Have you ever wanted to take a belt sander to your chest on the off chance that it might ease the pain of what you're watching on TV? Welcome to Alien Tracker. But wait - it's not really Alien Tracker at all; it's actually a couple episodes of the Sci Fi Channel series Tracker slapped together with the word "Alien" tacked on to make it sound cool (which, in fact, it doesn't - with that title, I was expecting it to be a Frank Zagarino movie or something).

Former Highlander hunk Adrian Paul (who exudes all the charisma of a sack of hamster food) plays Cole, an alien "Tracker" (what th'?) who comes to earth in the form of an energy being. He floats toward a billboard advertising men's briefs and assumes the form of the underwear model (this is also where he gets his name). Cole is pursuing a murderous alien who has taken the form of gender-suspect wrestler Chyna (and when she mutters "kiiiiiiiill" in that thick, raspy drag-queen voice, you'll understand why she doesn't get more acting work). Meanwhile, female lead/eventual romantic interest Mel Porter (Amy Price-Francis) finds herself stranded in the middle of nowhere when her car breaks down. She freaks out when Cole comes staggering down the road in his tighty-whities, walking like a man who's just made in his pants. After he gets her car running again, she decides to give him a lift and winds up taking him home. "Home" is an apartment above the Chicago bar she owns, a customer-free dive that looks like the lobby at the Ramada (and she wonders why she isn't packing 'em in).

Eventually, Cole tracks down Chyna (because tracking, you see, is what he does) and they duke it out in an incredibly lame fight scene, accompanied by slow-motion and shoowoowwww-type sound effects - and while I was already in pain at this point, here's where I really began to have problems with Alien Tracker: the aliens have various funky powers and abilities, but they're employed without any rhyme or reason - sometimes, they sort of use the Force and fling objects at one another as they fight; other times, they can go into "hyperspeed" (which basically means they move around normally while the other actors stand still and some funky opticals fill the screen). They do some other crap, too, but in any case, they can only do these things when it suits the story - if the writers want Cole to be captured by the bad guys, then he suddenly seems to forget that he can yank guns from peoples' hands and throw them across the room. Of course, this is explained away by tossing in some nonsense about Cole's need to "recharge," but again, that need seems very scene-specific.

Anyway, Cole defeats Chyna only to discover that a shitload of other alien convicts have been living on Earth (and here's another dumb thing: how come Cole can create a human body by looking at a billboard, while the other aliens have to take over living humans?). Mel decides to let Cole stay in her place, and, as one might expect, a shadowy government agency that knows about the existence of the aliens rears its head. About an hour into the flick (as the second episode is spliced in), Cole inexplicably acquires a dreadlocked comedy-relief sidekick who not only isn't funny in the least, he actually drove me to plug the belt sander in and begin revving it up. This guy is an alien, too, but he can become invisible when it suits the writers. Finally, the movie stops (and there was much rejoicing).

Although watching Alien Tracker might be akin to boiling one's face in a deep-fryer, the quality of the DVD itself is just fine - the 16 x 9 transfer looks sharp, and the stereo soundtrack is spotless. Extras are almost non-existent, consisting only of trailers for The Dead Zone and Alien Tracker.

Fans of strapping young lads clad only in their skivvies might enjoy moments of Alien Tracker (especially the sequence where Cole is being tortured by the government guys - I know where Adrian Paul stored his lunch that day!), but the rest of us would be better off doing the dishes (or eating glass).