SpecialsTarget Disturbing yet enthralling

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Edwin The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Oslo Jargo (Bartok Kinski) *** This review may contain spoilers *** *Plot and ending analyzed*A mix of the films, The Dark (1979), The Hidden (1987), I Come in Peace (1990), and Predator 2 (1990), it really does do much with the topic involved.First of all, the problem with Something Is Out There" (1988) is the sheer time itself. On TV, this clocked in at 5 hours, and what a waste of time. I kept waiting for it to get better, but it didn't.I like the corny intro and sappy 80' music, but not much else is worthy in this lazy production. Even the creature itself is hampered by fuzzy and dark camera work that obscures it. Rick Baker did the work on it.Well, the plot is layered with so many layers of filler, mostly the dumb cop arguing with everyone else. Family matters, his smoking addiction, and his relationship with the police commissioner's daughter played by a dull Kim Delaney, fills the run time.Robert Webber (12 Angry Men (1957), The Dirty Dozen (1967), and Midway (1976)) is the police commissioner. He's wasted in this sluggish production.A space prison ship that has some "evil" alien that takes over the mind's of the other prisoners destroys the power of the prison ship. A medical officer is the only one who survives, and well, she's hunting the alien on earth. She meets up an extremely unlikeable cop. His pal is George Dzundza. That's about it. They find the alien with relative ease. Throw in some stupid moments where everyone gets infected with the alien and then it ends.A lot of time is wasted on nothing at all, as I said, all they do is talk. What action there is doesn't have any dramatic effect at all. It all is a very tedious experience.

tgreene_msp I remember seeing this mini-series and some of the series episodes that followed. What I remember most about this series overall is that it was the the way most Americans got to see the latest Bond girl (Living Daylights) in a non-Bond role. The downside to that fact was that Maryam was still playing the smart attractive sidekick to a dark-haired rough-edged leading man. Not exactly much of a stretch. I think this is why NBC followed the Nielsen/Arbitron crowd and abandoned its support for the series (not the last time the network would take that course, of course). Considering that both the Sci-Fi Channel and the Movieplex channels have aired this movie/series more than once tells me that there is something that sets this apart from a similar themed show on NBC in the past (...Matthew Starr). Now that even short lived TV shows/TV movies of the recent past are showing up on DVD, maybe this one will show up soon as well.

HyperPup Its a shame this piece of 80's goodness went virtually unnoticed. You had a very sexy alien, a hard jawed and jaded cop, and a shapeshifting alien all brought together to do battle in Los Angeles. Sure, other movies have had similar plotlines but what set Something is Out There apart from the overall premise, was that the characters had weight to match their looks and agenda. Its not enough that the jaded cop is uninterested of all the grisly murders going on in LA, it turns out that they are caused by one alien trying to assimilate into a lifeform suitable for earth, but he doesn't believe in aliens. Until, he meets Ta'ra who is the sole survivor of her crew, duty bound to stop the alien unwitingly released on Earth. And before that happend she was a simple med tech on board her prison ship, interested in doing her job well, the occasional romantic interlude with a male crew member and catching up on the captured broadcast of "Crime Story". Suddenly their lives intertwine into a life or death battle with the unstoppable. It did well enough to become a series and most of the episodes were really decent, but the demographics just weren't there and most viewers probably were turned off that the hunt to stop the orignal alien never was completed. SciFi channel sometimes airs this series but it deserves better, at least a run on home video if not DVD.

silversprdave "Something is Out There" is one of those rare made for commercial TV horror/SciFi movies that works. (Kind-of sort-of a SPOILER up next) It's plot was very similar to "The Hidden" but is different enough to hold its own (Actually, there are dozens of movies with the "aliens walk among us" theme, and I think there could be dozens more.) Unlike most TV movies of the time, this one does have reasonably good special effects. All in all, a good movie, although perhaps a bit lengthy. I rated it a 6 of 10.