Skip to main content

Alien Vs Predator -- a review


I was watching a movie talk show the other day and one of the pundits on the panel mentioned just how awful Alien Vs. Predator (AVP) was. It made me realize that I haven’t watched this film in a while. I had been a huge Alien fan since seeing the original Alien in theaters back in 1979 (and had seen Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection) in theaters, also. I had never been a big Predator fan, seeing how the first film with Arnold (“Get to da Choppa!”) is really the only one that’s best of that bunch. But I enjoyed AVP when I first saw it on DVD back in 2004.


Granted, the movie takes liberties with the backstory of both franchises--which may be the major sticking point for most fans of the Aliens and Predators, but upon re-watching this flick I realized that the backstory that AVP creates for Aliens actually fits into the mythology by having Lance Henriksen return to play the original owner of the Weyland Corporation, an early version of the firm that keeps popping up in one form or another in the Alien films. But while it scores points for trying to add to the overall Alien mythology, AVP stumbles in how it posits that the Aliens had already been on earth centuries before Ripley first met one in Alien.



Another stumbling point with AVP is how cheesy the movie is, lacking the gravitas that directors Ridley Scott and James Cameron brought to the first Alien and Aliens, respectively. Paul W.S. Anderson, who wrote and directed AVP, is maybe better known for the slapdash (and seemingly never-ending) Resident Evil movies that star his wife Milla Jovovich. He brings the same popcorn mentality of the Resident Evil films to AVP, eschewing the attention to small details and gritty reality that make Alien and Aliens each masterpieces of cinema. Thanks to its dumbing down of its plot, AVP is nowhere in the same league as the first two Alien, films, or even the first Predator.



Still, AVP is entertaining in showing the battles between the monsters--Anderson brings his kinetic action style to good use here--and there are some really cool moments between the beasts, such as when a Predator casually lops off the head of an alien, who remains still for a second before collapsing in a heap. And the lead actress, Sanaa Lathan, makes for an engaging presence whom you want to root for. Granted, AVP is lacking--especially compared to the first two Alien films--but its popcorn film mentality (which makes the film dim-witted and disposable) also makes it an enjoyable lark. And, despite all of its faults, AVP, is still a much better film than its sequel, the risible AVP: Requiem.



Re-watching AVP: Requiem made me very bored and cranky. The movie is very dark--and I don’t mean tonally, but literally: you can’t see a damn thing that happens onscreen for the better part of the movie’s running time. It made me wonder if they ran out of money for the effects and simply decided to turn off the lights to hide the cheap monster suits they were using. Add a lame script with cardboard teenage characters--none of whom are sympathetic in the slightest--and you have a movie that’s truly a waste of time and film. If you really want a decent Aliens Vs. Predator story, you may be better off reading the original Dark Horse comics. --SF


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jack Reacher Never Go Back -- a Review

I was first introduced to Jack Reacher through the Tom Cruise movie of the same name that was released back in 2012. I liked the movie well enough, despite a few nitpicks here and there--but I really enjoyed reading the novels by Lee Child. Jack Reacher was a former US Army officer who retires and becomes a drifter, roaming from state to state in the country that he fought so hard to protect. And Reacher is still protecting us, taking on a variety of villains, from backwoods mobsters to big-city terrorists from book to book. The stories in the books are well-told, with great attention paid to the smallest of details. I think of them as 1980s action films, only without being insulting to your intelligence. What a perfect series to adapt to movies, right? Well, Tom Cruise looks nothing like how Jack Reacher is described in the books. And while I thought the first Jack Reacher film was good, the second, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back , is very badly flawed. Based on the JR novel of the sa...
Post a Comment
Read more

3 Body Problem

3 Body Problem , Netflix’s latest TV series, is loosely based on the first novel in the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, by Chinese author Liu Cixin (who also wrote the book The Wandering Earth ). Simply put, it’s an alien invasion story, but one that’s a lot more sophisticated than your average ‘pew-pew-pew’ cliché-fest. For one thing, this series begins in the 1960s, in the middle of the Cultural Revolution, which was the nationwide purge instigated within China by then-Chairman Mao to keep himself in power. A young woman named Ye Wenjie arises from the chaos to become a central figure in the overall story. The 3 Body Problem of this series’ name refers to a far-flung solar system that has three suns. Any planet within this tri-sun system would have a hard time of it, taking turns orbiting one belligerent sun after another, and it just so happens that the aliens who set their eyes on invading Earth--known as the San-Ti--come from this embattled world. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Holdovers -- a review

It’s always a joy to watch someone who’s a master at their work, whether it’s a musician, an artist, or an actor. Most great actors make it look easy--which is not to say that I think acting is an easy job. I know from personal experience that acting is very hard. It’s a skill that the talented make look very easy, and one of the most talented actors working today is Paul Giamatti. If you’ve watched some movies over the past few years, chances are very good that you’ve already seen Paul Giamatti. He was the jittery earthquake expert in San Andreas , the sympathetic police chief in The Illusionist , and as the titular John Adams (a part that got him the Emmy and a Golden Globe) in the 2008 HBO series of the same name. Recently, I saw Paul Giamatti in the superb The Holdovers , a movie that I wasn’t planning on writing up, but I kept thinking about it--and all of its characters--long after I saw it. In The Holdovers , Giamatti plays Paul H...
Post a Comment
Read more