Alien (1979) and Predator (1987) were two separate movies made nearly a decade apart with each spawning its own franchise of sequels. But the two monster aliens were thrown together outside of the movies and have developed a large following thanks to the comics, graphic novels and video games that paired the franchises long before the first AVP movie even hit development. There's something about those two lethal creatures that just hooked audiences.
Their latest throwdown picks up where the first left off. A Predator incubating an Alien gives birth to a hybrid creature that causes the Predator ship to crash land on earth, where the Aliens find plenty of hosts to give rise to a legion of Aliens. One dutiful and vengeful Predator heads down to earth primarily to kill off the annoying creatures that killed his comrades. But he's not quite prepared for the Alienator that he find on earth--a steely jawed, dreadlocked creature who's set on populating the earth with a new species.
One Predator to rule them all? (20th Century Fox)
The humans here are little more than fodder for the beasts. The Brothers Strause (effects siblings who make their feature debut here) show a pleasantly surprising disregard for American horror decorum that usually keeps children and pregnant women safe from harm. In AVP:R , a child is one of the first victims and pregnant women become the hosts for the Alienator's eggs. And when these women pop... well it's something like an exploding nest of hungry birds.
AVP took a lot of flak for combining two R-rated franchises and turning them into a lily-livered PG-13 horror film. Fans were ravenous for some hardcore blood-letting that never arrived. Now the studio has smartly served up an R-rated sequel so the blood could flow, and it does. Unfortunately, it doesn't flow with much imagination. Too much time is spent introducing characters that we don't care about and that don't get killed off quickly enough or cleverly enough. Then the creatures are presented in such dark, ambiguous shots that it takes a few encounters before we realize that the newly spawned alien is a Predator/Alien crossbreed.
Shane Salerno, who wrote such unimpressive fare as Armageddon and the remake of Shaft , displays zero cleverness in his scripting. Although the film was scheduled for Christmas release and the slogan refers to "no peace on earth," the film doesn't even offer a holiday setting to mine for bleak horror humor. Just look to Black Christmas, Christmas Evil, and Silent Night, Deadly Night to see how successfully you can use the holiday for a horror backdrop. I mean just think of Aliens or Predators wrecking havoc on Black Friday or the day after Christmas sales. Or a slinky Alien coming down the chimney to surprise all the little kiddies on Christmas morning. I won't even begin to go into how stupid the human characters and their dialogue are, just take that as a given in this kind of franchise.
Alien foreplay or will you be the mommy to my spawn? (20th Century Fox)
Salerno's script also fails on basic logic issues. Alien "blood" is like acid and it severs one victim's arm but that fact seems to be ignored for almost the entire movie. In addition, much of the established information about the creatures, especially the aliens' way of reproducing, is altered so the plot can proceed more hastily and without the bother of referencing the old films. The big why involves why would the Predator spawn a half breed when there was never any half breed offspring from any of the human hosts. I guess this is the old Brundle-Fly question about what happens when two species potentially mix DNA. But I digress.
Salerno scored one strong reaction though. The line that got the most laughs in AVP:R was when an Iraqi war vet mom suggests that the government might be lying about a rescue plan and another woman says, with a completely straight face, "the government doesn't lie to people." That got the biggest reaction from a crowd that seemed otherwise rather sedate considering they were watching a horror film.
But the script's not the only bad thing about the movie, the Brothers Strause have such a lame shooting style that their film should be shown in film school to educate students on what not to do. Since the script didn't offer much to engage me I began to get distracted by the choice of framing for shots and kept thinking why the heck are they putting the camera there?! With the exception of one or two killings, even the violence is bland and unexciting. An Alien decapitation and the abrupt knocking off of one of the main characters were nasty little surprises but the film needed more.
The dreadlocked alien half-breed (20th Century Fox)
In terms of effects, AVP:R suffers from the more is less syndrome. In Ridley Scott's first Alien , H.R. Giger designed the creature and because there was essentially only one (but in various stages of development) time could be spent to make it look very cool and awesome. But with so many running around, the film cuts corners and doesn't spend much time making them all look good. And even though there's only one Predator, he's not as impressive as earlier ones. His dreadlocks and bizarre expando-jaw just don't look as good as before. Plus with the images kept dark and rainy, they get away with a lot of slacking off in terms of the action.
AVP:R (rated R for violence, gore and language) disappoints as much as the first AVP but in different ways. Neither film seems to appreciate what made each original film in the franchises work, and that failure to identify what hooked audiences results in a new hybrid franchise that fails to capitalize on what fans want. Some fans will be pleased with the increased gore but most will be frustrated by the sequel's lack of imagination. Heck there wasn't even a kicker after the end credits and a good portion of the crowd hung around to see if there would be a final little treat. When the credits faded to black with no reward, they left even more disappointed than a few moments earlier. I think fans could probably come up with a better script and storyline than the Strauses and Salerno have delivered. Too bad too, because these two creatures have the potential to be far more fun and destructive than they have been allowed to date. Godzilla and Gamera have nothing to worry about from these American upstarts.
Companion viewing: Alien, Predator , Alien Vs. Predator , Freddy Vs. Jason , The Host
