Release Date: December 25, 2007 Studio: 20th Century Fox MPAA Rating: R Genre: Horror •
Thriller Director: Colin Strause, Greg Strause Writers: Shane Salerno Cast: Steven Pasquale, Reiko Aylesworth, John Ortiz, Johnny Lewis, Ariel Gade, Kristen Hager Synopsis: The iconic monsters from the two film franchises wage a brutal battle in an unsuspecting Colorado town. The Review: Your Critic for the evening: M
Here's the thing: I can handle messing with the mythology of a franchise. Sure its best left to use when it enhances a series, ya know something to kick it up a notch or three. Play it fast and loose all you like so long as you have a point.
So when AVP came out it took me a long time to swallow that horse sized pill. It just didn't make sense to me. Predators ruling as gods on high over ancient man? Ummm what?! Predators wouldn't really bother with that sort of nonsense in my opinion to say nothing of the fact that all traces of Predator history seemed to have been erased...but ok fine I can live with this silly shit. Predators are attracted by a few simple things: the heat and the hunt (not unlike guys on spring break really). Also they love to get their rocks off where violence can be found, easy enough to find on this rock of course.
So that said....the first flick took a HUGE left turn at Alberque and put the heat lovin hunters on ice? And you know what? As dog shit stupid as it was I came to accept it, oh I didn't love it but hey the dice rolled snake eyes so I had to just roll with it and hope for a better roll next time at the table.
Now we've got AVP 2, and instead of learning from past mistakes and finding a way to roll the hard eight they changed up the game and decided to play fucking Yahtzee instead...hell it ain't even Yahtzee it's Perfection. Every time you think you've got the pieces in place that fuckin timer goes off and tosses them all in your face...great now I've got an Octagon imprinted on my forehead! Thanks! Moving on...
Let me 'splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up; the Predator ship from the first film gets trashed falls back to Earth looking much like an FX's shot from "Deep Impact" (the asteroid movie not the porno)..nobody sees it except two people in the woods which leaves us to continuing pondering "If a Predator ship fell in the woods and nobody was around would it make a sound?" With me so far? Later a second Predator landing pod hits the lake...again nobody sees or hears it. Shortly thereafter our Predator detonates the first ship in a BIG white explosion....but nobody sees or hears this shit either. ..sigh...ok...I'm nitpicking but trust me this all adds up and takes its toll on your senses.
The Predator runs about cleaning up the mess like he's Winston Wolfe in "Pulp Fiction" if I could read Predator I'm sure the message on the screen would have been: "You ain't got no problem, Pred. I'm on the motherfucker. Go back in there, chill them humans out and wait for the Wolfe who should be coming directly." And it's not bad stuff, its useful even if it's the equivalent of "Extreme Alien House Make-Over", but sadly this good stuff will fall between what seems like HOURS of the lamest most useless boring human back story to hit the screen since "Wing Commander". Simple horror movie character development rules would have sufficed here instead of pulling out the Aaron Spelling play-book...hell if you needed some help I'm sure Uwe Boll could have swung by for a day and played Mr. Fix-It.
With a run time of 86 minutes you'd think this thing would fly at break neck speeds, sadly its just a ton of messy divergence on characters who you could give two shits about, only to have their eventual death hit you about as hard as a hooker getting mowed down on GTA: III. Nearly every bit of action is contained within the last twenty minutes of this sucker. Not that it isn't decent stuff but it's just not worth getting to.
The Aliens and the Predators are badasses in the world of Sci Fi action/horror...how is it THIS hard to bring them together and make a badass movie? Did the people making this even bother to watch the films that made them great? You could throw out a sensible plot and just put up 90 minutes of sheer Alien on Predator violence and we'd love it. Nobody gives a fuck if Ricky can't get Jesse to play with his cock and balls....not unless they get killed in the process (horror movie 101 baby!). "Learn it, know it, live it"
At the end of all things when you try to swallow a horse sized pill...you choke. Audiences can only take so much and a fan even less. Try treating both with respect and they'll love you for it.
I had hoped to pull out an M & Deez review for you on this one, he's a much bigger fan of the first one than I so I figured we could forge through this and keep one another on target. The poor guy looked like a kid on Christmas who didn't get what he wanted....I imagine he's not the only one. Rating:
