M-41A
12-27-2007, 05:49 PM
Before I begin my in depth review of AVP-R, I would like to apologize for this thread all together as I know there are a large number of threads already regarding the movie itself. But I feel this thread will offer my own vast feelings, critiques and thoughts on the movie and will spark some good clean conversation of relevance from one Alien/Predator fan to many others about the movie, both franchises and the like. This review will be long and drawn out which much written and said and will have many spoilers. I will not touch on everything in AVP-R or give away everything as time is of the essence and I am a busy man working, and writing for friends’ web pages and such. I will touch on whatever comes to mind. But I will do my best. However, please enjoy and discuss. Please leave this thread alone and bump it in the days and weeks to come.
To start things I will stand tall and proud to proclaim this aloud: Paul and Colin Strause nailed it. They nailed it. Minus the sub-par acting and George Lucas-like dialogue, these two hit the nail right on the head and scored one for the home team which is my team mind you or even your team; a team for which was devastated when AVP I was released and viewed because quite frankly; it was horrible. This is a franchise about Aliens and Predators battling and hunting each other to the death and nothing more. No cheesy temples, characters and sub plots. Who cares about humans, right? We want to see Aliens and Predators killing each other. Take note though, I love the Predators and wear there team logo upon my baseball cap. Going into this movie, I wanted to see blood and action. I saw this. I saw this indeed and am darn happy about it. Predators hunt Aliens for sport and trophies as the Predators are aware that the Aliens themselves are their numero uno nemesis even more so than that of humans and dinosaurs. On the other hand, the Aliens are aware, and are almost equally gifted hunters as the Predators are. The Strause Bros realized this, kept it real and from being fans of both franchises themselves, they went to work and never looked back. At this movies end, you have a true favorite main character, unlike at the end of the first one due to the portrayal. Scar had tact and was likeable indeed, but was young and inexperienced, hence him allowing a face hugger to impregnate him. Flip to AVP-R and we the fans are introduced to a Predator we have never seen before. We as fans have someone or something to cheer for. And at movies end, we truly think that this new Predator, whom I will touch on a bit later, is one seriously awesome Predator not to mention one BAMF.
Side note: Somewhere in the world of now, I truly hope the director of the first movie, a name for which I refuse to say aloud and or type with my digits is cowering alone, in some corner of a dark room crying his heart out in disgust with images of those three red dots and what could have been had he pulled his head out of his rectum to construct a decent movie (AVP I). On his desk, for the rest of his life he should have a framed picture of the Strause Bros dead center.
I have had plenty of time to analyze this movie as I have seen it three times in two days and I must say I liked it equally all three times with the exception of a few late arriving opinions I formulated. You know, you see a movie the first time and you love it. But you see it again and maybe even again and you start to notice things and the qualms come forth. First off, the movie itself only spans 86 minutes, which is a bit of a let down. It is a let down because with how well I feel the Strauss Bros did do on this movie; they could have done so much more. Some of the fight scenes could have been longer. And there are a few scenes that I would have loved to have actually seen, rather than imagine. It is also a let down because, well I am a true fan darn it, and I want a two and a half hour movie with Aliens and Predators fighting and killing at will. I swear, twenty minutes longer and I’d be completely elated with tears of joy instead of my current mood which does in fact involve a large smile minus the tears and quick kneel to the cinematic Gods. But the movie is rated R and rightfully so as any movie of either franchise should be rated R, with blood, guts, gore, cursing and the like.
The movie starts with an obvious Predator scout ship of some sort still flying around the earth. This tells me that this scout ship launched from the rather huge main ship we saw at the end of AVP-I after Scar’s life line had ended and we caught our first glimpse of the Elder Predator interacting with an allied human, ala the end of Predator II. And since we once again see the hybrid burst from Scar’s chest, we are to assume that this movie takes place maybe even hours from the end of the first movie. The ship itself crash lands in the wilderness near a small Colorado town due to the birth of the hybrid or Predalien. The Hybrid is born in flight and slaughters the Predators at will and with much ease. Now I enjoyed these short scenes because it shows the power and might of the hybrid as well as tease us and we have actually fully seen the hybrid in its entirety yet. You see this hybrid is more alien than Predator, obviously, but add on the Predators pure strength and survival instincts and you have a cross breed that reigns above the average Alien and average Predator. But make no mistake about it, the Hybrid itself looks amazing. I give major props to the creative department of this production because their creation of the hybrid is true to form and simply looks incredible. Sci-Fi fans should applaud. Shortly after the ship crashes, due to a Predator misfiring with its plasma cannon at the Hybrid and hitting the main control systems, causing the ship to crash, the chaos begins. This same Predator, injured and dying attempts to activate its self destruct mechanism, but the Hybrid catches onto this quickly and kills the Predator. Through interesting, yet very simplistic sub-plots, the Pred-Alien and its children of sorts, start spreading through the small city as fast as the plague. Face huggers, face huggers of which were already in captivity aboard the Predator ship, escape the crashed vessel and go to work. At the movies beginning you become excited and you realize that this movie will hold back nothing, as we see a small young boy both attacked by a face hugger. A few frames later we see the chest burster burst from the young boy’s chest. I say this because I mean common people, what kind of a movie kills a small child in such a violent in humane way? Exactly. And boy do the Aliens indeed earn there checks, spreading through out the city very quickly and with an obvious purpose to slaughter and spread. Through out the course of the movie, we learn that the Pred-Alien has its own personal agenda at hand which involves it spreading its seed to as many people as possible. We also learn that the Pred-Alien can spread its seed without laying eggs as it not only has that second slashing mouth that protrudes out from its mandibles, but has the same sort of long hose like tube that the face hugger has. All the Pred Alien has to do is shove that down the throat of its victims and pump its new borns directly into the bellies of pregnant women. Now this intrigued me some, because we learn that the Pred Alien can do this. Just the same we learn that the hybrid can sense and seek an already pregnant human, knowing that this humans belly can hold more seeds. By knowing this, the hybrid can impregnate a human with more than one Alien, unlike the typical face hugger which is good for one seed and than dies.
Enter, stage right, our hero and soon to be BAMF. The production team called this particular Predator “The Wolf” because it is much like one. We, the fans learn this as well. Now upon tracking the scout ship from its home world (through seeing this we learn more about the depth of the Predators technology as well as assume that it is in fact the Predators home world) this Predator, I too will call him The Wolf, embarks on his own search and destroy mission to basically seek out and kill the Hybrid, a creature he identifies through tracking the ship and actually viewing what had happened on the ship, much like we ourselves would on a home surveillance system or monitor. He watches this, and immediately picks out a special helmet of sorts, arms himself and blasts off for Colorado. Adding more motive and fuel to The Wolf’s fury and fire, upon finding the crashed ship, we learn that the Wolf has a strong emotional connection to one of the deceased Predators for who was slaughtered by the Hybrid. This fact may have been why it had been tracking the ship in the first place. This deceased Predator was a loved one of sorts to The Wolf. This enrages the Wolf and off it goes. Now let me touch on the Wolf for awhile; it is no ordinary Predator. It is a veteran of the species. A true warrior of the Predator realm it is, with much hunting experience and many new and old weapons at his disposal. Not only does he have his own plasma cannon, but he adds to his cache of killing devices by taking a plasma cannon off of the dead Predator it had known and attaches it to his plasma cannon harness, thus giving him two shoulder cannons, one on either side; awesome I say. We also learn that the rumors were right on queue as this particular breed of Predator is the extraterrestrial version of Harvey Keitel from the movie Pulp Fiction. It is a cleaner. Its job, in addition to seeking and destroying the Hybrid itself and any other Aliens it comes across, is also to clean up and destroy any and all traces of its own existence and of the Aliens as well. We see it do this time and time again through out the whole movie. The Wolf itself is an splendid sight to see upon arrival and even at the end of the film. Like the Predators from I and II, this Predator looks and acts how a Predator should or at least how we feel they should and have come to know them as. It is slender, fast and extremely talented and athletic. Several scenes in the movie allow us to witness this. In AVP I, the Predators were huge gargantuan and thick and resembled football players, rather than Predators. This Predator is intelligent and fierce, and is there to take to prisoners. We learn this when a Deputy who is armed, yet no real threat is killed by the Wolf with no mercy. I know, duh, he’s a Predator; his main duty is to hunt and kill. I know this, but this scene sends a separate message. From this scene I gathered that the Wolf killed him because he saw the Wolf in the first place and for no other reason. From this scene, the Wolf begins his search, seeking out the Aliens through the usage of new technology, never before seen by us the fans. This new technology is that of a tracking system which is a part of the Predators control panel in this lower forearm. He tracks them from the DNA sample he took from the crashed ship and seeks out the Aliens. I loved these scenes, personally, because we really get to see the Predator, hard at work and hunting. But never lose focus; he is there to not necessarily kill humans, yet to kill the Hybrid. But if threatened by humans, he will kill them as well. We know this for certain from a scene where the townsfolk, armed and unarmed, are in woods searching for missing people. Travel back to the first Predator movie of that Predator stalking and watching Dutch’s crew and we all know what happened to most of them right? Right. This time around though, the Predator already has a job and focus at hand which does not include human trophies. And at movies, end, after seeing new weapons, technology and meeting the Wolf, we grow to really like him and pay him tribute as the coolest Predator we have scene thus far.
In conclusion, the Strause brothers brought back a large amount of the original music from the first two Predator movies, and “Aliens”. This made the movie extremely enjoyable because it brings its fans back to the roots of these two franchises that we have all grown to love. And though the AVP series is in relation to the other two franchises, however not a part of either series, the music makes the movie that more enjoyable. In addition, there are several scenes shot a certain way, and certain dialogue that has been added to AVP-R to entertain us and to pay homage to the other films and their memory. We get to see the camera itself move up tree lines music on queue also soaked with blood, hanging torsos, the Predator leaping, lunging and climbing with athleticism, along with human dialogue to remind us of Dutch, human enemies and big business owners to remind us of Mr. Weyland or “Bishop” from the end of Alien III, and even human characters to act and remind us of our old friend “Hudson”. Add in scenes of the US military being surrounded in the rain by an unknown number of an unknown enemy, ala the Marines while in the hive on LV426 in “Aliens” and you have yourself a nicely created compilation of all of the other films.
AVP-R was entertaining and well done. Much better than the first, and upon movies ending, we learn that there is still more story to tell as the humans, or more importantly, the ambitious Ms. Yutani, yes, as in Weyland-Yutani, now has her clutches on an extraterrestrial artifact which leaves for one or two more movies, which could form thousands of plots and travel in many directions. But through the dialogue at the end of the movie we learn that the next part of this newly born franchise may or may not happen in “other worlds”.
Thumbs up in the end. I am a happy fan. Hope you are too.
To start things I will stand tall and proud to proclaim this aloud: Paul and Colin Strause nailed it. They nailed it. Minus the sub-par acting and George Lucas-like dialogue, these two hit the nail right on the head and scored one for the home team which is my team mind you or even your team; a team for which was devastated when AVP I was released and viewed because quite frankly; it was horrible. This is a franchise about Aliens and Predators battling and hunting each other to the death and nothing more. No cheesy temples, characters and sub plots. Who cares about humans, right? We want to see Aliens and Predators killing each other. Take note though, I love the Predators and wear there team logo upon my baseball cap. Going into this movie, I wanted to see blood and action. I saw this. I saw this indeed and am darn happy about it. Predators hunt Aliens for sport and trophies as the Predators are aware that the Aliens themselves are their numero uno nemesis even more so than that of humans and dinosaurs. On the other hand, the Aliens are aware, and are almost equally gifted hunters as the Predators are. The Strause Bros realized this, kept it real and from being fans of both franchises themselves, they went to work and never looked back. At this movies end, you have a true favorite main character, unlike at the end of the first one due to the portrayal. Scar had tact and was likeable indeed, but was young and inexperienced, hence him allowing a face hugger to impregnate him. Flip to AVP-R and we the fans are introduced to a Predator we have never seen before. We as fans have someone or something to cheer for. And at movies end, we truly think that this new Predator, whom I will touch on a bit later, is one seriously awesome Predator not to mention one BAMF.
Side note: Somewhere in the world of now, I truly hope the director of the first movie, a name for which I refuse to say aloud and or type with my digits is cowering alone, in some corner of a dark room crying his heart out in disgust with images of those three red dots and what could have been had he pulled his head out of his rectum to construct a decent movie (AVP I). On his desk, for the rest of his life he should have a framed picture of the Strause Bros dead center.
I have had plenty of time to analyze this movie as I have seen it three times in two days and I must say I liked it equally all three times with the exception of a few late arriving opinions I formulated. You know, you see a movie the first time and you love it. But you see it again and maybe even again and you start to notice things and the qualms come forth. First off, the movie itself only spans 86 minutes, which is a bit of a let down. It is a let down because with how well I feel the Strauss Bros did do on this movie; they could have done so much more. Some of the fight scenes could have been longer. And there are a few scenes that I would have loved to have actually seen, rather than imagine. It is also a let down because, well I am a true fan darn it, and I want a two and a half hour movie with Aliens and Predators fighting and killing at will. I swear, twenty minutes longer and I’d be completely elated with tears of joy instead of my current mood which does in fact involve a large smile minus the tears and quick kneel to the cinematic Gods. But the movie is rated R and rightfully so as any movie of either franchise should be rated R, with blood, guts, gore, cursing and the like.
The movie starts with an obvious Predator scout ship of some sort still flying around the earth. This tells me that this scout ship launched from the rather huge main ship we saw at the end of AVP-I after Scar’s life line had ended and we caught our first glimpse of the Elder Predator interacting with an allied human, ala the end of Predator II. And since we once again see the hybrid burst from Scar’s chest, we are to assume that this movie takes place maybe even hours from the end of the first movie. The ship itself crash lands in the wilderness near a small Colorado town due to the birth of the hybrid or Predalien. The Hybrid is born in flight and slaughters the Predators at will and with much ease. Now I enjoyed these short scenes because it shows the power and might of the hybrid as well as tease us and we have actually fully seen the hybrid in its entirety yet. You see this hybrid is more alien than Predator, obviously, but add on the Predators pure strength and survival instincts and you have a cross breed that reigns above the average Alien and average Predator. But make no mistake about it, the Hybrid itself looks amazing. I give major props to the creative department of this production because their creation of the hybrid is true to form and simply looks incredible. Sci-Fi fans should applaud. Shortly after the ship crashes, due to a Predator misfiring with its plasma cannon at the Hybrid and hitting the main control systems, causing the ship to crash, the chaos begins. This same Predator, injured and dying attempts to activate its self destruct mechanism, but the Hybrid catches onto this quickly and kills the Predator. Through interesting, yet very simplistic sub-plots, the Pred-Alien and its children of sorts, start spreading through the small city as fast as the plague. Face huggers, face huggers of which were already in captivity aboard the Predator ship, escape the crashed vessel and go to work. At the movies beginning you become excited and you realize that this movie will hold back nothing, as we see a small young boy both attacked by a face hugger. A few frames later we see the chest burster burst from the young boy’s chest. I say this because I mean common people, what kind of a movie kills a small child in such a violent in humane way? Exactly. And boy do the Aliens indeed earn there checks, spreading through out the city very quickly and with an obvious purpose to slaughter and spread. Through out the course of the movie, we learn that the Pred-Alien has its own personal agenda at hand which involves it spreading its seed to as many people as possible. We also learn that the Pred-Alien can spread its seed without laying eggs as it not only has that second slashing mouth that protrudes out from its mandibles, but has the same sort of long hose like tube that the face hugger has. All the Pred Alien has to do is shove that down the throat of its victims and pump its new borns directly into the bellies of pregnant women. Now this intrigued me some, because we learn that the Pred Alien can do this. Just the same we learn that the hybrid can sense and seek an already pregnant human, knowing that this humans belly can hold more seeds. By knowing this, the hybrid can impregnate a human with more than one Alien, unlike the typical face hugger which is good for one seed and than dies.
Enter, stage right, our hero and soon to be BAMF. The production team called this particular Predator “The Wolf” because it is much like one. We, the fans learn this as well. Now upon tracking the scout ship from its home world (through seeing this we learn more about the depth of the Predators technology as well as assume that it is in fact the Predators home world) this Predator, I too will call him The Wolf, embarks on his own search and destroy mission to basically seek out and kill the Hybrid, a creature he identifies through tracking the ship and actually viewing what had happened on the ship, much like we ourselves would on a home surveillance system or monitor. He watches this, and immediately picks out a special helmet of sorts, arms himself and blasts off for Colorado. Adding more motive and fuel to The Wolf’s fury and fire, upon finding the crashed ship, we learn that the Wolf has a strong emotional connection to one of the deceased Predators for who was slaughtered by the Hybrid. This fact may have been why it had been tracking the ship in the first place. This deceased Predator was a loved one of sorts to The Wolf. This enrages the Wolf and off it goes. Now let me touch on the Wolf for awhile; it is no ordinary Predator. It is a veteran of the species. A true warrior of the Predator realm it is, with much hunting experience and many new and old weapons at his disposal. Not only does he have his own plasma cannon, but he adds to his cache of killing devices by taking a plasma cannon off of the dead Predator it had known and attaches it to his plasma cannon harness, thus giving him two shoulder cannons, one on either side; awesome I say. We also learn that the rumors were right on queue as this particular breed of Predator is the extraterrestrial version of Harvey Keitel from the movie Pulp Fiction. It is a cleaner. Its job, in addition to seeking and destroying the Hybrid itself and any other Aliens it comes across, is also to clean up and destroy any and all traces of its own existence and of the Aliens as well. We see it do this time and time again through out the whole movie. The Wolf itself is an splendid sight to see upon arrival and even at the end of the film. Like the Predators from I and II, this Predator looks and acts how a Predator should or at least how we feel they should and have come to know them as. It is slender, fast and extremely talented and athletic. Several scenes in the movie allow us to witness this. In AVP I, the Predators were huge gargantuan and thick and resembled football players, rather than Predators. This Predator is intelligent and fierce, and is there to take to prisoners. We learn this when a Deputy who is armed, yet no real threat is killed by the Wolf with no mercy. I know, duh, he’s a Predator; his main duty is to hunt and kill. I know this, but this scene sends a separate message. From this scene I gathered that the Wolf killed him because he saw the Wolf in the first place and for no other reason. From this scene, the Wolf begins his search, seeking out the Aliens through the usage of new technology, never before seen by us the fans. This new technology is that of a tracking system which is a part of the Predators control panel in this lower forearm. He tracks them from the DNA sample he took from the crashed ship and seeks out the Aliens. I loved these scenes, personally, because we really get to see the Predator, hard at work and hunting. But never lose focus; he is there to not necessarily kill humans, yet to kill the Hybrid. But if threatened by humans, he will kill them as well. We know this for certain from a scene where the townsfolk, armed and unarmed, are in woods searching for missing people. Travel back to the first Predator movie of that Predator stalking and watching Dutch’s crew and we all know what happened to most of them right? Right. This time around though, the Predator already has a job and focus at hand which does not include human trophies. And at movies, end, after seeing new weapons, technology and meeting the Wolf, we grow to really like him and pay him tribute as the coolest Predator we have scene thus far.
In conclusion, the Strause brothers brought back a large amount of the original music from the first two Predator movies, and “Aliens”. This made the movie extremely enjoyable because it brings its fans back to the roots of these two franchises that we have all grown to love. And though the AVP series is in relation to the other two franchises, however not a part of either series, the music makes the movie that more enjoyable. In addition, there are several scenes shot a certain way, and certain dialogue that has been added to AVP-R to entertain us and to pay homage to the other films and their memory. We get to see the camera itself move up tree lines music on queue also soaked with blood, hanging torsos, the Predator leaping, lunging and climbing with athleticism, along with human dialogue to remind us of Dutch, human enemies and big business owners to remind us of Mr. Weyland or “Bishop” from the end of Alien III, and even human characters to act and remind us of our old friend “Hudson”. Add in scenes of the US military being surrounded in the rain by an unknown number of an unknown enemy, ala the Marines while in the hive on LV426 in “Aliens” and you have yourself a nicely created compilation of all of the other films.
AVP-R was entertaining and well done. Much better than the first, and upon movies ending, we learn that there is still more story to tell as the humans, or more importantly, the ambitious Ms. Yutani, yes, as in Weyland-Yutani, now has her clutches on an extraterrestrial artifact which leaves for one or two more movies, which could form thousands of plots and travel in many directions. But through the dialogue at the end of the movie we learn that the next part of this newly born franchise may or may not happen in “other worlds”.
Thumbs up in the end. I am a happy fan. Hope you are too.