A spaceship of incompetent Martians arrive in an Illinois farming community following a rebroadcast of The War of The Worlds. They're late to a failed invasion and assume Earth to be the target. It's Halloween and everybody assume that they are kids in costumes. A few do see the reality of the situation and try to fight back.

The premise is a fine sci-fi comedy idea. One of the aliens is doing a Jack Nicholson impression. They should be less warlike. They should be slacker war avoiders and the Enforcer Drone can go crazy. They could join up with the kids to battle the Drone while the adults remain clueless. The way that they're set up. It's hard to root for anybody. It has plenty of quirkiness but it struggles to find the humor. There are fun ideas but most of them fall flat. If they could keep the two kids with the aliens as they battle the Drone, the movie would function a lot better.

Feeble brained Martains happen to hear a Halloween re-broadcast of Orson Welles' legendary radio production of "The War of the Worlds". They, of course, don't know that it's fiction, and think they're hearing legitimate orders to invade planet Earth. So they descend on a typical small American town named Big Bean, and wreak all sorts of havoc while the hapless local citizens try to deal with the problem.

This is just this viewers' humble opinion, naturally, but there was too much in this PG rated sci-fi comedy that didn't work for him. The movie is lightly likable, but not particularly funny. Its good moments (such as the pesky Martians breaking into song) are few and far between. Instead of being funny, it's too often overly silly and tiresome. The makeup effects, animatronics, and visuals aren't bad at all, but they deserved better material. (There's also a cute robot in order to appeal to the youngest members of the audience.) In one goofy touch, one of the Martians, a dude named Blaznee (played and voiced by Kevin Thompson) speaks in an amusingly bad Jack Nicholson style delivery. This viewers' favourite line of his: "There goes my insurance."

The performances are mostly lame, but appropriate enough for this sort of no brainer entertainment. Douglas Barr ('The Fall Guy') is the new sheriff, Ariana Richards ("Tremors", "Jurassic Park") his lonely, depressed daughter. Ever delightful Royal Dano is a hoot as always, playing a farmer somewhat reminiscent of the guy he played in "Killer Klowns from Outer Space". Also among those playing the Martians are Jimmy Briscoe, Tony Cox ("Bad Santa"),Debbie Lee Carrington ("Total Recall" '90),and Tommy Madden.

Fairly harmless stuff for family audiences; the kids probably won't be too judgmental.

Four out of 10.

Sloppily directed, witless comedy that supposedly spoofs the "classic" 50s "alien invasion" films, but really is no better than them, except of course in the purely technical department (good makeup effects). And any spoof that is worse than its target is doomed to fail ("Casino Royale", "Our Man Flint" are worse than almost any James Bond movie). After two hours of hearing the screeching voices of the aliens, you'll be begging for some peace and quiet. (*1/2)