NateWatchesCoolMovies The Sender is godawful Z-Grade SciFi with cloying, grating intentions, a script with War Of The World's type ambitions that was given an allowance of like ten bucks to come into fruition, and the result is a windows 98 screensaver with a fraction of a pulse. It's a shame because they scored two dope actors in Michael Madsen and R. Lee Ermey, but as good as they are they're both sheepishly notorious for appearing in bottom feeding diarrhea like this to put food on the table. Madsen strains his tear ducts as the sympathetic father whose adorable daughter has mysterious connections to extraterrestrial activity from years before. He's on the run from all kinds of government folks including Ermey's gonzo, overzealous military asshole, a one dimensional fire and brimstone go-getter who hunts them six ways to Sunday. That's about all you'll get, besides cameos from Dyan Cannon and golden oldie Robert Vaughn, as well as some Fisher Price worthy UFO effects and an all round lack of pride in the craft from everyone involved. Poo.

Leofwine_draca THE SENDER is a cheesy and unintentionally funny late '90s sci-fi thriller, clearly made to tap into the success of THE X-FILES around that time. Hell, it even has Steven Williams ('Mr. X' from the show) present, complete with ridiculously dyed white hair.Sadly this is a goofy messy of a movie, only worth watching to laugh at. Michael Madsen continues a trend of appearing in cheap B-movie action flicks and gives what can only be termed a wooden performance. There are some surprising faces in support, including Robert Vaughn and R. Lee Ermey, but it's no surprise that the characters they're playing are so stereotyped.THE SENDER adopts an action template throughout, with lots of senseless shoot-outs and some ridiculous vehicle chases to enjoy. Also, you can play 'spot Madsen's stuntman' throughout. Worst of all is the female alien, who turns up wearing a silver lame dress and glitter wig. At this point, you just know you're not going to be able to take this film seriously anymore.

froberts73 Wow talk about negative reviews. But, a few people enjoyed it. Count me in. I mean, Spielberg, it ain't, but entertaining in its own way, it is.Sure, there are complaints about Porsches outgunning trucks, etc., etc., but maybe the truck was souped up, so there.Car crashes? Every few miles a vehicle was sent flying and/or burning and, for a low budgeter, I found them fairly well done. But, then, I'm used to driving in Norfolk, VA.The acting was - well satisfactory. No one was really bad, no one was up for an Academy Award. An award for corn off the cob should go to the African-American gent with white hair and a constantly growling expression, like a tiger about to pounce. He never pounces, though. He leaves that to the underling tigers.Bottom line. Plenty of action, mixed in with some somewhat sci-fi.

junk-monkey This isn't the worst movie I have watched this year - but pretty close.Totally moronic "entertainment".Stupidities include our hero shooting the air hoses on the back of a truck to de-couple the trailer - huh? How is cutting the air to the brakes going to make the tractor unit and the flatbed part company?There is a prolonged fight on the back of a (not very) speeding flatbed truck in which our hero (played by Michael Madsen) is punched in the face several times and doesn't loose his sunglasses. Most people's glasses will fall off if they sneeze too hard. This guy's must have been stapled to his head, or maybe nailed - because Madsen's performance makes the hero look like a potato faced plank of wood. He reacts to everything that happens to him and around him with a blank non-reaction that is incredible to watch. During the course of the movie this guy's daughter is kidnapped, his house blown up, he's shot three times in the chest, resurrected by an shape-shifting alien, told his daughter is capable of interstellar travel by thought alone, he sees innocent members of the public gunned down, is nearly killed several times, sees old friends betray him and then get killed in front of him, kills many many people with an endlessly self-reloading hand gun and throughout all this mayhem and carnage, wanders around looking like he is suffering from constipation. Nothing seems to surprise, shock, baffle, or amaze him. Nothing registers but blank bovine stupidity. The only time he becomes at all animated is during one of the interminable car chase sequences when one of the bad guy's endless supply of black vans explodes right in front of him. Woooohoooo! Mongo like car crash!The ending is horrendously overlong and Michael Madsen's acting at the sight of his supposedly long dead father is a wonder to behold. His character has been supposedly obsessed by his father's death and when he, miraculously, gets to meet him, what does he do? Sort of grunts a bit and looks even more constipated than normal for a moment then sends his daughter over: "Go meet your grandfather" He doesn't even take his fecking sunglasses off!I had previously thought Sterling Hayden was the worst actor in the history of ever (apart from me) but on the strength of this movie alone his position has been usurped by Madsen. At least you could hear what Hayden said. His lines may have been delivered like the mail but at least they were delivered and not mumbled into the top of his shirt.Though, having said all that, the best bit of bad acting in this film comes pretty early on from someone else, Steven Williams as the evil Lockwood. Lockwood is asked a question by his evil underling and does some quick thinking. You can tell he is doing some quick thinking because his eyes quickly move from side to side like he's watching an off-screen ping-pong game.I wish I had been watching it with him and not this piece of sh!t. (The music is awful as well).