Review by Stephanie Scaife.
51 is another of the After Dark Originals produced by SyFy, and a particularly lacklustre effort at that, which for this sort of low budget made-for-television movie should give you an indication of just how dull this is. Directed by Jason Connery (son of Sean), 51 is an army vs. aliens horror film that pretty much fails to deliver on almost every level and despite a few recognisable names in the cast, they all appear to be phoning in a performance just for the paycheque.
The premise is that due to decades of overwhelming pressure Area 51 has finally decided to let the media in, under strict supervision of course. The lucky few picked to gain access include reporter Claire (Vanessa Branch), TV anchor Sam (John Shea), camerawoman Mindy (Lena Clark) and photo journalist Kevin (Damon Lipari). Colonel Martin (Bruce Boxleitner) has been tasked with giving the visitors a heavily chaperoned tour of the facilities, which of course aims to completely overlook that fact that there are actual living alien specimens within Area 51. Rather inconveniently, on the very same day of the media visit Patient Zero, a hostile shapeshifting alien life form, escapes from his cell, goes on a killing spree and sets loose the other aliens held captive within the facility.
Also along for the ride are two rather whiney soldiers, Sergeant Hannah (Rachel Miner) who is deeply troubled by a past event where she was falsely branded a hero after committing an act of cowardice (which we learn via a pointless and badly delivered monologue) and Aaron “Shoes” Schumacher (Jason London) who spends the duration of the movie just looking very, very tired.
The plot itself is fairly derivative and nonsensical, borrowing heavily from other better films; for example, a scene where they are all tested in a bid to figure out who is the alien is unashamedly straight out of The Thing. Otherwise it’s just a matter of the small cast running back and forth through the same three rooms that are just decorated slightly differently each time to make it look like a large scale military base, being killed off by some rather dodgy looking and decidedly unscary aliens. Nothing else really happens and little is explained as to the ins and outs of Area 51 or where the aliens came from.
One positive that 51 has is the lack of CGI. The gore effects and the aliens are good old latex and fake blood, which I always appreciate over cheap looking and poorly done digital effects. Sometimes there can be something appealing about these sorts of schlocky low-budget films, but not here. 51 is mostly just a boring waste of 90 minutes that you’ll undoubtedly wish you’d spent doing something more worthwhile, like watching paint dry.
51 is available now on Region 2 DVD and Blu-ray.