A copy of the "Aliens Vs. Predator" sequel wandered into my sphere last night, and like an idiot I succumbed to the temptation to watch it. Now I have a pretty high tolerance for Alien-related silliness. I have found something to enjoy in all the previous movies, even the ghastly "Resurrection" (come on, Brad Dourif was in it!) and the mostly forgettable "Aliens Vs. Predator" (Lance Henriksen!). I cherish my "Aliens Vs. Predator" comic books. I even love the goofy "Batman Vs. Aliens" comic -- it has some really beautiful drawings. Just give me some acid blood and a big skeletal tail and I'm happy. But even I couldn't enjoy this movie. There's just nothing there. This morning I woke up and couldn't remember a single thing about it. Aliens and a Predator chase each other around. There are dull human characters (one named, with vicious cruelty, Dallas -- I hope Tom Skerritt kicked someone's ass for that). It's really dark and you can't see what's happening. I may have slept through part of it.It's all just so depressing. "Alien" fans had been waiting for so many years for a movie set on Earth. The one really great thing about "Resurrection" was that its ending set that up to happen, with superclone Ripley coming home at last. The first "Aliens Vs. Predator" does take place in Antarctica, but all the action happens in a giant subterranean pyramid -- it's so claustrophobic it might as well be a spaceship. But in "Requiem" the aliens crash-land outside a small Colorado town. You could have aliens jumping out from behind Dumpsters, lurking under your bed, chasing you through your own neighborhood. Yikes! And here it finally happens, but it's so chaotic and dark, and the characters are so boring, that there's nothing remotely scary about it. I miss the big drippy aliens who used to give me nightmares. As Mark Twain once wrote, "I have no heart to write more. I never felt so about anything before."
2 comments:
Sorry to hear this. The original AvP was no great shakes, but I saw it at a drive-in and I graded it on a drive-in curve (Charlie's Angels 2 and Anacondas also passed by this metric). An Alien-only film set on Earth would draw me to the theater on opening night! Especially if they brought Sigourney back!
I could never recommend the first AvP, exactly, but I did enjoy watching it -- drive-in curve is the perfect metric. There were some nice references to canon, like having Lance be the Company founder. And Lance has that great moment where he stabs his pen between his fingers, like his android does to Bill Paxton in "Aliens." I LOVED that. Sigh.
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