Nobody goes to AvP expecting Citizen Kane. It's a fan-boy movie, plain and simple. ("Heh-heh! Wouldn't it be cool if the Aliens fought the Predators?" "Heh-heh, cool, yeah, that's why Dark Horse has comic books about it." "Heh! Cool!") The only question one's going to take in with them is: does the movie suck or not, and, if it does, how badly?
Remarkably enough, this movie doesn't suck.
It's no Citizen Kane, all right. It's not even Aliens (which it parallels almost disturbingly). But it rings all the right bells, and plays all the right tropes, and surprises you and even impresses you in a few places. And if it's a breathtakingly rushed 90 minutes long, that just means there will be some really cool bits in the (inevitable) Directors Cut Super Platinum Extended Edition DVD.
If you like either franchise, or just want some B-movie blood-and-guts-and-acid action, AvP will suit the bill, at least enough to satisfy matinee prices.
Spoilers—seriously—below ...
I managed to get into a "sneak preview" this evening. Certainly there were a lot of folks in attendance who wanted to see it. And most of them appeared to walk away happy, or at least satisfied. Me, too.
- Plot-wise, the movie is structured pretty similarly to Aliens -- big corporation funds ostensibly well-prepared expedition to investigate something weird, which turns out to be a bunch of aliens who proceed to take them all apart, except for the buff take-charge-but-with-motherly-instincts who, alongside a warrior sidekick, blows them all to flinders, except for a torqued-off queen who gets dispatched into the cold depths.
There are other parallels as well, if you stretch a bit, and there are some visual and throw-away homages to the Alien and Predator movie franchises to boot. Pleasantly enough, though, they're simply swift winks to those who recognize them—those who don't aren't going to be bothered by them in the least.
And the parallels to Aliens (and, to be sure, any number of other Kill the Monster flicks) are not necessarily bad ones. It worked in that movie, and this movie has enough differences to make it work, too. And if it doesn't have a Newt (for good or for ill), it does have a similarly interesting ensemble cast—albeit ones who get a lot less screen time before they get done in.
The basic plot-line of the Predators building a initiation dungeon on Earth, manned by human cattle and filled with defrosted Aliens, is pretty cool, to be honest, and the "pyramid" dungeon, with its odd, claustrophobic passages and huge, spooky chambers, and its regularly shifting walls, really makes this movie work.
For all that does work, there are two basic flaws, both of which can be laid at the feet of writer/director Paul Anderson. First off, the movie is way too short. Everything plows along at high speed, allowing for minimal suspense. An article I read the other day said that a distinct effort was made to keep the Aliens from showing up immediately, and it's true that they don't. But they still show up too quickly, and even if, arguably, there's no need to drag out a lot of people getting bushwhacked, the time interval between "He's in trouble" and "Oh, he's dead now" is disturbingly short. Ditto for most of what else goes on. Characters barely get a few words, gestures, and moments for the audience to say, "Hey, she's cool, I wonder—oh, she's been killed," or, "Hey, I wonder if we'll see another scene with—oh, he's dead, too."
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
very fine job Dave, great to have you back, thanks!
2 - jadester
you do of course realise, that there is a whole series of Aliens Vs Predator novels and comics?
I'm not sure if the plot of the film closely follows any of these in particular, and as you'd expect there is a fair amonut of "duds" in the group, but equally there are some pretty good stories to be had.
3 - *** Dave
I'm not only aware of it, I even make reference to it in the first paragraph.
While there may very well be some very good AvP comics/novels out there, I don't believe that the impetus to produce them, or this film, was the desire to make great literature. It was more, "Predators vs Aliens -- would that be cool, or what?!"
There's nothing wrong with that (or with cross-overs in general -- I particularly liked a Walt Simonson-drawn Robocop vs Terminators series, of the same ilk). One can certainly tell good stories that way. And there are elements of this film that certainly qualify -- like I said, I'm happy I went to see it, and think I'll probably pick up the DVD.
But it's not a great movie, or even (IMO) a great sf/action movie. Aliens, at least, was better. That it's fair-to-good is nothing to sneeze at, esp. since I think most people are expecting less of it than that.
4 - Tom Johnson
From what little I've read from fans of the comics and films, PWS Anderson has basically destroyed both franchises with this one - taking little bits here and there that he liked out of each one and ignoring everything else that didn't suit his needs, like the Alien lifecycle (I hear that someone gets face-hugged and minutes later a chestburster appears. It's always been an un-listed amount of time, but seemingly several days, and then the creature runs off to mature for a couple of days.)
I'm a huge fan of the Alien franchise, not so much of Predator, but I think I'm holding off on this one until the DVD - especially if it'll contain extra footage.
5 - jon
the part where she kills an alien and gets 'marked' for her efforts is lifted out of an AvP novel from some years back. well, in that novel, at least the predators brought the female protagonist (she was asian in the book i think; japanese, if i remember correctly) to the predator homeworld where she was accepted because she had the mark of the warrior that the predator whom she fought the aliens with, had given her.
come to think of it, the novel had the same premise as well: pesky humans occupying and setting up base on a planet used for the predator's hunting.
oh well.
was her name machinko in the novel? somehow that name comes to mind.