Posts Tagged ‘Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem’
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It’s kind of unusual for me to do a comic about a movie that won’t be out for another four months. More unusual still for me to do a comic about the trailer to said movie. But what can I say? I’m excited about this one.
In case you’re wondering what I’m talking about, it’s Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem and if you want to see the trailer in question, click here.
Be forewarned, however. This is the red-band trailer. That means there is swearing and violence.
Lots and lots of violence.
I was more excited than a kid on Christmas for the first Alien vs. Predator movie back in 2004. In fact, I did a few comics about it. The movie was an all-out disaster. The worst watered-down version of both franchises you can imagine. They took the template of six pulse-pounding R rated action-horror films and somehow ended up with a PG-13 pile of slop. And even though I get suckered into watching the movie whenever it shows up on cable – hopelessly deluding myself into thinking that maybe it magically turned into a better movie with age – I have rallied against this film and held it up as a beacon of what is wrong in Hollywood.
Instead of making a movie for the fans, they made a movie aimed squarely at the disposable income of modern teenagers – an audience that would only know a fraction of the potential awesomeness in this pairing of great movie monsters because anyone who was 13 years old when the movie came out would have 7 years-old when the last Aliens movie was in theaters! PLEASE!
At any rate, it looks like AvP: Requiem is looking to change all that. And judging by the level of violence in the red-band trailer, I would say they are well on their way.
Merry Christmas to me!
In other news, we had a blast recording The Triple Feature last Monday. If you missed it, you missed a good one. Gordon McAlpin from Multiplex was back from vacation and went toe-to-toe with Brian Carroll of Genrevous Point on everything from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to the validity of Kaizer Soze from The Usual Suspects as a great movie villain. Meanwhile myself and Joe Dunn from Joe Loves Crappy Movies just sat back and listened. The guys in the live chat were getting a real kick out of it. We also talked at length about action movies and what makes a good action film. It was quite a robust conversation. We actually went a little long with this one. Lots of content to dive into. Visit our profile page at TalkShoe to download a copy of the show and listen to what you missed.
A couple of interviews I did at Wizard World Chicago are starting to show up online, so I thought I would share the links. This article at Comic Book Resources highlights how some of the web comics in attendance butter their bread, earn their scratch so to speak. I’m one of the comics profiled. In this link to YouTube, you can take a look at my ugly mug around the 3:30 mark. I was interviewed by the good guys from Reactor, an anime convention going on in Chicago November 2 – 4. I don’t think I’ll be making out to that one, but the two guys I spoke to were very friendly.
That’s about all I can think of for the moment. Have a great Wednesday!
[ 2 Comments ]
Dec28
I know I said last week that I was taking this week off. But, truthfully, with SO many good movies in theater right now, I couldn’t resist tossing this one into the mix.
Uh, yeah. Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem. Great movie.
Okay, it’s no Bridge Over the River Kwai, but it was a film I had been eager to see despite me deep-seeded loathing of the first Aliens Vs. Predator. Don’t ask me why. I’m a glutton for punishment.
I went and saw the film Wednesday night after everyone went to bed at my house. Cami had no interest in seeing it for obvious reasons, so it made it easy for me to get out of the house for a while. Believe me, after the holidays, I needed the time alone.
As far as my reactions to the movie are concerned, let me give it a left-handed compliment:
“It’s better than the first one.”
I had high hopes for AVP:R and a lot of that had to do with the ultra-violent red band trailer released in August. Watching that, I thought for sure that the movie was going to correct the mistakes of its misbegotten PG-13 predecessor. Well, it does that and then some. And then it rapes what’s left. Right before it pees on it.
This movie doesn’t know where the line is and that’s either a good thing or a bad thing depending on where your moral compass is pointing. NO ONE gets off light in this film. An 8 year-old gets tagged with a face hugger in the first five minutes. Once the aliens start multiplying, people are dying left and right. Stoners you meet in a pawn shop get their heads blown off by a Predator five minutes after you meet them. The alien queen stumbles into a hospital maternity ward and impregnates already pregnant women with eggs. Drooling over a nursery over crying babies, you know there is some twisted thinking at work here.
I’m not going to bother getting into the plot. There isn’t one. The human characters in the film are cardboard cutouts. The ex-con, the troubled teen, the military chick, the well-meaning sheriff. So what? They all become cannon fodder.
The movie is dark – not just in terms of content but in it’s lighting as well. don’t mind if you’re going to turn out the lights to make things scary, but at least sit the camera down for more than five seconds so I can focus on what I’m supposed to be looking at. In the film’s third act, it’s starts raining like cats and dogs (of course) and by that point, it’s nearly impossible to see anything.
AVP:R is a film that seems almost designed around cutting a good trailer. There are a ton of little moments that make the film interesting, but nothing that ties everything together. At this point, the franchise would be better served by taking the action off Earth and maybe setting it in the future again.
The other thing the franchise needs is a throw down between its monsters that lasts more than 5 minutes. In the middle of AVP:R, there’s a sequence in a storm drain that shows promise as the Predator is surrounded and fights off a small gang of aliens. But it’s over before it even starts. It leave you thinking, “The last battle must be a real knockout!” and then it comes and it’s basically a slap fest.
Think about great kung-fu movies where two guys would fight for 20 minutes. We need something like that. If your movie uses the word “VERSUS” in it’s title, we demand it.
Complaints aside, am I glad I went? Sure. My curiosity would have gotten the better of me at some point anyway. This is the kind of nerd stuff I *have* to see. But if you’re not a fan of the characters, you’re not going to find anything redemptive about the film at all.
That’s all for now. I hope everyone had a good holiday and I’ll see you back here on Monday!
Have a great weekend!
[ 1 Comment ]
