Post by Mr.HoRrOr on Aug 15, 2004 16:32:12 GMT -5
Since the beginning of time, the Predators, the feared, hulking alien game hunters, have come to Earth for one simple reason: to engage in a coming of age ritual. To become "men," the teenage Predators have to hunt down a hive of Alien warriors and successfully defeat them and claim the skull as its trophy. However, during one hunting session, the easily aggravated Aliens fight back, leading to the destruction of the two species and the Aztec people who worshipped the Predators as Gods. Nearly two thousand years later, billionaire industrialist Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henriksen) rediscovers the pyramid, buried thousands of feet under the ice of Antarctica, with his satellites. Knowing that he has discovered something important, Weyland fixes up a team, led by Lex Woods (Sanaa Lathan), and heads down to the Antarctic to find the pyramid. But once they get there, the enslaved Queen Alien awakens from her sleep, which results in the production of new eggs and Facehuggers. And to make matters worse, the new hunting clan of teenage Predators, led by the brash and violent Celtic, have arrived, ready to hunt down both the Aliens and the humans within.
Cast-
Sanaa Lathan
Raoul Bova
Lance Henriksen
Ewen Bremner
Colin Salmon
Tommy Flanagan
Joseph Rye
Agathe De La Boulaye
Carsten Norgaard
Sam Troughton
Petr Jákl
Pavel Bezdek
Kieran Bew
Carsten Voigt
My thoughts- Going into this movie, I didn't have much faith, considering it was rated PG-13 and only had a running time of 87 minutes. However, while it was nice to see the Predators and Aliens face off on screen, this film fell flat in alot of ways.
My review...
The film starts off well enough, with the predators arriving in antartica and preparing for a ritual where they hunt and kill aliens. However, the aliens manage to kill off a few predators early and things take a turn for the worse on their side. The humans soon arrive, and after doing some research, Sanaa Lathans character somehow comes to the realization that the preds are their allies against the aliens. Theres a team up between the humans and the predators against the aliens, and thats when the mayhem ensues as Humans and predators take on the ever resiliant aliens in a fight for survival. I liked the set up, however, the film felt rushed in alot of areas. The human/predator team up came way too early. We knew the humans would team up with one side or the other eventually, and that side judging by the preds being just sport hunters, and the aliens being a vicious, killing type species, would by most peoples guess, be the predators side, but the team up came too fast, and too easy. You kind of wonder why the humans would trust the predators so easily. Also, theres an early scene where a few predators viciously kill a few humans outside the tomb, which makes me wonder how all of a sudden not so later on in the film, they can team with the humans so easily. I guess it came down to the preds knowing they needed backup just as badly against the hordes of aliens as the humans did. Kind of a swallow your pride sorta deal. I liked the team up, but too soon. Also, the fight scenes were very cheesey and not too well done. I liked the fight between the predator and the queen alien, and the way the predator killed off the queen to save Lathans character, but for the most part, the fights that did not involve shooting weren't very well done. Also, the cut away scenes bugged me a bit. We rarely see anyone get killed, because (due to it's PG-13 rating) we have to be spared the blood and gore
. Theres a scene where the predator cuts off the alien queens tail, which is about as bloody as it gets in this movie. The predators are made out to look like pansies. These are creatures that kicked some serious ass in the first two movies, however, to be fair, they were warring against an equally dangerous enemy in the aliens. But with their knowledge of technology, and their advanced weapons, most shouldn't have been killed off so easily. The ending was confusing and really makes you question who exactly was the clear cut winner, and leaves a slight hint that maybe there will be a sequel. The scene with the alien queen running after Lathans character didn't sit too well with me. It looked too cartoonish, I don't remember the queen moving that fast in any of the previous films.Pros- action is heavy here, although it's most repetitive.
Character development was surprisingly well done, especially in a film where you have the aliens and the predators as the stars of the show, and the humans as the ones caught in the middle (the cattle so to speak).
Queen alien vs the predator fight was nicely done, and the queens death scene was cool as well.
Cons- Again, the film felt rushed, like there was alot cut out just to skip ahead to the big battle with Humans&preds vs Aliens. Fight scenes, most of them weren't well done, queen alien running scene looked a bit too cartoonish. It was also too short, 87 minutes? "Freddy vs Jason" was longer than that. Lastly, most of the predators group were killed off way too easily. You would think with them being hunters, and this being a usual ritual, they'd be more of a match for the aliens. They win in the end, but the aliens got the better of them throughout, and had not it been for the humans, the predators most certainly could've lost. There were also a few holes in the plot when it came to predator/human interaction.
Overall- Not a bad film, I'll admit when I posted the topic about it immediately after seeing it, I was a bit P.O.ed at how it turned out, but after thinking about the film these past few days, it has it's merits, and isn't a total waste. Definitely worth seeing atleast once, just to say you saw it, and compare opinions with others. It definitely has it's flaws, but overall, worth a view. My rating 7.3 out of 10.
Final Thought- I felt the film would've been better with a solid "R" rating, but PG-13 didn't totally kill it. The character development saved it alot, as did a few action scenes. However, if theres a sequel in the near or distant future, I hope FOX takes it's time with it, and goes for a solid "R" with a longer run time. Most likely, a SE DVD will be released, with all the cut out violence and gore put back in or put in the deleted scenes.