As science-fiction-reference checklists go, the 2002 Japanese allusion-fest Returner is a surprisingly fun one. Writer-director Takashi Yamazaki openly borrows his plot from The Terminator, his visual style from The Matrix, his invading aliens from E.T., his mothership from Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, his transforming scout ships from various anime series (most noticeably the Gundam line), and so forth. Returner arguably doesn't have a single independent idea to offer, but it does possess wink-wink charm, quickstep action pacing, and an impressive special-effects budget, which won't win over every viewer, or even every relatively open-minded science-fiction fan, but still gives it a leg up on most shameless genre knockoffs. Model/action star Takeshi Kaneshiro stars as a pretty-boy thug obsessed with vengeance against a high-powered crime boss (Goro Kishitani, who looks like he wants to be chewing scenery, but can't overcome his ennui). During a shootout, Kaneshiro accidentally wounds Ann Suzuki, who promptly tries to convince him that she traveled in time from an apocalyptic future, and needs his help to prevent an incipient alien incursion. Predictable mismatched-buddy action ensues, as Kaneshiro and Suzuki come to terms, while Kishitani follows his own malevolent, over-the-top path in the background. All roads lead to a fated confrontation between Kishitani and Kaneshiro, but thanks to Yamazaki's "more is more, and much, much more is even better" philosophy, the two arch-nemeses bounce off each other over and over, until they're both exhausted and half-mad with frustration, or would be if their respective ideas of coolness permitted them to show emotion. Just to keep the pacing up and raise the stakes, Yamazaki intermittently shunts the story forward in time to show the specific horrors his heroine is trying to prevent, which lets him show off with a bravura battle sequence between CGI aliens and the remaining Earth resistance. From that point on, Returner is a letdown; bullet-time martial arts (complete with actual bullet-dodging) and confrontations with faceless SWAT-team types, not to mention a few moments of nigh-intolerable weepy melodrama, can't compete with full-scale alien warfare, at least not in the eyes of the audience Yamazaki is courting. But Yamazaki is clearly a science-fiction fan himself, and in Returner, he shows some worthwhile style, if only by stealing the biggest and best possible elements for his serviceably entertaining genre mashup.