They are on to their next season, which I am so incredibly looking forward to that it hurts, random one shot horror movies. And here I am, stuck in Alien Versus Predator, and I have three episodes out I haven't listened to! Be still, my beating heart.
Alien Versus Predator I saw in the theater and maybe once afterwards. I remember being vaguely disappointed, as I was with Freddy v Jason. I thought the alien was made to be a little too weak, for sure, and I don't think I'd ever seen Predator 2. This was the first time since probably 2004/2005 I've seen the film.
Paul WS Anderson had directed Mortal Kombat, a film I have admitted I loved, and I remember being hyped he was directing this movie. As the film opens, we have American scientists discovering a heat signature in Antarctica. They assemble a team with Sanaa Lathan, Ewen Bremner, Raoul Bova, Tommy Flanagan and others are all recruited to investigate this occurrence, and they charge into Antarctica not knowing what to expect. Turns out a pre-Mayan, pre-Egyptian pyramid is buried 2000 feet below the ice, and when they get to it they find some ancient writing and signs of the Alien on earth. There is an Alien queen which awakes from a frozen slumber and lays eggs. Even more mysterious is the Predator weapons they find, and soon enough three Predators arrive, fighting against the Xenomorphs that are being released.
This movie checks all the boxes, it has what you want. It has humans getting dispatched and/or being strong and standing up to aliens or predators. It has alien on predator violence, cool kills on both sides. It has some spooky hunting scenes and pyramid intricacies, which are always fun, especially if you're a Egyptophile like me. Also I thought during watching this, think of what the team discovers in this movie: They discover hard evidence that there was a pre-Mayan pre-Egyptian civilization, it worshiped aliens, because not only does one species but two species exist, they discovered that the predators have been continually visiting earth and fighting aliens, and they discovered the technology of BOTH species. This is basically the biggest scientific breakthrough of all time.
You can tell from watching this that the director, writers, actors, production all took this very seriously. It's a big dumb loud action movie, but it's so grounded and so pumped full of love and respect that it never breaks the fourth wall and it never tries to be anything that it is not. It's the opposite of Fast and the Furious or Marvel, with it's winking, jabbing, stupid acknowledgement of how retarded it is as a series. I think when I saw this AVP film originally, if I had known how bad action movies were going to become, I would have enjoyed this more.
This is not trying to be a five star film everyone will love. I had a kickass time watching it, but this is a B movie and it's okay with that. Again, not flying it in your face, not trying to make you laugh or cry. It's just a film for it's audience and nothing more, and that give it a solid 4 stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment