cell phone, Batman!
• “Bob, will you please shut up? If you don’t, I’ll be forced to infect you with a virus.”
• This opening theme is not great, to be honest, but I love the early ’90s computer 3D animations
• Suspended animation gun looks useful
• Also, the troll-creating gun
• Freaky deaky doll head
• Getting a giant concrete column lobbed into one’s chest looks painful
• TRANSFORMING BATTLE SUIT TIME
• Maybe don’t shoot the containment unit holding your worst enemy
• The guy who always thinks his friend fought in WWII even though they’re in their 20s and this is 1991
• “Now they’ll never let us take him alive. Let’s do it, Bob.”
• Invisible walls! They’re in a video game!
• Zeiram is having a tough day trying to face down a truck
• Dang that arm bite looks nasty
• Boy I do not understand what was up with the weird white half-mutant Zeiram created and then squashed
• Vesper vs rocket launcher
• SKELETAL FORM… love the stop motion
• Can we agree that Japan is really good at making bizarre puppets?