Unexpected Treasures (2025) Movie Review: Quirky alien adventure dips its toes in a predictable and scrappy narrative

Shot in the endless, often empty desert wilderness of Joshua Tree, debutant director John Paul Ungaretti’s “Unexpected Treasures” had the upper hand of hiding its low-budget shenanigans under the guise of offering a wide-lensed, high-concept sci-fi adventure. So, instead of deep-diving into the quagmire of VFX-heavy back-and-forth between the good and evil, he opts for a more subdued look at human connection with a non-human in the mix. However, this quirky alien adventure eventually dips its toes into a predictable and scrappy narrative that wants to be one too many things at once, resulting in a messy, forgettable film.

Co-written by Christina Heller, the film follows Hartley (Olivia Blue), a down-on-her-luck young girl living alone in a trailer parked somewhere squarely in the Mojave Desert. To make ends meet, she works as a cleaner at an Airbnb owned by an always stoned James (Aaron Groben) and often hangs out with her tarot-reading bestie Kaia (Lauren Han). She has had a bad spring of boyfriends who have made her isolated and reluctant to any kind of connection. To add to the distress, she has an estranged relationship with her hippie mother, June (AnnaMaria Demara) – an ex-junkie who has never tried to make amends with her daughter.

Her life takes a spiritual turn when she accidentally meets an on-the-run guy named Sam (Mike Manning). She gives him a lift because he is being chased by a cowboy-like Bad Guy (played by Jay Whittaker). Initially reluctant to connect, finding Sam’s random rambling and claims to be false, Hartley slowly warms up to his charms. She learns that Sam is an alien (although she doesn’t believe the tall claim) who is trying to gather missing pieces of a cosmic puzzle so that he can escape the clutches of the alien bounty hunter they met earlier.

A still from Unexpected Treasures (2025).

Now, most of “Unexpected Treasure” is, for lack of a better word, quite expected. We know that the adventure will involve meeting more odd characters – the podcast guy and the construction friend, to name a few – but we also know exactly how the film will pan out. It is easy to trace how some Chekhov’s gun elements come into play, and while the film could have worked better with some form of mystery holding the narrative together, these elements end up making the overall story feel unnecessarily stretched.

Even though filmmaker John Paul Ungaretti is able to make the film’s central theme of the connection between people as the driving force, trying to shoehorn an estranged mother-daughter relationship, betrayal in friendship, and a rather unconventional romance as a part of the grander scope makes it even more scattershot. Doing so also hampers the sci-fi lore that Ungaretti tries to drop into the film, which eventually does not help in making things intriguing.

Talking about the cast, Olivia Blue is just fine in making us believe in Hartley’s unforeseeable coming-of-age arc arriving at her crossroads. Mike Manning is amply charming as the sugar-loving alien, and his interactions with Hartley’s character as they get closer are actually the best part of the film. Other than that, the biggest downside is Jay Walker’s cartoonish and over-the-top Bad Guy. He is neither menacing nor unhinged enough to leave an impact. The same could be said about AnnaMaria Demara, Michael Dunn, Lauren Han, and Rex Edhlund, who are all servicable at best.

For a debut, “Unexpected Treasures” feels like a film with all the ingredients, but not leading to a satiating dish. Much like Sam’s liking for sugar, an abundance of too many ingredients leads to a half-baked adventure, missing that secret sauce that would make it perfect.