Dutch90
While I don't agree with detractors of the first AVP movie from 2004, this one definitely deserves all the flak it gets. In just over 90 minutes, the Strause brothers manage to degrade some of cinema's most iconic sci-fi monsters to cheap fodder from a Syfy original film. Where did it all go wrong?First off, the Strauses have a background that is chiefy in SFX work, having worked on various high profile blockbusters such as Terminator 3, The Day After Tomorrow and Titanic. And it shows - SFX-wise, AVP:R, like its predecessor, looks about thrice as expensive a it actually cost. The CGI and animatronics are top notch, the Predators look much more manacing than in the first AVP and we are even treated to a glimpse of their home planet. But while Alien and Predator definitely had good SFX, their strength was in their tense atmosphere, moody cinematography and the relatable characters. This made you really feel the terror of being hunted by a hostile extraterrestrial lifeform. In interviews, and on the Alien Experience forum that I was a member of at the time, the Strauses seemed to get this. For instance, they talked of the brother dynamic between Dallas and Ricky Howard, and Kelly O'Brien's experiences as a soldier in Iraq being important in shaping their character over the course of the film. Molly, Kelly's daughter, was an obvious attempt to emulate the Ripley/Newt dynamic from Aliens. However, all these promising words never made it into the actual product. The Strauses seem to think that talking in depth about their characters in interviews is the same as having well rounded characters in their film. But when nothing of this is actually seen or heard in the film, it becomes empty rhetoric. We see none of the brother dynamic between Dallas and Ricky, who are just stilted one-note characters distinguished only by their names and looks. Kelly and Molly are empty clones of Ripley and Newt, with none of their emotional resonance or determination. Hell, Kelly isn't even a badass like Ripley was in Aliens - you'd think that would have been the easiest to copy. The other character are equally one dimensional - the well-meaning sheriff, the weasel ('screw the woman and children first shit!'), the high school bully (who gets killed, of course).Then there are the creatures themselves. If the first AVP seemed biased towards the Aliens, with one Alien killing two of the three lead Predators within the space of several minutes, AVP:R goes to the opposite extreme: its lead Predator is the ultimate badass, mowing through hordes of Aliens like they're mere annoyances. Granted, Ripley dispatched quite some Aliens in the 1986 sequel, but there they still felt intimidating. Here, they're just B-grade screechy movie monsters. The human deaths are over-the-top and unimaginitive - it's as if the Strauses saw the criticism of AVP's PG-13 rating as that film's chief mistake, and set out to make AVP:R the polar opposite. As a result, AVP:R turns the Aliens and Predators into Freddy and Jason, brutally killing humans in cheesy slasher flick fashion. While the Predators definitely look great, the Aliens suffer by comparison. This is mainly due to the introduction of the Predalien. While the Alien/Predator hybrid (or rather, an Alien with Predator characteristics due to having a Predator host) is a staple of AVP lore and should definitely be included in any film adaptation, AVP:R's Predalien just looks silly with its overdone pecs (seriously, pecs on an Alien? What is this, a cartoon?) and oddly draped dreadlocks. Also, AVP:R tries to 'expand' the Alien mythos by introducing yet another form of reproduction, after the classic life cycle, the 'eggmorphing' from the Alien Director's Cut and the live birth from Alien: Resurrection - the Predalien, supposedly a young Queen, vomits embryos into victims' throats as it cannot yet lay eggs, and these then burst from the victim's belly. Yes, you read this correctly. If the Facehugger is meant to symbolize oral rape, I don't want to know what the Strauses were thinking of when designing this. Anyway, this 'let's make it as disgusting as possible' mentality is clearly played only for shock value and ends up turning the Alien's life cycle into a parody of itself.The film tops it off with the introduction of the Yutani Corporation, the other half of Alien's Weyland-Yutani after the first AVP gave us Weyland Industries, vaguely linked to Predator 2's 'OWLF' group. While this is interesying, it goes nowhere, vaguely hinting at a sequel that never materialized, and just comes off as C-grade 'there's a bigger ploy' evil company diatribe that we've all seen before a thousand times.In sum, AVP:R is a definite low point for both franchises, which were thankfully elevated by Predators, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant in recent years. The Strauses have displayed a fundamental lack of knowledge and skill in crafting a good Alien/Predator film, or a good film in general, and show little skill in filmmaking beyond SFX work. Besides the nonexistent pace, one-dimensional characters, lack of any kind of plot beats (once the action starts, it's basically a one-way street to the conclusion - running from warring extraterrestrials, not much else) and B-grade treatment of its titular monsters, the film is also poorly lit, making much of the action hard to see. All it deserves credits for is the SFX work and the design of the Predator. The Strauses seem to have realized their limits, or at least Hollywood has, seeing as they returned to SFX work after making one more movie post-AVP:R (the interesting but ultimately underwhelming Skyline). Meanwhile, the fanbase awaits an AVP film that actually lives up to the original Alien and Predator. Will it ever happen?
belldave50
All I remember from this piece of garbage was something about several forgettable pretty characters who should've been in a dumb slasher film, and people in rubber suits stomping around in rain in the dark.What made me absolutely despise this film was the overly graphic deaths of several people. Notably the mothers being impregnated and the death of a child in the beginning. It's not that I'm offended or can't take disturbing gore and deaths in a horror movie but these things just had not meaning. It was like "hey look how disturbing we can make this!" When something horrible happens to someone in a movie like this, there has to be some meaning, or reason. Not just a sense of people getting off on excess suffering. Consider the other alien and predator movies, did they try and push the envelope just cause? The horror and deaths fit. In here, it's like the creators of the film were getting off on it or something. One youtube reviewer called the gore and horror in this "mean spirited"Blah, hated this!
