Friday, December 28, 2007

Dreadlocks vs Drool


This is one of those things for which I simply have no explanation. Alien vs Predator was, hands down, one of the worst movies ever made. I'd sworn off the sequel even before it was made. Yet today, I took hard-earned money out of my pocket and bought a ticket to Aliens vs Predator 2.

First off, they must think those of us here on the other side of the world must be really, really dumb not to be able to gauge that Aliens vs Predator: Requiem is the sequel to the first film, thus arose in their kindest of hearts the need for the alternate title, Aliens vs Predator 2, to save our little skulls from caving in while trying to figure it all out.

Thank you.

Secondly, it took me just 10 minutes into the film to realise what a stupid mistake I'd made thinking that this sequel could be better, or at least more entertaining, just because it had a redband trailer.

Aliens vs Predator: Requiem is a film that tries to rely completely on its two iconic scifi superstars, not on plot. It attempts to float the entire film on pure action and little else. Unfortunately, people getting face-hugged, having their chests burst, skulls punched through by alien tongues, shot to bits by cosmic hunter's weapons, over and over and over, doesn't quite make for an entertaining action flick. The characters are walking cliches, uninteresting and annoying, and completely defeat their own purpose of being in the film when you just can't wait for them to be killed by the outer-space nasties.

The film is full of scenes that are obvious fillers in between the action, because the dialogue is some of the most banal ever written for a Hollywood movie, and most of the scenes serve totally no purpose whatsoever ... other than as fillers, of course. Meanwhile, the action scenes are badly shot, confusing, and a strain on the eyes when you try to follow what's going on, whose head's being smashed to bits, whose stomach is being impaled, or even who or what is versus who or what.

Probably the only thing that got the loudest laugh in the cinema was a line that I'm really not sure was intended to be funny or otherwise, not at that point in a film in which you don't know whether to laugh or cry at most things.

In the pouring rain and darkness, in utter panic and distress, when told of a horrible truth that shocks her, a character exclaims: "The government doesn't lie to us!"

I almost fell off my chair. A potshot at Bush this late in the game? And in a boring, mindless action film? Wow, talk about trying to be relevant.


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