MOVIE REVIEWS : ‘ALIEN’ FROM SATURN

“Creature” (Citywide) rips off “Alien” and then compounds the felony by doing it poorly.

Ironically, this science-fiction horror picture is no cheap schlocker, but an earnest effort with decent hardware and special effects and a fine, soaring score. But director (and co-writer-producer) William Malone would have been better off having some fun with this pursuit and conquest of a Godzilla-like creature on the rampage on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. (The film was originally titled “Titan Find.”) That Malone takes his rendering of such trite, predictable material so seriously, of course, merely serves to invite a derisive response from the audience.

Menaced by dull dialogue and situations as much as by the creature itself is an attractive, largely unfamiliar cast that includes Klaus Kinski, who seems to have dropped in from “Android,” that modestly budgeted sci-fi film that’s everything “Creature” isn’t. Unfortunately, Kinski’s tongue-in-cheek intensity is but a guest turn, so “Creature” (rated R for lots of blood and guts) quickly lapses back into the doldrums from whence it came.