This post was published over 700 days ago and therefore may not represent current Outside Context thinking or opinion. Please, do not let that detract from your enjoyment of it! Franchise movies… they will murder us all!
Tagline– Whoever wins.…we lose.
Written by– Paul Anderson
Directed by– Paul Anderson
Staring– Lance Henriksen, Sanaa Lathan, Raoul Bova, Colin Salmon, Ewen Bremner, Agathe De La Boulaye, Agathe De La Boulaye, Tommy Flanagan, Carsten Norgaard, Joseph Rye, Sam Troughton, Tom Woodrfuff Jr & Ian White
Storyline–The film is set in the present time at the beginning of the 21st century and a group of scientists and archaeologists travel to Antarctica to view some ancient pyramid ruins. These ruins are deep under the ice surface which were formed much earlier than the pyramid ruins in Egypt. When the group reaches one of the pyramids in Antarctica, they discover human skeletons and the fossilized remains of Facehuggers and Chestbursters. They also find out that these aliens might be still alive somewhere in the pyramid ruins but unknown to them, there’s also another species of alien exploring there — the Predators
Aliens and Predators, two species separated by two million (light) years of evolution, are suddenly thrown back into the mix again… how can we possibly be expected to know what gonna happen?
Who the fuck are you?
These days we don’t get a film, and we certainly don’t get any attempts at real characterisation. These days plots are lifted wholesale from other franchise films and even computer games, but then what do we expect from a film based on a comic book?
In the previous films (especially the first) we were given a tour de force in characters. Ripley’s ur women wonderfulness (I really fancy Ripley in alien) is stripped of all feeling and dumped in the lap of Sanaa Lathan who is given one direction:
“…give me more grumpy and bossy!”
It is a pale cypher of the original. The rest of the crew are just as vacant. You have Spud from transporting (Ewen Bremner), and I don’t just mean the actor, I mean the fucking character who must be thinking this is all a drugged up trip and he going to wake up back in Scotland at any moment.
Sorry spud mate you are in a different hell now!
We also have latin lover Raoul Bova, who decodes ancient languages like nobodies business.
Finally, the other character of note is the ever present Alien fodder, Lance Henriksen.
Some people have commented that this guy breaks the continuity of the alien series because he was in Alien 3, hundreds of years into the future. Actually if you watch the laserdisk of Alien 3, you can see that Lance is once again playing the android Bishop and he had lied to Ripley (so there!).
He is filmed in washed out tones to highlight his features as he struts around in a rush due to on crouching death from cancer.
Everyone else is there to be killed and eaten.
The humans also have some guns to (g36’s – chosen in all modern movies because they look spacey and sexy. Some of the guys also have the smaller Dessy” Eagle). They, of course, come to no aid when the the enemy are awakened. The human warriors are just too silly and soft. In much of the film their softness is evident in how easily they die. This is more like the showing from early in the previous film: Aliens where Sgt. Apone buys it than the gutsy fight out later when Hicks and the remaining crew make their stand. The humans in AVP truly are cattle led to the slaughter.
You never see the eyes of the demon until he come calling
So if the humans are the fodder then this must be a creature feature. It is actually two. The noble predators and their Rastafarian invisible pike man routine versus the ever grisly Alien perfect hunter ant mentality nightmare and it is here that the cash has been spent.
One ugly motherfucker
The Predator’s effects are easy now. I remember back when the governor of California was a commando who passed on Lybia (his team are not assassins), the Predator was literally added after the acting because the initial design was soooo bad (Looking like an anorexic lizard). Aliens versus this original Predator would have been a easy call had they had not come up with the excellent tribal raster shtick.
Coming into Earth for sport (again!) and to prove themselves (a sort of adult rights of passage) the Preds are very skilled in killing humans but seem to have problems with Aliens.
Get away from her you bitch
Said Aliens are now even more convincing. Having been awakened they burst out the humans, team up and go after everyone else. One alien in particular is given a little character by his head being crosshatched by a predator razer net weapon (first seen in predator 2).
As I said the humans are made very short work of but the Preds sell themselves much dearer.
There follows a series of maze, oh don’t look behind you, type set pieces all self contained so they allow maximum word of mouth chat after the film as in the “dude, you remember the bit when…” etc
Finally the ancient languages guy and Lance buy the bucket, leaving only our lady and the baddass of the Preds left to work together. A clever plot line is the way she finally gets a weapon that can kill the aliens; an alien tail for a pike.
I personally think the pike is underated as a weapon of movie war, as Alexander aside its only really used in The Edge where Hopkins kills a bear with it. As a weapon it relies on the enemy impailing itself onto the end. I think as a plot device it would have been brilliant to have the Hobbits in Lord of the Rings as pikemen. Thier size, passive-aggressive natures, and team spirit would suit the pike well whereas the swords just look silly. Imagine Sam taking on Shelob with a pike! (You remember that he eventually beats her by using Sting as a pike right?).
This is all building up to the father predictable climax of these two versus the now escaped Alien queen. This final duel, predictable though it is, has some amazing action and shows how Hollywood is able to convincingly show almost Manga levels of violence and destruction. After all, when a 7ft predator, a women and a 30 foot queen Alien in chains have a five minute fight in a snowstorm, whilst at the same time everything else blows up, you can be sure that the effects team knows their onions.
Essentially thats the story: a switch your mind off, teen version of a film I had high hopes for. It is a shame that so many modern films are not meant for anyone over 21 and I feel a little left out. After all, Predator 2 and Aliens still make my pulse go above normal but I feel this film, good though it is, wont be flicking my sprong 10 years from now. Shame.
Scores
7 out of ten
Where 10 is Bladerunner and Empire Strikes Back, 9 is Collateral and 1 is God of Gamblers 2
pred 1 = 9
pred 2 = 8
alien = 9
aliens = 10
alien 3 = 6.5
alien resurrection = 5
OTHER RESOURCES:
There is a very funny animated review of this film on newgrounds: HERE
Trailer HERE
Popularity: 1% [?]
Related Posts
Most Popular Posts
Related Posts
Dell Alienware M11x Review: Portable Gaming Heaven?
When I was considering taking a year off, I started looking around for a computer that I could take with more
