Updated 8/7/21
Scientists dream of discovering that we're not alone in the universe. But if there is life on other planets, letting them know that we exist may not be such a great idea. They may not just wanna eat Reese's Pieces and hang out with little kids. These movies are the best examples of Hollywood's take on E.T. gone wrong:
14. Monsters vs. Aliens
After aliens send a near-indestructible probe to attack the Earth, the U.S. government assembles a team of mutants, a 50-foot woman, a genius cockroach, an ape-fish creature, a giant larva and a talking blob of jello, to save the day.
13. Attack the Block
Attack the Block is the only movie I can think of in which aliens invade the projects. When local street kid Moses kills one of the creatures and takes the corpse to be stored in the grow-house in his building, he and his friends find themselves being pursued by more, larger and more aggressive, space predators. By the end of the movie, the stereotyped teens are appropriately, but reluctantly, acknowledged as the heroes that they are.
12. Independence Day
In Independence Day, the human race is united by perhaps the only thing that can unite it: aliens bent on the destruction of mankind. A marine pilot, an MIT-trained satellite tech, a Vietnam-era fighter pilot with a few screws loose and the U.S. president all band together to kick the E.T.s off the planet.
The Martian man-hunters operate enormous tripods that were hidden underground and that are equipped with force shields and weapons that can instantly reduce humans to ash. The invaders don't kill everyone they encounter. Many humans are harvested for their blood, which is used to fertilize Martian plant-life.
When Rachel is abducted and placed inside one of the tripods, Ray's paternal instincts kick into overdrive and he allows himself to be captured so that he can rescue her.
Luckily for the Ferriers, and the rest of us, the Martians are vulnerable to various microbes native to the planet to which humans have developed immunities.
10. Oblivion
9. Battle: Los Angeles
When hostile aliens make camp in the oceans near major coastal cities, the White House responds the way that it should in most of these movies -- it sends in the marines. Iraq War veteran Michael Nantz finds himself leading a platoon of devil dogs, a group of soldiers from the Army National Guard, an Air Force sergeant and a few civilians through LA as they dodge extra-terrestrials and, eventually, take the fight to the invaders.
8. The Tomorrow War
In the year 2023, Iraq War veteran and family man Dan Forester has seemingly made a successful transition back into civilian life. And then he's drafted for military service in a global effort to repel alien invaders. However, because the invasion doesn't take place until 2051, Forester and his fellow draftees are sent to the front lines via a wormhole. Why use fighters from the past? Because the war has ground the human population down to less than 500,000. And the situation is so dire that conscripts are given about seven days (if they're lucky) of basic training before deployment. The war machine is in desperate need of bodies.
7. The Suicide Squad
After a giant alien resembling a starfish is inadvertently released from his 30-year captivity, he sets about to take over the human race via countless spores capable of mind control. Task Force X members Robert DuBois, Cleo Cazo, Harley Quinn, Nanaue and Abner Krill take it upon themselves to take him on, disobeying orders in the process.
Following the death of the Superman, Bruce Wayne, Victor Stone and their comrades must repel a global takeover led by Apokalyptian general Steppenwolf.
5. Pacific Rim
Colossal aliens, named Kaiju by the Japanese, begin emerging through a breach in the floor of the Pacific Ocean and proceed to destroy the nearest metropolitan centers, including Hong Kong and San Francisco. It takes so long to bring these bitches down with conventional weapons that world leaders decide on an alternate course of action. Embracing the concept "size matters", various countries construct ginormous Voltron-style robots called Jaegers, requiring human pilots, intended to go toe-to-toe with the aliens.
4. Edge of Tomorrow
I gotta confess...when I saw the commercial for this movie I figured I'd skip it. I figured it would just be Tom Cruise going through the motions in a dumb, big-budget, glossy attempt to keep up with all the superhero flicks. I was so wrong I ended up going to see it twice. Tom Cruise's third alien invasion movie (and the only one without an assist from Morgan Freeman) is also his best. Edge of Tomorrow surpasses both 2005's critically-embraced (but audience-panned) War of the Worlds and 2013's excellent Oblivion. While Worlds mainly focused on the civilian flight from the aliens and Oblivion concerned itself with the aftermath of the invasion, Edge is all about the military's role during the war against the invaders. This film also provides much more information about, and glimpses of, the off-worlders.
Some time in 2015, extra-terrestrials, nicknamed Mimics, show up and ruthlessly slaughter their way from Germany to the rest of Europe (Sound familiar?). The hive-like organization of the aliens' society makes them more than a match for Earthlings. Luckily, former Major and now Private William Cage develops a neurological link with the Mimics that allows him to "see" what they're planning.
The heavy and detailed emphasis on the military makes it perhaps the best futuristic war movie of all time (The Empire Strikes Back is set "long, long ago", FYI). The film contains an amusing nod to another memorable sci-fi movie featuring the military as well. I'm not gonna spoil it by telling you which one. There is a significant amount of attention paid to combat training which is not customary at all for sci-fi war films. In this aspect, Edge is rivaled only by Starship Troopers and Edge is a far superior movie. Make no mistake, it is indeed a war movie, complete with Marine culture, scuffed up, tangible-looking high-tech weaponry and it has what could be described as the futuristic version of the opening of Saving Private Ryan. The most distinctive pieces of equipment featured in the film are the various exoskeleton battle suits utilized by the infantry in combat. Incidentally, such suits may not be science fiction for long as real life prototypes for similar types of apparatuses have been recorded as producing such results as lifting more than 200 lbs for the person donning it and walking at least one mile on a full charge.
The performances far exceed expectations as both recognizable faces and otherwise among the cast all manage to wholly disappear into their respective roles. Cruise in particular eschews his usual cocky, sometimes selfless, hotshot onscreen persona in favor of the complete opposite in order to render the cowardly and selfish Major William Cage. Displaying far more talent than is expected in a sci-fi action flick, Cruise really does seem like he's scared shitless and desperate to save his own skin when everything goes to hell. This isn't just "Tom Cruise in a battle suit". He's doing some acting here. Edge of Tomorrow is adapted from a 2004 Japanese novel entitled, "All You Need is Kill", which itself was partly inspired by the author's experience playing video games.
3.The Transformers
On the original Transformers television series, the Decepticons were content to simply mine for "energon" wherever they detected it but the 2007 movie features a much more aggressive Megatron who's obsessed with some nonsense called the AllSpark. He intends to use it to drive mankind to extinction and transform our complex machines into Decepticons.
After Thor's brother, Loki, cuts a deal with intergalactic species the Chitauri to share the Earth, a wormhole spewing the alien warriors' strike-force opens above Manhattan. Captain Steve Rogers, Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor, Hawkeye and Natasha Romanoff have a tough enough time repelling the first wave of invaders, equipped with giant flying whale monsters, and there is no way that they can defeat the full Chitauri army. So the brilliant tacticians at the World Security Council decide that the best remaining option is to launch a nuclear strike on the fully-populated island (Smh). Luckily, Iron Man is able to divert the missile into the wormhole and at the aliens' mothership before Natasha manages to close it. Crisis averted.
1. Man of Steel
Although Kal-El is an alien, an immensely powerful one, he has no interest in conquest. He's lived on Earth since he was a toddler and loves his adopted planet. But there are other members of his species who absolutely do not come in peace.
After Kryptonian General Zod hijacks global communications and issues an ultimatum to the people of Earth, the newly-christened Superman surrenders himself to the warmonger in exchange for his promise to end the hostilities. Zod's home planet, Krypton, however, was destroyed and he and his followers decide that Earth would make for a nice place to settle down -- once all of the pesky humans are gone. It's not that he has anything against humans, he just wants to terraform the planet and change the atmosphere to one more conducive to Kryptonians -- which would render it uninhabitable to the people who already live here. But since the Earth's atmosphere, gravity and sun grant superpowers to natives of Krypton -- why bother? Whatever. You just can't tell some people a damned thing.
Originally Posted 11/1/17
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