Alien Nation (1988)

	Also Known As: Futur immédiat, Los Angeles 1991 (French)
	Year of first release: 1988
	Director: Graham Baker (Beowulf)
	Actors: James Caan (Rollerball, Misery), Mandy Patinkin, Terence Stamp (Star Wars Episode I)
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF, Polar, Action
	Conditions of visioning: 12.06.2015, DVD, Home cinema
Synopsis: Aliens have landed on Earth years ago and are now assimilated to the population, not to the joy of all. Sgt Sykes (Caan) will team up with one of them (Patinkin) to solve a series of apparently unrelated crimes.
Review: A classic among the Science Fiction B-serie movies that I had never seen. I was immediately struck by some similarities with Neil Blomkamp's District 9 that must have been influence by it, in particular the backdrop story of alien population integrated to ours but at the same time victim of prejudice and racism, and the hero befriending one of them. And this population consists of workers/slaves, not the elite class. I read once that every SF movie is allowed one suspension of disbelief from the viewer, i.e. we are ready to accept one scientifically wrong fact in order to get into the movie and accept the rest of it. In the case of Alien Nation, you just have to accept that the aliens look humanoid and are visibly actors with rubber masks (not even badly done for 1988), and the rest will follow. Then I liked the inter-species criminal investigation, the acting of James Caan as grumpy cop and its growing friendship with the alien Sam Francisco (unimaginative names given to aliens also remind me of "Christopher" in District 9). In conclusion: a nice B-movie for amateurs of the genre. A TV-series even spawned after the popularity of the movie.
Rating: 6 /10