Ben 10: Alien Swarm movie review
Content
Ben 10: Alien Swarm
(2009)
I only knew anything about the cartoon Ben 10 (on Cartoon Network) because it used to come on before Clone Wars, so I used to catch five minutes of it or so before that show started. I wasn’t really pulled in by Ben 10, since it mostly centers on a kid who has a magic alien wristwatch that lets him change shape into dozens of different weird alien creatures. Shakespeare, this ain’t. But they started hyping a live action Ben 10 movie, and while that didn’t look great either, it had two things going for it; one, the actor who would be playing Ben, Ryan Kelley, had been terrific in two outings on Smallville playing a young telepath who befriends Clark. The other was that they would be featuring some sort of leather-clad bad girl biker chick who was an old friend of Ben’s. Hey, I’m easy – a cute brunette in head-to-toe leather can draw me in to pretty much anything. The story is pretty much Ben 10 meets the Borg; odd little chips appear, and it turns out they were originally stolen from the lab of the organization Ben works for (the incredibly poorly named Plumbers, a sort of intergalactic MIB) by the father of the bad-ass biker girl. So you have Ben’s cousin Gwen (Galadriel Stineman – man, that’s some cruel parenting) sort of disliking the new girl, and resident tough-guy Kevin (Nathan Keyes) griping as well. But Ben trusts her, and I’m with Ben, because Elena (Alyssa Diaz) is pretty cute, and, well, any girl who lives in leather pants has to have something going for her. It turns out the Borg nano-queen has taken over Elena’s dad, and the team have to reverse the effects of the little buggers and save the dad. The script is pretty sub-par, and the acting is eh. Kelley is earnest enough, but he’s nowhere near as compelling as he was on Smallville. Stineman is just sort of there, although Keyes as Kevin is kind of fun. Diaz just has to pout and protest a lot, and she’s sort of reserved for a biker girl, but she was acceptable eye-candy. The effects are a little cheesy – some of Ben’s shapechange monsters look a little cheap, but one lizard-Hulk-type thing looks okay. Overall it’s not very good, but considering it’s literally a live-action cartoon, it could be a lot worse. Some of the one-liners are groaners, but it’s entertaining enough. Would I watch another one? That pretty much depends on Elena’s wardrobe not changing much. Mindless fun, accent on the mindless. February 15, 2011
(2009)
I only knew anything about the cartoon Ben 10 (on Cartoon Network) because it used to come on before Clone Wars, so I used to catch five minutes of it or so before that show started. I wasn’t really pulled in by Ben 10, since it mostly centers on a kid who has a magic alien wristwatch that lets him change shape into dozens of different weird alien creatures. Shakespeare, this ain’t. But they started hyping a live action Ben 10 movie, and while that didn’t look great either, it had two things going for it; one, the actor who would be playing Ben, Ryan Kelley, had been terrific in two outings on Smallville playing a young telepath who befriends Clark. The other was that they would be featuring some sort of leather-clad bad girl biker chick who was an old friend of Ben’s. Hey, I’m easy – a cute brunette in head-to-toe leather can draw me in to pretty much anything. The story is pretty much Ben 10 meets the Borg; odd little chips appear, and it turns out they were originally stolen from the lab of the organization Ben works for (the incredibly poorly named Plumbers, a sort of intergalactic MIB) by the father of the bad-ass biker girl. So you have Ben’s cousin Gwen (Galadriel Stineman – man, that’s some cruel parenting) sort of disliking the new girl, and resident tough-guy Kevin (Nathan Keyes) griping as well. But Ben trusts her, and I’m with Ben, because Elena (Alyssa Diaz) is pretty cute, and, well, any girl who lives in leather pants has to have something going for her. It turns out the Borg nano-queen has taken over Elena’s dad, and the team have to reverse the effects of the little buggers and save the dad. The script is pretty sub-par, and the acting is eh. Kelley is earnest enough, but he’s nowhere near as compelling as he was on Smallville. Stineman is just sort of there, although Keyes as Kevin is kind of fun. Diaz just has to pout and protest a lot, and she’s sort of reserved for a biker girl, but she was acceptable eye-candy. The effects are a little cheesy – some of Ben’s shapechange monsters look a little cheap, but one lizard-Hulk-type thing looks okay. Overall it’s not very good, but considering it’s literally a live-action cartoon, it could be a lot worse. Some of the one-liners are groaners, but it’s entertaining enough. Would I watch another one? That pretty much depends on Elena’s wardrobe not changing much. Mindless fun, accent on the mindless. February 15, 2011
