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Friday 1 February 2008

How bad can a movie be (AvP2) [Lurks]


I want to talk about a movie. Aliens vs Predator Requiem. AvP2 if you will. I don't really talk about movies much but this one was something special and deserves a mention because this was prety much the ultimate excersize in pissing on a franchise and forcefully delivering a truly apocalyptically abysmal movie. Never before have I seen a movie that so clearly read out to you a list of check boxes of what the producers wanted to be in the movie.

It seems in some circles of Hollywood they've given up all pretence of getting a quality script and trying to make a reasonable movie. Now it's purely some big marketing excersize, more methodically and cynically designed than any simple consumer product, let alone a creative medium.

I fear I wont be able to mention it all but here's a list of cliches and check-boxes which must have seemed like a solid bankable idea by the corporate fuckwits at 20th Century Fox.
  • Teen movie. Yep, let's make central characters teenagers. And let's put in a love interest. A jock. And let's have our hero kicked by the jock on the ground while the hot girl that kinda likes him looks on and is called away by the jock... WHY is this in a fucking Alien/Predator movie?!
  • Dark brooding hero with criminal past comes back into town. His bestest buddy is now the sherrif and a pretty shit one at that. After loads of people die and dudes are discovered skinned and hung up in the woods I would have thought it was time to CALL THE FBI.
  • Female lead. It's Dessler from 24 and she's practically Sigourney Weaver, right? I mean she's in the army and everything. Oh but her little girl (Newt) doesn't like her because she spends so much time away from home.
  • Marines showing up. Hoo-hah! Oh but we have radio contact with them as the Aliens attack. Oh noes, they're all dead. Wow.
  • Armoured vehicle. It's in Aliens! Only this one apparently can't go very far because the fucking airport is 'too far away' while the much closer alien-infested hospital with a helicopter on the roof is a MUCH better idea.
  • Spooky sewer tunnel things. Despite the fact it's a hick town in some backwards state in the US, it's apparently got a sewer network with a thriving hobo population.
  • The Predator. I don't think the makers of this movie have actually seen a Predator film. In this film the Predator is about as good a hunter as Elmer McFudd.
  • Predator instead of having cool vision modes, can't really see anything in most modes. Also apparently completely deaf and can be snuck up on by hissing aliens and county police pushing through the undergrowth. But hey the vision modes went Fwwwwaaazzzpp all the time, I mean ALL of the time. Just so you knew it was a predator movie.
  • Predator mysterious out-of-character bio-dissolving blue gunk used repeatedly. Never before has the Predator wanted to clean up corpses, I guess this one is a zero impact greenie. No really the blue gunk is *clearly* a plot device supposed to be some way it get despatched at the end (say it's in water and the hero chick says something whitty and then smashes the blue shit in the water so the predator dissolves) but they axed that from the end I assume, so now we have the BLUE GOO OF POINTLESSNESS.
  • Alien and Aliens had dudes in suits. Let's put dudes in suits. That'll be keeping it real man. Yeah except IT LOOKS LIKE A DUDE IN A SUIT IN THE YEAR 2008.
  • Alien inner jaw thing smashing into skulls. That was cool wasn't it? So we had better do it for EVERY DUDE THAT EVER COMES INTO CONTACT WITH AN ALIEN.
  • Predalien planting eggs in some pregnant chick directly with it's FACE. Eh? What the fuck? I guess they just must have thought oh we're setting in a hospital. Let's think of something really gross! Fuck any pretence at all with sticking with the actual lore of the franchise or anything.
  • Oh no but wait, we'd better stick with the lore of the franchise. So let's do a cut-and-paste scene of Predator with flourescent green blood using some technical device to close a wound and doing a big roar. It's like they think we just go to the cinema because want to see exactly the same thing again. Erm, so let's just put Predator on instead since it DIDN'T SUCK RANCID COCK.
  • Oh and shit, since we've just fucked the franchise so much we better tie the end of our movie into the lore of the original by having evil black helicopter town-nuking overlords with inexplicable satellite based alien-infestation maps and a cameo appearance, to close with, of some chick we've never seen whatsoever who is apparently YUTANI. That's WEYLAND-YUTANI see? That's for all you hard-core fans, the whole thing MAKES SENSE now.

What's even more depressing is this thing is pulling a 5.5 on IMDB right now. Excuse me, what the fuck? The scumbag who wrote this festering pile of cliche-ridden claptrap is apparently some guy called Shane Salerno. He's basically made a living out of re-writing movies with actual scripts into hollywood check-box bullshit and amazingly they love him for it.

To demonstrate just how much hollywood sycophants polute IMDB you really do need to check out the Bio of Shane Salerno written by some nom de plume, aka by Shane Salerno or his marketing people. Here's a great quote.


"Shane's work continues to make him a much sought-after writer whose unique writing draws in actors, directors and studios that are eager to work with him."


Haha! Fuck me I bet they're queing up for some of that unique writing! Seriously Shane, can I call you Shane, you're a talentest fuckwad of the highest order and as an individual you represent the entire sellout fucking whorishness of the American big-budget movie making establishment. I just wish I could sneak into your house at night with a vial of BLUE GOO OF POINTLESSNESS and erase your very fucking existance.


7 comments:


  1. The franchise has been taken into nonsense territory, raped for its art and turned into a cash cow by C20 Fox. I bet they sleep like babies too.


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  2. The only consolation is I'm sure they drive around in a real shit American car.

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  3. Hahah, right on the button. Before seeing this my expectation was 0/10 & it went up to 1/10, basically because the blonde chick got skewered.

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  4. You've just named the only good scene in the movie.

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  5. Not seen this yet, but after reading Lurks comments here and on irc, I doubt I'll go to the cinema to see it (as was my originial plan). It's a real shame they've managed to ruin a franchise with such potential as Aliens vs. Predator, I mean, it could have been the basis of a whole fucking series of mega-ultra-cool movies with blood, gore, hot chicks with guns fighting Aliens etc. Instead we get bollocks like this :(

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  6. The doctor recommends "Pledge this". Watch it immediately, it will make a pile of flyinfested shit like avp2 look like a combination of apocalypse now and aliens. this is my gift for you.

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  7. the worst part is that this shit isnt finished yet! watch out for terminator 4FFS!!!

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