From the folks at Liberation Hall, we now have the belated ALF TV movie on blu-ray! If you’ve felt that your life has been meaningless and empty without that furry, smart-mouthed devourer of cats, worry no more! If you found yourself tearing your hair out with suspense at the end of the ALF TV series, wondering what would happen to him as he fell into the clutches of the military, buy yourself a wig and settle in for 95 minutes of Melmacian shenanigans!

For those who have never heard of ALF (and if you haven’t, SHAME ON YOU), the titular alien is a hungry, smartass creature from the planet Melmac who crash lands in the garage of the Tanners, a whitebread, middle class family in sunny California who had to deal with ALF’s wacky hijinks over the course of four seasons. The series ended in 1990 on a cliffhanger with ALF being captured by the government. This TV movie, produced four years later, picks up where the show left off with ALF in military custody being subjected to various tests. An oversight board has convened to determine whether ALF is a threat to the human race with the sinister Captain Milfoil (Martin Sheen) trying to make the case that ALF should be put to death while Major Melissa Hill (Jensen Daggett) and Captain Rick Mullican (William O’Leary) argue in ALF’s favor to protect him. Ultimately due to some underhanded tactics by Milfoil, they are forced to sneak ALF out of the Air Force Base and hit the road to deliver ALF into the hands of Miguel Ferrer, an ex-NASA employee and attempted UFO whistleblower. Along the way, expect a lot of wisecracks and sexism.

I have to say, it has been a LONG time since I’ve watched the ALF TV series. But for at least a couple of years, it was a weekly staple in my family’s household when I was a kid. I even remember the bizarre, downbeat series finale that hurt my 9 year old heart. Imagine my surprise to discover the existence of this TV movie that actually resolved that cliffhanger several years later! Of course I had to watch it. So revisiting ALF all these years later, how was it? Well, a bit of a mixed bag actually. I was surprised to find that it did legitimately have some funny dialogue (the best sequence is early on when ALF is being subjected to all the tests and he keeps repeatedly bringing up how Ed Begley Jr’s character electrocuted himself to death). The second half of the film really gets bogged down in too much plot though, forgetting for long stretches that it’s actually supposed to be a comedy. ALF also seems to behave in obnoxiously obtuse ways, even for him at times. Plus while William O’Leary offers a decent put-upon foil for ALF, he’s no substitute for the masterfully anxiety-riddled Max Wright (Willie Tanner, the dad) from the TV series (the Tanners have apparently been shipped off to Iceland in the Witness Protection Program according to an early throwaway line). Another interesting aspect of the film is that there isn’t a laugh track but ALF still pauses for laughs like there is one. Sometimes this actually make the joke funnier while other times it just feels off rhythm. If you need a jolly dose of ALF nostalgia though, this film will do in a pinch.

The transfer quality is surprisingly decent and clear for a TV movie from the ’90s. I mean, it still looks like a TV movie, but it was mastered well. The 2.0 audio track is similarly competent showing off the overly bombastic score. The extras are a little on the sparse side. There’s a photo gallery and some text bios of some of the cast and crew, but the main extra is a feature-length commentary with co-creator and voice of ALF Paul Fusco. While the commentary has its fair share of dead air and just describing what’s happening on screen, there’s also a solid amount of useful information about the film like the history of what happened with the TV series cliffhanger as well as how various cameo actors got involved in the project. It’s generally a pretty solid commentary track.

So is Project: ALF a hidden masterpiece that has been languishing in TV movie hell for the last couple of decades waiting for a rejuvenation of the ALF brand to show its brilliance? Eh, no. Having said that, it is briskly paced, intermittently amusing and will give you that cliffhanger closure that you’ve almost certainly been hankering for since ALF’s untimely cancellation in 1990.