interesting ideas but it becomes silly and formulaic. Also the whole idea of the story being a metaphor about race relations is so obvious it borders on offensive.

Ok buddy cop movie if you don't mind the plot holes.

What should have been a cool sci-fi alien invasion movie turned out to just be a boring 80s cop movie.

2.5 bags, so almost by the end of this movie I realized it, "Alien Nation" is also kinda like saying "alienation." So that's one bag. Caan? One more bag. Patinkin in alien disguise? .5 bag. I thot the aliens looked lame, except for the lady alien that came on to Caan I'da been like what's up. This was on prime and even though Amazon is a big evil corp prime has gotten me through 531 and saved me a lot on shipping to kinda like the aliens and themes of this movie whose to say whether that's good or bad. This movie also had Stamp, who was also a bad guy in Wall Street. Another reason I couldn't bequeath it more bags is cause they never say the name of the movie in either form. The score is this movie is likewise really bad, it needed some steel drums. It has some guitar playing in it where all the notes are all bent out of tune and the playing is sloppy AMF, guess the guitarist was on some of the drugs the aliens were slanging! So yeah I won't watch it again. Next?!!!

Cheap and surprisingly slow.

Tries to breathe life into the clashing partners cop theme by making one of the cops extraterrestrial, and doesn't make it. Sort of interesting, then forgettable.

Alien Nation was a film I enjoyed when I first viewed it in the 90s. The issue I found with revisiting the film was the lack of any real storyline setup. James Caan is solid in the lead role and is surrounded by a B movie storyline that should've been a lot fun. The issue is the high concept idea and storyline is uneventful. The mis-matched buddy cop idea never gels and the villains aren't overly villainous. This is a missed opportunity and when you see that the films score was changed and the filmmaker lacked the ability to blend the genres together. This would be worthy of an update/remake or even a sequel could work. This had all the makings of a future cult film, but missed the chance by making such a formulaic storyline. Why did they even have the aliens? They really didn't use the concept with the plot. 13/06/2020

One of my all time favorite tv series. Just finished streaming what I could and ordering DVD's collection to share with others.

This one had such a ridiculous premise and aesthetic, which makes the experience a lot more fun, if you know what you are getting into. The chase scene was top notch and along with the predictable conclusion, may have actually moved this up from a 2*. Definitely falls in the category of films that are more enjoyable than they are "good".

Crazy that this movie has a negative general review... It is a total classic and has two amazing lead actors, including the fact that Patinkin's character is mockingly named "Sam Francisco" and the bad guy is "Rudyard Kipling". That aside this remains one of my favorite films in the genre of a society based on us getting used to aliens walking among us, and in this case have lived among us so long that they have developed our morality to the point they join the police force!! The EXCELLENT move "Bright" which Netflix made has a similar premise. Alien Nation is a must see with everything that made the 80's great!

Not a bad story or movie, but not one I would say is a must see

"...takes the interesting premise of extraterrestrials living among us and doesn't do enough with it, emphasizing a police procedural plotline over the more intriguing sci-fi elements." Agreed.

I don't understand the hate for this movie? While it hasn't aged particularly well, it really brought to light some interesting questions and cultural insights, for the time. Over all, this movie was the alien version of Colors and it did quite well, but watching it now is a little tough.

A good 80s movie cop movie which happened to have aliens in it.

The only reason I've heard about Alien Nation, was that people talked about that District 9 is a little similar to this. When I the watched it, I can kind of see how it's similar, but it's not much of it. Alien Nation is a great movie that is a bit underrated in my opinion. James Cann and Mandy Patinkin are really great and their chemistry has some good laughs in it. While the aliens working at the Earth and now it can affect people can be very interesting and new at the time, and it only lasted for a few minutes and then it goes to the cop story that probably is one of the reasons why some people doesn't like this film. The cop story isn't bad per se, but we've seen this before and it does some of the buddy cop tropes. The characters are good, and the writing is decent. There's some new interesting ideas about aliens that honestly does it better with some of the aspects than Signs did. The make up is really great to the point that the alien's past is pretty interesting. If people actually don't like it because it's the same buddy cop movie but with an alien instead, I completely understand. For me, I enjoyed Alien Nation a lot for what it is, when though it should've been more original.

A different take on this mismatch cop buddy flicks. James Caan is the balls as the LA Cop who teams up with a new Alien partner to hunt the newcomer scum who killed his partner. Terence Stamp is a nasty cunt as the villian. I haven't seen this since renting it on video in 1988. It still holds up.

A decent story that was improved by the respective performances of James Caan and Mandy Patinkin.

This film is a cross between a Scifi film and a cop drama. The Scifi elements focus on a very good idea (the same one from District 9) that aliens arrive from outer space, but instead of villains they're refugees. The problem is that this immediately blends into the cop drama side of the story, which consumes it utterly without any apparent difficulties. So while the film itself is a pretty good cop drama it's mediocre Scifi. If you simply replaced the alien with the persecuted minority of the week then you'd have exactly the same film. I know that's the point, but if you're playing with aliens you really need to do something more with them beyond giving them odd traits like an addiction to sour milk and an allergy to sea water.

It's defiantly more focused on the buddy cop element than the sci-fi element but its still a good action packed film and I was completely fine with its final product.

Great movie. Alien Nation isn't completely original, as it combines minimal sci-fi with buddy-cop murder mystery, but it does have interesting parallels to the real world with its integration and discrimination with the aliens, sort of like an allegory to the way African-Americans were treated in the 60s and 70s. The film itself is entertaining, funny, some good thrills, and great performances from its cast, especially Caan and Patinkin.