WARNING: "AVP" spoilers below
AvP is, simply, hands-down terrible. It was, I can say, even worse than it looked to be when that first script started rolling around. To refresh your memory, the original script had the movie beginning with young Predators hunting Aliens in ancient South America. Something goes wrong, and there end up being a ridiculous number of aliens, and the predators blow themselves up. We cut to the present. I don't know about any of you, but I thought that'd have been relatively cool. Unfortunately, all of this does happen, but it's a little sidenote halfway through the movie and knowing about it beforehand actually made it quite terrible.
I'm going to go relatively deply into the plot, so there are some spoilers ahead. It begins with Lance Hendriksen's company discovering the temple in Antarctica. This is very exciting. We quickly are introduced to the main characters as a representative of Hendriksen's (that black guy who was rumored to be the next James Bond...I forget his name. I actually wouldn't mind seeing him as Bond) travels the globe recruiting people for an expedition. We get terrible little introductions that tell us nothing about anyone other than the fact that they're textbook b-movie characters. We start to get the feeling that Anderson really just wanted to get to the fighting as quickly as possible. The only ones of note are the courageous, strong female mountain climber and the sexy Italian archaeologist man.
We get to Antarctica, and that competing Bellocq-esque character from the original script isn't there. Nuts. Some forgettable stuff happens, and the team ends up going down a shaft to the temple that the Predator ship lasered through the ice. The predators land and kill some people. Despite sexy archaeologist's warnings, black James Bond takes some Predator guns out of a sarcophagus, and the team gets locked down in the temple. An alien queen gets unfrozen, and face-grabbers eventually surface to kill some more characters that I'm pretty sure we were supposed to know and love.
At this point, the fighting begins, and it's fantastically stupid. We see the aliens jumping around like ninjas, in full view, which completely eliminates the mystique that made "Alien" so good. And guess what, two of the three Predators get killed within 5 minutes. Then after another 10 or so, the only human left is Sanaa Lathan, the courageous climber lady. So, logically, she teams up with the last Predator to defeat the aliens. I finally laugh.
Here, there's a silly little scene in which the Predator rewards Sanaa Lathan's courage by making her an "honorary Predator." This, to me, was taking the incredibly cool ending of "Predator 2" and pissing all over it. I laughed here, and so did half of the other people in the theater.
Good Predator and Sanaa blow up the temple, and then have to fight the Alien Queen, who runs around like the T-Rex from Jurassic Park. They defeat her, but it costs the life of poor Good Predator. The Predator mothership shows up (or was it there all along?). Some Predators take away Good Predator's body, and their leader approaches Sanaa Lathan. When he sees that she's an Honorary Predator, he gives her his spear and leaves. After this moment, I don't think I'll ever be able to look at "Predator 2" the same way again.
We see Sanaa walking away triumphantly in plainclothes, not seeming to mind that it's frigging Antarctica, and we all feel very proud of her. But wait...we cut to the Predator ship, where Good Predator is lying on a table, dead. It's now that we remember that a face-grabber had gotten him earlier in the movie. Sure enough, out pops...well I'll let you see this one for yourself. It's absolutely ridiculous, and I don't want to ruin it. If you guess what it is, and then say to yourself "no, that can't be it, that's just stupid"...you have too much faith in Mr. Anderson. At this point, I get up and leave.
Yes, I've glossed over a whole lot, but honestly nothing else is worth mentioning. The movie is completely rushed, and it just plain sucks. It literally could have been 45 minutes long and been just as good. There isn't a memorable character, scene, quote, or death. The effects are reasonably good, but they're nothing new.
The Queen Alien is moderately cool...but she's not supposed to be a T-Rex, she's supposed to be a giant, disturbing, sedentary monster that does nothing but pop out eggs and drive Brad Dourif insane. The camaraderie between Good Predator and Sanaa Lathan is just insulting. Sanaa Lathan is not Danny Glover. Paul WS (what the hell does that stand for, anyway?) has taken one great series (well, except for the fourth one) and one pretty good series and combined them to create completely forgettable crap. It's a real shame, given that we've all been waiting so long for it.
AvP is, simply, hands-down terrible. It was, I can say, even worse than it looked to be when that first script started rolling around. To refresh your memory, the original script had the movie beginning with young Predators hunting Aliens in ancient South America. Something goes wrong, and there end up being a ridiculous number of aliens, and the predators blow themselves up. We cut to the present. I don't know about any of you, but I thought that'd have been relatively cool. Unfortunately, all of this does happen, but it's a little sidenote halfway through the movie and knowing about it beforehand actually made it quite terrible.
I'm going to go relatively deply into the plot, so there are some spoilers ahead. It begins with Lance Hendriksen's company discovering the temple in Antarctica. This is very exciting. We quickly are introduced to the main characters as a representative of Hendriksen's (that black guy who was rumored to be the next James Bond...I forget his name. I actually wouldn't mind seeing him as Bond) travels the globe recruiting people for an expedition. We get terrible little introductions that tell us nothing about anyone other than the fact that they're textbook b-movie characters. We start to get the feeling that Anderson really just wanted to get to the fighting as quickly as possible. The only ones of note are the courageous, strong female mountain climber and the sexy Italian archaeologist man.
We get to Antarctica, and that competing Bellocq-esque character from the original script isn't there. Nuts. Some forgettable stuff happens, and the team ends up going down a shaft to the temple that the Predator ship lasered through the ice. The predators land and kill some people. Despite sexy archaeologist's warnings, black James Bond takes some Predator guns out of a sarcophagus, and the team gets locked down in the temple. An alien queen gets unfrozen, and face-grabbers eventually surface to kill some more characters that I'm pretty sure we were supposed to know and love.
At this point, the fighting begins, and it's fantastically stupid. We see the aliens jumping around like ninjas, in full view, which completely eliminates the mystique that made "Alien" so good. And guess what, two of the three Predators get killed within 5 minutes. Then after another 10 or so, the only human left is Sanaa Lathan, the courageous climber lady. So, logically, she teams up with the last Predator to defeat the aliens. I finally laugh.
Here, there's a silly little scene in which the Predator rewards Sanaa Lathan's courage by making her an "honorary Predator." This, to me, was taking the incredibly cool ending of "Predator 2" and pissing all over it. I laughed here, and so did half of the other people in the theater.
Good Predator and Sanaa blow up the temple, and then have to fight the Alien Queen, who runs around like the T-Rex from Jurassic Park. They defeat her, but it costs the life of poor Good Predator. The Predator mothership shows up (or was it there all along?). Some Predators take away Good Predator's body, and their leader approaches Sanaa Lathan. When he sees that she's an Honorary Predator, he gives her his spear and leaves. After this moment, I don't think I'll ever be able to look at "Predator 2" the same way again.
We see Sanaa walking away triumphantly in plainclothes, not seeming to mind that it's frigging Antarctica, and we all feel very proud of her. But wait...we cut to the Predator ship, where Good Predator is lying on a table, dead. It's now that we remember that a face-grabber had gotten him earlier in the movie. Sure enough, out pops...well I'll let you see this one for yourself. It's absolutely ridiculous, and I don't want to ruin it. If you guess what it is, and then say to yourself "no, that can't be it, that's just stupid"...you have too much faith in Mr. Anderson. At this point, I get up and leave.
Yes, I've glossed over a whole lot, but honestly nothing else is worth mentioning. The movie is completely rushed, and it just plain sucks. It literally could have been 45 minutes long and been just as good. There isn't a memorable character, scene, quote, or death. The effects are reasonably good, but they're nothing new.
The Queen Alien is moderately cool...but she's not supposed to be a T-Rex, she's supposed to be a giant, disturbing, sedentary monster that does nothing but pop out eggs and drive Brad Dourif insane. The camaraderie between Good Predator and Sanaa Lathan is just insulting. Sanaa Lathan is not Danny Glover. Paul WS (what the hell does that stand for, anyway?) has taken one great series (well, except for the fourth one) and one pretty good series and combined them to create completely forgettable crap. It's a real shame, given that we've all been waiting so long for it.