Alien Express: What a cute little slimey killing machine!

Oh, how I wish I could show you a picture of the cute little tooth filled, slime-covered, snarling, snapping, obviously a puppet with cheap affects thrown on it, darling of an alien killing machine! We get to to see the little critter fairly quickly into Alien Express, and that's one of the reasons I just kept watching. The alien starts off small, since it had to travel through the atmosphere in a meteor just big enough to hit the hood of a car that contains an arguing couple (argument abruptly settled), set it on fire, and delay a train with a high powered senator on his way to run for president. The little beastie scampers off to lay in wait under the train, and quickly starts snacking on people too curious for their own good.

Normally even in a small town something like a meteor strike and what appears to be a grisly attack on one of the conductors of the train would bring in a team of investigators, and halt the progress of said train. Well, we have a jerk-ass senator, played by Barry Corbin, on board who throws his weight around, and gets things back 'on track'. (Bad puns are requisite when reviewing a movie this cheesy.) The senator has people expecting him, see, including young Miss Utah that he'll meet up with later in his cabin.

Never fear! Lou Diamond Phillips' character, Vic Holden, is here to have issues about his ex-wife, who is conveniently working for the jerk-ass senator, issues with authority resulting in him punching out his boss, and issues with his past that somehow makes him decide he should grab all the guns he can carry and talk his friend into flying him out to catch the train in a helicopter. Just for kicks we also have a man hijack the train because he's upset about the senator's position on drilling for oil in Alaska. This may sound like just a random occurrence, but wait for it... He has a bomb! What sort of twist do you think that will have late in the movie when the aliens have mass produced and are well-nigh invulnerable? Oh yeah, that's fine script work, that is! Or planning. Or something. Anyway, it just adds to the cheese and giggle factor.

There are a lot of fun characters on board the train, and we get a few good one-liners to keep the momentum going. The aliens start zipping around like the road runner with this really stupid, but horribly funny, effect. Oh, and it turns out that they're full of gas, so you can zap 'em with fire, or hit 'em with a bullet, and they just go 'poof'! No explosion, just a winking of light. How convenient is that when you're on a bullet train with a dead conductor? Last thing you need is fires everywhere.

This may sound like a waste of your time, but it really is a funny movie. If you get bored, just put it on mute and add your own dialogue to it. However, if you do you'll miss Todd Bridges in a kick-ass role that makes you forget about all that post-Diff'rent Strokes unpleasantness. And you'll miss cheesy exchanges such as:

Rosie Holden: 'I missed you. I thought you'd never come back.'

Vic Holden: 'I never left.'

Wait a second, Vic! Hell, yes, you left! We all saw you! You left her on no less than three occasions in this movie alone, never mind the divorce that you hint at. Oh, wait, that must be what writers call 'hyperbole'. Never mind. I digress again. I was too busy giggling to really pay attention to anything but the aliens, anyway. I think if you give this movie a watching, you'll be thoroughly distracted, too. Go on. Watch for it on SciFi's rotation, and give it a chance to make you giggle away two hours of your life!