Alien Raiders
Alien Raiders is, believe it or not, even more generic than its name suggests. The main body of it is a standard hostage drama, with Ritter riding herd over a clashing team and Seth trying to get background on them while worrying about his stepdaughter. The other 25% of the movie is similarly familiar “the alien could be anyone!” paranoia. On paper, that sounds like a good combination, but it doesn’t work that way. Ritter’s team are too professional to be worried about their hostages; the hostages are too scared of Ritter to entertain the notion of a parasitic alien.
The standoff plotline is even more lifeless. Where most movies built on that line have some intrigue coming from the hostage-takers’ plans, there’s none of that here; heck, I’m not sure Ritter even has an exit strategy. Tension fails to materialize between Ritter’s group and his hostages; sure, they try to escape, and there are tests to try and determine which may be aliens, but it’s never the sort of situation where something we learn may become important later, and nobody ever does anything unexpected. In addition, Bernard and St. Patrick do not make compelling adversaries, both of their characters are too level-headed.
