"Actor: Leslie Bevis"

• Spaceballs (Special Edition) | DVD | (09/05/2005) from £12.99   |  Saving you £7.00 (53.89%)   |  RRP £19.99

  May the farce be with you in this hysterically funny space oddity created by comic genius Mel Brooks that will send you into hyperspace with fits of laughter! Lampooning everything from 'Star Wars' to 'Planet Of The Apes' and 'Alien' this is an outrageous send-up of epic sci-fi movies. Fearless and clueless space heroes Lone Starr (Bill Pullman) and his half-man/half-dog sidekick Barf (John Candy) wage interstellar warfare to free Princess Vespa (Daphne Zuniga) from the evil clu

• Alien Nation | DVD | (03/06/2002) from £24.99   |  Saving you £-12.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Alien Nation is a routine cop thriller with a comedic sci-fi twist. They get drunk on sour milk. They have two hearts and bald, spotted heads. They're highly intelligent, but if you drop them in seawater they'll melt into a puddle of goop. They're "Newcomers", and they arrived as refugees in a massive alien slave-ship, quarantined for three years and then reluctantly accepted as citizens of Earth. To some humans--including seasoned Los Angeles cop Matt Sykes (James Caan)--the Newcomers are unwelcomed "slags". Sykes' own virulent "speciesism" intensifies when Newcomer thugs kill his partner, but he sees logic in teaming up with Sam Francisco (Mandy Patinkin), the first Newcomer detective in the LAPD. Francisco's Newcomer knowledge is vital to their investigation of an alien drug ring, and a friendship grows from life-or-death circumstances.Alien Nation has two things working in its favour: Caan and Patinkin form a memorable duo, and the basic premise--as conceived by Rockne S O'Bannon (who later developed the film as a TV series)--intelligently accounts for the sociological impact of an alien population. The subtle point is made that humans are extraordinary beings who squander their potential, and the evil of drugs--as dealt by a social-climbing Newcomer played by Terence Stamp--leads to a crisis that threatens to generate global intolerance. These points are well presented in a context of overly familiar plotting and standard-issue sarcasm. It's entertaining for a brisk 90 minutes, but in its attempt to be widely appealing, Alien Nation glosses over issues that might have made it more uniquely provocative. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com