This movie takes place shortly after the end of the first film. The Predators are leaving with their wounded comrade, but before they can get to far an Alien/Predator hybrid, a Predalien if you will, bursts from within and the small craft they are on crashes into the woods of Colorado. Word of the crash reaches the Predator homeworld and a lone warrior jets off to Earth to clean up the mess. While the Predator is en route, the Predalien is running roughshod through the woods, while the facehuggers that were on the crashed ship start hooking up with whatever hosts they can find, spawning more of the gooey critters.
After about half a movie's worth of lousy character blather the action finally begins to pick up. The Predator is going around town trying to clean up the mess left by his predecessors, as well as finish off the hybrid creature. We get some decent fights between the two creatures while the humans run for cover. However, as entertaining as some of the fights were, there was really no story holding it together and the execution was rather sloppy.
The character interaction and development is horrendous. Yes, the movie is about Aliens and Predators, but humans are still needed in the mix to help give audiences an "in" to the conflict and this batch just does not do the trick. They are either bland and uninteresting or annoying and need to be killed.
Beyond location issues and awful humans, the cinematography and lighting left something to be desired. Many of the fights were in the dark where it was hard to make out what was happening and was shot from angles that were not condicive to watching a fight. Then there is the ending, don't even get me started.....
By now, I am sure you are wondering if anything worked. Of course, some of it did work. First off, there was no mention of the pyramids or returning to hunt every hundred years, that was a concept introduced in the first film that just did not work. The creature designs were better this time around. Overall, there was a less cartoony look to everything, a bit more realistic (I know, I know) than the last outing. The Predalien was pretty neat looking and seemed to be particularly vicious. There was more of a reliance on preactical effects over CG, something that is becoming a lost art in this day and age.
I am beginning to ramble, aren't I? I am sure you understand what I am saying, we need to extract what joy we can because it is unlikely we will ever get the version that we want. I had hoped that AVP-R was going to be that winner, but it suffered from a poor script and poor execution of the concept. I will continue to hold out hope that they get it right next time, although I refuse to hold my breath as I am sure only disappointment lies down that path.
Bottomline. I admit, I had fun watching this. Enjoying the parts that hit the spot and laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. No, it is not a good movie. I do feel it is a step up from the prior pairing, but it still leaves a lot to be desired. The best I can say is lower your expectations, see it, and just have fun with it. Just realize that it is unlikely that we will ever get the great face off that we want.
Mildly Recommended.
1 comments:
I think one of the negatives that you left out is that they ruined the timeline of the Alien movie line. I don't recall the time in the original AVP movie, but wasn't the 1st Alien movie sometime in the 2100's. I did like all the neat gadgets that the Predator had.
Post a Comment