Posts Tagged ‘AvP’

AVPR: Aliens vs Predator – Requiem

Friday, December 28th, 2007

VERN VS. ALIEN VS. PREDATOR DASH REQUIEM

Aliens, predators, why do you always gotta fight? Why can’t you just resolve your differences? I know they say “whoever wins, we lose” but I’ve seen both the AvP movies and clearly nobody is winning anything. We lose, and you lose our respect.

RESURRECTION and RATATOUILLE were already taken and they needed something that started with an R, so the title of this thing is REQUIEM. That might make you wanna ask who died, but you already know the answer: the remaining dignity of aliens and predators across the universe. Two proud races slandered and humiliated, on the Lord’s birthday no less. And why? For what? What the hell did aliens and predators ever do to us other than entertain and delight us, scare us, fuck up our space colonies and skin some dudes in a jungle? Nothing. And for that we give them a franchise so lazy it can’t even be bothered to spell out its own titles.

Okay, let me say this. The directors of the movie, who are credited as THE BROTHERS STRAUSE (I picture them as the Barbarian brothers, preferably holding battle axes while on set), are not entirely incompetent. I don’t believe they will ever be smokin hot directors like Ridley Scott was when he created his masterpiece ALIEN (sorry BLADE RUNNER, but you know it’s true. Why don’t you go cry in the rain now?) or like James Cameron when he made one of the best sequels ever made (ALIENS or T2, take your pick). But better than Paul Not Thomas Anderson? Yeah, I’ll buy that. On par with Stephen Hopkins? Sure, why not? I could believe that. But this is no PREDATOR 2. That’s all I ask is a PREDATOR 2 or greater level of quality, but I didn’t get it. (more…)

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AVP: Alien vs. Predator

Monday, September 25th, 2006

Judging by this title, we are dealing with a story about 1 (one) Alien facing off against 1 (one) Predator. Maybe the Alien dripped acid blood on the Predator’s invisibility machine, so they start getting up in each other’s face or something. It is hard to predict what would cause them to fight, but it is easy to predict the outcome. The Alien wins because the Alien is hands down cooler than the Predator. Sorry Predators, just tellin it like it is. Of course, the title could also mean the actual movie ALIEN is facing off against the movie PREDATOR. In that case ALIEN will be defeating PREDATOR for tension, atmosphere, originality, and artistic legitimacy, while being roundly defeated in the oneliner and gun size departments.

But the title ALIEN VS. PREDATOR is misleading. It is actually MODERN DAY HUMANS + SOME CGI ALIENS AND TEENAGE PREDATORS. It turns out that the ancient Predators built a pyramid in what is now Antarctica and it’s still there under the ice. Once every 100 years exactly, a Predator ship comes down, sets loose some Alien eggs and has their Predator boys fight the Aliens as a rite of passage. Maybe they are from the south of Predator planet and this is their equivalent of deer hunting. Or Texas football.

You learn alot of new things about the Predator culture from this movie. Number one, they have a pyramid. Number two, they look fat when they have all their armor on. These teenage Predators would make pretty good bouncers, but not the greatest movie monsters.

The movie stars Sanaa Lathan (Blade’s mom), Ewen Bremner (JULIEN DONKEY BOY) and unfortunately Lance Henriksen (everything). As always, Mr. Henriksen does a good job and adds depth to the movie (taking it from negative depth to just about sea level). But I say “unfortunately” because it’s a crying shame he has to say yes to a project like this and, worse, that this is probaly one of the better movies he’s gotten to do in recent years. (Not including ABOMINABLE.) It’s a crime that a guy with as much talent and unique presence as Lance Henriksen is stuck being what I call a Paypal actor, meaning it seems like you can just go onto his websight and order him using Paypal and then he has no choice but to show up on your set and do your movie. (more…)

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