Ben 10: Alien Swarm

Ben 10: Alien Swarm
Promotional logo for the film.
Directed by	Alex Winter
Produced by	Alex Winter Gideon Amir
Written by	John Turman James Krieg
Based on	Ben 10: Alien Force by Duncan Rouleau Joe Casey Joe Kelly Steven T. Seagle
Starring	Ryan Kelley Galadriel Stineman Nathan Keyes Alyssa Diaz Barry Corbin Herbert Siguenza Dee Bradley Baker Alex Winter Wendy Cutler
Music by	Michael Wandmacher
Cinematography	Anghel Decca
Editing by	Scott Richter
Budget	$40 million
Country	Canada United States
Language	English
Original channel	Cartoon Network
Release date	November 25, 2009 (2009-11-25)
Running time	74 minutes
Preceded by	Ben 10: Race Against Time

Ben 10: Alien Swarm (also called Ben 10: The Movie in some cases) is a Science fiction live-action film that premiered on Cartoon Network on November 25, 2009, based on the animated series Ben 10: Alien Force. It is the sequel to the 2007 live-action film Ben 10: Race Against Time. The film was confirmed to be executive produced and directed by Alex Winter once again and written by John Turman and James Krieg. The cast were revealed throughout the Ben 10 Week towards the end of March 2009 in special commercials. A teaser was shown during the premiere of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc six days after the U.S. TV premiere of the film. The film also received a limited theatrical release in Australia. It takes place between the second and third seasons of Alien Force.

Plot

The film opens as Ben, Gwen, and Kevin are negotiating with a group of black market dealers, who are attempting to sell them alien nanochips. One of them reveals herself to be Elena, a childhood friend of Ben and Gwen and a fellow Plumber's kid. Elena explains that she had set up the negotiations to lure Ben out into the open, and explains that her father has been abducted and that she needs their help to find him.

Just as Ben agrees to help her, the chips suddenly spring to life, controlled by a man hiding in the rafters. Kevin sees it as a double cross, though Elena insists that she is not responsible. While the dealers escape, Ben transforms into Big Chill and drives off the intruder. Elena escapes in the confusion, further justifying Kevin's suspicions. Though Gwen quickly sides with Kevin, Ben is not as easily convinced.

Arriving at their headquarters underneath the Bellwood auto repair shop, the trio, along with Grandpa Max, study the chips, learning that they are a hybrid of organic and technological components. Elena, having followed the trio, breaks in; Max orders her to leave, explaining that Elena's father, Victor Validus, was an apprentice of his who was dishonorably discharged after stealing the original chips. Ben refuses to believe that Elena is like her father, and breaks ranks to help her.

While Max is away, Gwen and Kevin hack into the computer files relating to Victor Validus and discover a video of Max interrogating Victor, in which Victor insists that "the Hive", the hive mind intelligence behind the chips, is coming to take over the planet. Realizing that Max's anger towards Victor's betrayal may be clouding his judgment, Gwen and Kevin decide to aid Ben as well.

Meanwhile, Ben and Elena arrive at Victor's old laboratory. It has been cleared out by the Hive, but they left Ship-It order slips behind. Other discarded files indicate that Victor was studying and upgrading the chips, and a picture shows Elena is close to the person controlling them. A mob under the control of the chips attack Ben and Elena, forcing them to retreat. They head to the Ship-It building to investigate further, though Ben is now somewhat suspicious of Elena himself, having found an order slip made out for that day, when Elena claimed that Victor had already been missing for weeks.

Gwen and Kevin, having reached the building first, are too late to stop the distribution of the chips. Instead, they are met by one of the Ship-It employees, who is also under the chips' control. He has a chip swarm attack Gwen and Kevin, which eventually wreck Kevin's car (a modified Dodge Challenger) after a lengthy chase. Ben, overhearing the commotion and following them, uses Humongousaur (voiced by Dee Bradley Baker) to defeat the swarm, completely demolishing Kevin's car in the process.

By the time they return to headquarters, the chips have spread across the globe, and number in the millions. The group deduces that there must be a Queen (voiced by Wendy Cutler) controlling the Hive, and by destroying her they will likely destroy the chips as well. During their search for the queen, however, one of the chips takes over Max. Pulling together, the group notices an anomaly in the chip distribution; while world population centers are all infected, the relatively remote Barren Rock, Missouri, has the highest concentration. The town is home to the central headquarters of Ship-It. With Kevin's car out of commission, Kevin reveals that he has built a black and green car for Ben (a heavily modified Mazda RX-8), called DX Mark 10 (confirmed by Bandai and Dwayne McDuffie) as a "late birthday present."

Infiltrating the factory, the group discovers that the Queen infected Elena's father and his body is being used to mass produce the chips. Gwen and Kevin reluctantly suggest killing Victor to stop the Hive, but Ben and Elena refuse to consider it. Ben uses the Omnitrix to transform into a new alien that he calls "Nanomech" (voiced by Alex Winter) which was created by scanning the DNA of the chips. He enters Victor's brain and battles the queen while Gwen, Kevin, and Elena fight the drones. After a grueling battle, Nanomech electrocutes the Queen, and all of the other chips, freeing everybody from their control.

In the aftermath, Max, after personally apologizing to Victor, decides to retire and leave his position as leader to Ben, but Ben refuses to allow him to do so. The film ends as Ben, Gwen, Kevin, and Elena drive home.

Cast

• Ryan Kelley as Ben Tennyson
• Galadriel Stineman as Gwen Tennyson
• Nathan Keyes as Kevin Levin
• Alyssa Diaz as Elena Validus
• Barry Corbin as Max Tennyson
• Herbert Siguenza as Victor Validus

Voice cast

• Dee Bradley Baker as Big Chill and Humungousaur
• Alex Winter as Nanomech
• Wendy Cutler as The Queen

Home media

The DVD of the film was released on December 1, 2009.

Reception

The film received mixed to negative reviews from viewers, criticism on its dark storyline and the transformations going too fast.

Sequel/Other media

In the animated series Ben 10: Ultimate Alien there is a sequel to the Alien Swarm movie entitled "Revenge of the Swarm".

Taking place months after the events of Alien Swarm, Victor Validus attacks Ben at night. But, when Ben defends himself he finds a Nanochip. Ben, Kevin and Gwen find Elena Validus and see what is going on. Elena is now a scientist, taking over her father's place after his previous death. When Ben and Julie arrange a date, she is kidnapped. Ben goes to Elena and she turns into the Hive Queen. It is revealed that the Queen in Alien Swarm was a decoy and Elena was the real one. Elena makes clones of her father to destroy the ones that Ben loved, so she could keep him all to herself. After Gwen and Kevin show up just in time, Ben finds Julie in a closet and frees her. But when the Nanochips attack Ben and try to kill him, Julie convinces Elena to stop if she really cares about Ben as well Julie does. Elena then kills herself in order to stop the Nanochips and to show her true love for Ben. When Ben and Julie drive home at the end of the episode with Gwen and Kevin, the Nanochips reform. It's a sign that Elena might still be alive.

The sequel to this episode is the Ultimate Alien episode titled "The Perfect Girlfriend". Julie goes off to a tennis match abroad. Ben has to defeat Ssserpent. Julie soon shows up when she is strangely supposed to be at the airport and distracts Ssserpent long enough to get the police inside and chase Ssserpent out. She then saves Ben and explains that she thinks their relationship is more important than a tennis match. However, she acts strange, as she lets Ben stay home to watch Sumo Slammers while she, Gwen and Kevin go shopping. Gwen falls down the elevator shaft. She survives, but injures her left ankle. Ben, wondering why Gwen would fall down an empty elevator shaft, goes with Julie back to the mall to investigate. When the mechanic leaves, Spidermonkey checks it out, but accidentally activates the elevator. However, before the elevator could crush Spidermonkey, the elevator seemingly stops (you can briefly see Julie's eyes glowing, indicating she stopped it). Gwen, curious about Julie's behavior, asks Kevin to go spy on her. After the movie, Ben leaves again to look for Sserpent and Kevin follows Julie to Industry Boulevard, but suddenly, he is attacked by a building creature. soon gets a call from Gwen that Kevin is under attack. Way Big shows up and defeats the building creatures. Ben then gets curious about Julie's behavior as well, with Kevin saying the monster showed up right before she disappeared. He finds her at his place and gets her to watch with him a tennis match on TV. However, he finds it to be a replay of one of Julie's matches from yesterday. He finally recognizes the girl he is with to be an imposter and she reveals herself to be Elena. She explains that since Ben loves Julie, she masqueraded as her and tried to provide Ben everything he wanted to make him happy. Suddenly, the real Julie shows up so she could spend time with Ben, but then sees Elena. Angered, Elena transforms into her Nanochips form while Ultimate Echo Echo confronts Elena. She ends up defeating Ultimate Echo Echo by choking him with nanochips again, but then Julie drives her away by saying that if Elena kills Ultimate Echo Echo, then no one can have Ben. Elena then runs away into a sewer pipe, saying she now knows what hate feels like and promises to return again.

External links

• Official website
• Ben 10: Alien Swarm at the Internet Movie Database