AvP
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So there's this pyramid, and it's Aztec, it's Egyptian, it's Cambodian, it's like a big melting-pot, only it's dead old and it's 2000' below the Antarctic ice. How did it get there? Who built it? Is it full of green minty goo? These are questions Charles Bishop Weyland wants answering. So, if you're a global corporate demagogue and craggy-faced old robot lover what do you do? Do you assemble an elite team ona ship named for an X-files in-joke and go dig under that ice? Hell, yeah! Well, okay, you assemble about three or four people with names (check the imdb cast list - full names peter out quite rapidly) and a bunch of alien fodder and head out there. But it's the same principle. And what about if, when you get there, someone's dug a 2000' hole down to the pyramid for you overnight? Do you get a bit suspicious, or do you just climb on down no matter what? Climb down! Climb down! It's not like the people with the massive ray-gun are still there. Or.. are they? Well, no, they're in orbit, waiting to be shot down to Earth in their little rastafarian landing pods. But they get there pretty fast, and suddenly you've got invisible space bastards slaughtering your backup crew and you're inside an ancient pyramid and, oh! The trouble that's in store! To summarise the trouble - 1. Aliens. Lotsa ailens. There's an Alien Queen, see, in the freezer like so much Ben 'n' Jerry's who's been defrosted and forced to lay eggs for to make some aliens with the fresh humans. 2. Predators. Not so many Predators, just the three, in fact. But presumably they're the toughest, roughest, meanest Predators they could find. Or they're rookies who need to prove themselves. I dunno, probably option b. And 3. Spud from Trainspotting is jabbering away constantly. Oh, yeah, and the pyramid has a life of its own. But is it any good? Well, obviously not. It will make you laugh - the Alien hammer-throwing event, what has been called the Predator's "Hmm, this chick has moxie" acting, the running - oh, the running - and so forth. I don't think it's intentional either. You can spot the intended comedy, it's when the aliens are on-screen. Somewhere along the line, you see, the Alien franchise became a comedy series. I don't know how or why that happened (sometime around Resurrection, those darned French types ruining it for all of us again), but it did and I don't like it. However, you can laugh. This is Anderson's closest yet to "so bad it's entertaining", and therefore probably his best film. Weird that he had to get worse to get better. Usually his movies operate at the very nadir of what's known as The Uncanny Valley. To summarise an intersting but by no means scientific theory, the closer something gets to human (a robot, a doll), the less we're likely to accept it as a real person, the "almost but not quite" thing jarring our brains to non-acceptance. Then it gets close to perfect and we believe again. We're also, interestingly, more likely to be cool with something which is obviously not human but we can identify with (a cat winking, an anthropomorphic telephone offering us a loan). Well, it's like that with PWSA. Resident Evil, Event Horizon.. they were so close to looking like good films, but there was something waxy and corpse-like about them. AvP takes an important step back to "just shit" and is consequently easier to digest. Clearly it was a labour of love, but he misunderstands what makes the alien movies (specifically, because those were the most frequent reference points) great. I mean, facehuggers jumping in bullet-time? Are you fucking joking? (I suspect so, but that's no excuse). The aliens, again, on-screen for minutes at a time, not shrouded in shadow and steam.. but still, some cute references for fanboys, if they've not walked out in disgust at the misappropriation of one of cinema's strongest creature creations. This spoilery spoiler will ruin it for those who, for some reason, don't want to know who wins. In case you are wondering who wins, well, here's the final score - humanity wins by default. The aliens are wiped out, the Predators are not only all killed but the ship now has an infestation of alien-Predator hybrids (I like to think of them as "Sequeloids") and the last person standing is human. Okay, maybe the aliens won. Or maybe the Predators, since they get a new enemy to hunt. Oh, I don't care. |
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