12-05-2008, 10:10 PM
AVP (Alien versus Predator)2 DVD landed on the mat this morning. I'd forgotten that during a drunken ramble through Amazon I must've pre-ordered it. I went ahead and watched it tonight. Why do I do it?
All the expected Alien franchise nods were there; the grease-smeared musclebound Ripley-lite (survives, natch) complete with dysfunctional daughter, herself a pale facsimile of Aliens' excellent Newt; a bloke named Dallas (in reference to the original); jittery marines, unscrupulous military high command, Weyland Yutani, chest bursters, acid for blood . . . and all the sadly anticipated tripe, too. Instantaneous gestation, acid-immune central characters, complete lack of discernable narrative, quease-inducing rollercoaster cinematography, almost-characters for whom one felt nothing (not even contempt) and a high percentage of pitch black screen that even in the highest definition equipment left the watcher . . . well, in the dark really. The 'twist' was about as well disguised as a Paul Scholes tackle and the final scenes of disposable townsfolk in mass panic reminded me of the finale to Gremlins, a vastly superior and infinitely more terrifying motion picture.
I swore blind I wouldn't watch any more of this tripe after suffering the first AVP.
It seems my mother was right; I really will never learn.
Verdict: utter tosh.
All the expected Alien franchise nods were there; the grease-smeared musclebound Ripley-lite (survives, natch) complete with dysfunctional daughter, herself a pale facsimile of Aliens' excellent Newt; a bloke named Dallas (in reference to the original); jittery marines, unscrupulous military high command, Weyland Yutani, chest bursters, acid for blood . . . and all the sadly anticipated tripe, too. Instantaneous gestation, acid-immune central characters, complete lack of discernable narrative, quease-inducing rollercoaster cinematography, almost-characters for whom one felt nothing (not even contempt) and a high percentage of pitch black screen that even in the highest definition equipment left the watcher . . . well, in the dark really. The 'twist' was about as well disguised as a Paul Scholes tackle and the final scenes of disposable townsfolk in mass panic reminded me of the finale to Gremlins, a vastly superior and infinitely more terrifying motion picture.
I swore blind I wouldn't watch any more of this tripe after suffering the first AVP.
It seems my mother was right; I really will never learn.
Verdict: utter tosh.
