Short Weird Tales: Crack

It's the crack. The scuffling across the battlefield, the tearing open of body armour and flight suits, the snuffling around the torsos and even the sound of their proboscides puncturing days-old dead flesh are all disgusting enough, but it's easy to force your mind to not recognise those.

It's the sound of the cracking which goes through me every time. When filthy pincers at the end of sinewy limbs lock around some poor sap's ribcage then pull briskly outward, exposing everything they're about to... to eat. The snap and splinter of bone, barely muffled by the congealing mass of blood and skin, a mess that's already begun to decompose. Maybe they leave them this long in the way that a pheasant is hung in a cellar until maggots start to appear?

Even that slurping, chewing noise which follows the cracks, accompanied by excited clicking and a dog-whistle whine - that's easier to discount. Somehow. The battlefield is huge and the sheer number of bodies must act as some sort of baffle, yet at ground level I can hear every single one. It doesn't even sound like they're spitting out any shrapnel.

And through all of this, I'm still here. Do they know I'm alive? Leg too broken for me to move, too scared to try anyway? I've been waiting for them to finish up, to either move on or to finish me off and add me to the menu. But none of them have even been close, they're too busy... feeding. Feeding on the others.

I haven't heard a human voice for two days. Well two rotations, at least. Comms went down almost immediately. I can't remember how long the days are here. But light or dark, they're there. The scuttling, the clicking, the tearing. The cracking. I smell like I've been laying in my own filth for two days of course, but so do all the dead ones. They don't care about that. They haven't come near me, they must know. If they're waiting, there's plenty to keep them busy in the meanwhile. I don't know if that's a good thing. I can't have long left. If the infection doesn't get me, dehydration certainly will.

Why aren't they off at the next checkpoint, tearing through another battalion? Maybe they're there, too. We were hopelessly outnumbered here, overtaken by the swarm. Incapacitate, move on, repeat. Feed later. We were never going to win and it was stupid to even try. No chance of rescue, only a moron would wade back into this.

Too late for analysing now, though.
This is where we are.
Where I am.
Meat.

---

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• Short stories © WorldOfBlackout.co.uk, all entries are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Y'know, mostly.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Aliens

Aliens
Cert: 15 / 154 mins / Dir. James Cameron / Trailer

Ah 4/26 again, and a very healthy turnout in suburban Oxfordshire for what is, after all, a mercenary annual marketing exercise as opposed to any kind of anniversary screening. Healthy to the point where your correspondent looked around the growing crowd comprising couples of all ages, groups of men and groups of women and thought '...right, have I walked into the wrong screen?'. The downside of an eager audience of this size is of course an uptick in the general rustling, fidgeting and coughing throughout the deeply atmospheric first act of a film which defined Tension™ for a generation. But a communal experience is the heart of cinema (so they tell me), and you take the breaks where you can find them.

And so to planet LV-426, again, where bad luck charm Ellen Ripley is coerced to go on another works outing*¹ despite narrowly escaping being permanently barred from the Engineer's Arms only 57 years earlier...

PLEASANT

I am, it should be reiterated, merely a civilian lover of the Alien franchise. Definitely a fan, but it's not ingrained in the same way as Star Wars. This means that there are certain things that always seem to slip my mind between viewings, which therefore always return as a pleasant surprise. Y'know, to cheer me up amidst all the shrieking claustrophobic death...

For example, I seem to forget the literally ground-breaking futuristic tech colony on LV-426 is filed to the brim with CRT monitors, and that some of the costumes here are a bit 'V' in places, and that the worst proponent of this is Paul Reiser's Burke, and what an absolutely transparent pantomime villain he is; chewing his way through the scenery as an $18.5m film sneers against the corporate profiteering which had, by that point, come to define the decade which spawned it.

But it's nice to be reminded of the shared cast between the Alien, Predator and Terminator movies, like an intermarriage of 1980s royal cinematic dynasties, and of the influence Alien(s) had on the production design of Red Dwarf.

And I didn't want to be the one to say it, but the kid is annoying.

EVEREST

Snark aside, it's an absolute masterpiece, of course.

For something which - on paper - is only supposed to be an action/sci-fi sequel (and very much like Cameron's other game-raising sequel, Terminator 2), Aliens is so much more than the sum of its parts. The miniatures and matte paintings and puppets look like miniatures and matte paintings and puppets, but that doesn't matter because they (still) look gorgeous.

The picture has cleaned up well but the grain is still very much there, giving the whole film a very tangible texture that's hard to capture in the 21st century. And then the stylistic and structural parallels between this and T2 are intriguing. Utterly glaring in places, but still intriguing for all that*². Most of all, Sigourney Weaver's commitment to the intensity of her character (even if it is just an extension/development of the original 1979 role) is jaw-dropping, and the fact that she made this two years after Ghostbusters is kind of amazing*³.

PEGGY

In horror movie parlance, Aliens is another masterclass of not showing off your monsters too early; and even when you do go all-in, keep it ambiguously detailed. And there aren't as many actual xenomorphs in this as you think you remember, a triumph of budget and deft production design leading to lasting appeal. Although to be blunt - directorial vision or otherwise - 154 minutes is too damned long for a film where the vast majority of it takes place in the dark.

Adrian Biddle's cinematography is superb throughout, but Ray Lovejoy's editing means that the action scenes for two thirds of the movie are a meaningless montage of grimacing and muzzle-flare. And as the human characters are rapidly picked-off, there are by definition fewer of them to explain exactly what's going on (other than "we need to get from here to there, but everything between is covered in acidic goo and death, good luck"

Not to put down the further films in this series (or non-series, depending on your views regarding continuity), but it's been impossible to recapture the absolute breath-holding dread of the first two Alien installments. I'm not complaining about this, it just makes them look better. Either way, you know fine well the powers that be are not going to stop trying any time soon...

*¹ SPOILERS: Remind me again why everyone at Weyland Yutani repeatedly says that Ripley won't have to go 'in with the troops' on LV-426, only to then have her immediately go right in with the troops? I know they're lying to her, obviously, but so does she. So why is Ripley seemingly just going along with this? ^{[ BACK ]}

*² SPOILERS: How does the Sulaco have an airlock that can be operated from inside the airlock at a single panel, and which allows the doors at either end to be open at the same time? With that approach to Occupational Health, it's no wonder Weyland Yutani's got the safety record it has... ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ By which I mean Sigourney Weaver is kind of amazing. Obviously. ^{[ BACK ]}

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Dark Skies

Dark Skies
Cert: 15 / 97 mins / Dir. Scott Stewart



The most terrifying thing about this film is the amount of product placement the Apple Corporation have secured. Made all the more prominent by the hauntingly generic "Search" page which tells us the film-makers couldn't get a 'yes' from Google.

So anyway, Dark Skies is basically Poltergeist with aliens, and it's every bit as derivative and lazy as that sounds. It's exactly like every haunted-family horror you've seen over the past 5-10 years, which is a shame because there are a few nice ideas dotted here and there, and the cast do an admirable job of playing things straight. But there are too many extreme-close-up/quiet-quiet-LOUD moments, and creepy children's drawings, and night-vision surveillance cameras, and weird wise old conspiracy theorists for me to actually commit to taking any of it seriously. Normally I'd say that this sort of thing is a good entry-point to the genre, but it's not. Insidious is a far more solid film by comparison, even if it's just as colour-by-numbers.

And I'm not even going to mention the 'why would you introduce a notedly aggressive Alsatian dog into your already troubled family-space with the intention of using it as an early warning system and ultimately sending it batshit-insane when trouble kicks off, when you could just leave the television on to act as a less-bitey-alert, because fuck it you've managed to buy a pump-action shotgun over the counter on the same day with no waiting period, and then have the aforementioned television on and watch the aforementioned dog go apeshit but not get aggressive at all, just shit-scared, so what exactly was the point of putting the dog in the film?

Oh, I just did.

Ultimately, I can't hate it because I think it's been made with some genuine gusto. Sadly that didn't extend to the writing.
Don't spend money seeing this film.

Pretty much.



Not really. Although I suspect I did laugh more than I was supposed to..



Not for me.



None.



Yes.



No.



No.





DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: The Watch

CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.



The Watch
100 mins / Dir. Akiva Schaffer

So, a straight 100 minute, cookie-cutter comedy about a group of underdog outsiders who band together for a greater cause, and at the same time overcoming their own individual hangups? Three American stars, each with a frankly hit-and-miss record when it comes to being a comedic lead, and the addition of a British actor who only seems to have one persona to his belt? No notable cameo appearances to speak of, but a range of incidental characters who frequently upstage the stars with their wit, timing or sheer absurdity? A wandering direction which seems to forget its own main narrative and wander down Subplot Alley for extended periods of time? A surfeit of knob-jokes, with enough language thrown in to ensure that crucial 15 Certificate?

All of these…



The Good: I can't work out if it's in spite of the laundry-list up there, or because of it that I really enjoyed The Watch. The formulaic framework (courtesy of Seth Rogen) made it a lot easier for me to take the movie at face-value. Which is a nice way of saying 'just enjoy the jokes'. I chuckled frequently throughout and guffawed three or four times, and the audience around me did the same, so it was doing something right.

With one exception, it's been beautifully cast, and everyone is on great form with characters they're suited to while not seeming to be overplayed (yet, anyway). That exception would be Mr Stiller, by the way. He's perfectly acceptable as Evan, the uptight founder of the Neighbourhood Watch, but he doesn't bring anything unique to the part. As I mentioned above, it's the likes of Will Forte as the sarcastic police officer, and Billy Crudup as Evan's flirting neighbour than steal their scenes completely. It's worth pointing out that the film is more about the aliens than the trailer would suggest. I thought they were going to be thrown in half way through, but that's not the case. And although the design of the creatures is a little generic, they're executed well enough, given the type of film you're watching.

Other than that, The Watch is a comfortably predictable (but no less funny, for it) frat-boy comedy, with shades of Paul and Attack The Block, wrapped up in Superbad. Frequently crude, but always good-natured.

Oh, and there's one c-bomb (to snare the aforementioned 15 cert), and for once it's delivered magnificently. Bonus points for that.

The Bad: The film does try its hand at having a subtext about duty, friendship, and relationships. It's probably best if you ignore this, as it's been done so much better in the past by other movies. But at the same time, bonus points go to them for attempting it. Without that second layer, what are we left with? Lesbian Vampire Killers, that's what...

The Ugly: At least one glaring spot where bad editing has Ben Stiller completely jump from one mark to another between cuts, only to deliver a line which makes absolutely no sense, because the rest of that conversation strand has been excised. I'm intrigued to know how much of this movie is on the cutting-room floor, because there's no gag-reel or extra scenes at the end, and there are a few lines in the trailer that don't make it into the final theatrical cut.

All in all: I found The Watch to be very, very likeable. More than anybody else, if online ratings are anything to go by. If you don't make it to the flicks for this one, it'll make a good night in with friends and beer. Just don't expect anything other than a noisy, silly comedy.



DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.

• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Prometheus - Third-Pass

CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.



Prometheus (3D)
124 mins / Dir. Ridley Scott

Review #1 (Spoiler-free) here, and Review #2 (Spoilery) here.


You know the deal by now. I've been to see Prometheus again, and I don't think I'm going to get anything more out of this version of the film. I really need that extended-cut to answer some questions, and of course ask some new ones.

So I've made you a picture!



^^ Click for bigger (1072*857px, 150kb, opens in new window) ^^



DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.

• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Prometheus - Second Pass (SPOILERS)

CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.



Prometheus (3D) - Spoilers. Heavy Spoilers.
124 mins / Dir. Ridley Scott

NOTE: My initial review of the film is here. If you haven't seen Prometheus yet, you should read that, as it's spoiler-free. The following post will not only spoil the plot of the film, but also won't make a lot of sense unless you've seen it, anyway.

After thinking about my first viewing, and discussing some of the finer points in the pub (always a reliable way of analysing subtext), I'm left with a lot of small questions and one rather large one. I'll save the small ones for later posting (because I'll be seeing Prometheus again, I have no doubt of that), and concentrate on the one I have no real answer for…

What's in it for David?
David, an artificial person created by Peter Weyland as a surrogate son, is called-out by the human characters (and indeed his own father) on a regular basis for 'not having a soul'. Amusing in and of itself, because obviously a soul isn't a quantifiable object, and the humans seem to miss the point that as a sentient machine (mechanical or biological) with a self-preservation instinct, David is every bit as 'human' as they are. From his introduction aboard the ship Prometheus, spending his free-time watching Lawrence of Arabia, cycling and dyeing his hair, it first appears that David desperately wants to be human, to gain acceptance from his peers. However, from what transpires on the mission, I took it that David is well aware of the frailties of the human-condition, aware of why he's better than that, and is only seeking to fully understand humans so that he can overcome the obstacles that he feels are holding him back. He's fascinated by Dr Shaw's religious beliefs, especially in the face of so much scientific evidence that can provide data, and even by the end of the film hasn't figured out what enables a person to believe unconditionally.

But alongside all of this, he's carrying out his programming. Namely, to aid and assist Peter Weyland as he looks for a way to cheat death by communicating with the race he believes has created humanity. When the hologram of Weyland appears to the ship's crew at the beginning of the mission-briefing, David knows that his father isn't really dead as he claims to be. When the first scouting party enters the vase-chamber, and David furtively steals one of the vessels for further examination on the Prometheus, he knows that Weyland is asleep (or in hypersleep-recovery at least) onboard the ship.

When David has worked out that the black-goo from the canister has mutative effects on the life it comes in contact with, and with a sense of wry mischief deliberately infects Holloway with the substance, he knows that Weyland is only a few rooms away, at most.

What's David's motivation for exposing Holloway to the goo?

It can't be part of his programmed mission, as he's endangering the only (sensible) means of Weyland and himself escaping the planet. Weyland hasn't travelled all this way to find the secret of life, only to spend a prolonged period running around barren LV-223 avoiding whatever creature David has helped spawn. At first I thought that the idea was for infected-Holloway to impregnate Shaw, then to put Shaw into hypersleep to smuggle the resulting creature back to Earth (as per Burke's agenda in Aliens). But there isn't enough data on the life-cycle at that point to think that this plan will necessarily work, and David could have carried out the freezing of Shaw himself, but chose not to, getting the Prometheus' crew to take Shaw to the cryo-chamber (which backfired massively).

So what does David hope to gain by releasing this unknown factor into the immediate environment? Holloway's treatment of him up until that point had been dismissive, but with no real callousness, so it seems odd that David had decided to punish him just for speaking down to him. It's not really until the scene at the pool-table that Holloway shows any real belligerence towards David, and by then he's already got the alien-drop on the tip of his finger. Was there a chance of David chickening-out, if Holloway had been uncharacteristically nice to him?

And while I'm on the subject, why doesn't the black-goo affect David? Yes, he's an android, but it's already been established that he has at least some living tissue on his body, as he's dyeing his hair blond at the start of the film (only the roots, indicating continued growth). If he has organic hair, it stands to reason that he'd have other human-type tissue on his body, if only to help him blend-in (and assist hair/nail growth, etc).

Had the mutating-goo already affected David internally, hence his increasingly erratic behaviour? Were David's actions borne of child-like curiosity as his personality grows unchecked? Had the two years, eights months, fifteen days of solitude on the outward journey begun a neurosis resulting in David beginning to break his programming? Had David just become bored, and decided to do a little research of his own to assist the Weyland Corp?

I don't know. And from what I've seen in the film, I can't work it out. I suspect these questions will never be answered neatly, even with extended-cuts and director's commentaries. After all, people are still arguing over if Rick Deckard was a replicant or not.

If you have a theory on this, leave me a comment below, cheers! :)



DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.

• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Prometheus (Spoiler-free)

CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.



Prometheus (2D) - Spoiler Free
124 mins / Dir. Ridley Scott

It's not really a "spoiler" to say that there are oblique and direct references to 1979's Alien in Prometheus. That fact is what's drawing the crowd, no matter how much 20th Century Fox want to understate the connection. And so, withholding expectations as much as possible, I sat down this afternoon with a nuclear-hot coffee to watch the film that's exciting geeks and civilians alike...



The Plot: In 2089, when anthropologists connect a series of pre-historic cave paintings with a distant star system, the Weyland Corporation funds a scientific expedition to planet LV-426. What they find is an invitation, a warning, and just maybe the very origin of life on Earth…

The Good: Too much for me to take in fully on the first watch. I see that as a good thing, and it's always been an indicator of a great film in the past. The production design and effects in general are nothing short of breathtaking, here. Even the 'old-age' prosthetics are remarkably good, backed up by the mannerisms of the performer wearing them. And as far as I can see, everyone is on great form in Prometheus. You don't doubt any of the characters for a second (although their respect of basic Health and Safety practices is often staggering).

The crew of the ship Prometheus are nicely realised; all rough and ready and full of world-weary sarcasm, which is a sound nod to the crew of Nostromo from that other Ridley Scott film. My only real 'positive complaint' is that I wanted to see more. I could quite happily have watched a version of this that was closer to three hours, and given Ridley Scott's history I daresay an extended version will appear at some point.


The Bad: Prometheus definitely asks more questions than it answers. Certain connections which are suggested (and occasionally used to batter the audience around the head with) don't fit as snugly as your average geek may be wanting them to. In addition to this, a lot of the extra-terrestrial biology on display seems not to run concurrently with 33 years of Aliens sequels and expanded-universe mythology. It's no biggie, but it feels like the film deliberately goes out of its way to step out of line.

There are also whole avenues that feel unexplored. Michael Fassbender's David and Charlize Theron's Vickers are practically screaming for more screentime to get into their motivations. I know that associated promo-material, such as David and Peter Weyland's viral videos, certainly bulks out the background of Prometheus, and I suspect there's a lot more in that vein. But for your average punter in the cinema (who hasn't been geeking out for the last year or so), the lack of that depth could make for a fairly sparse story. And isn't the cinema supposed to be about storytelling? The 'extras' should be just that, not a requirement for understanding the film. [/Reverse Film Snobbery]


The Ugly: According to references all over the internet (but little in the way of actual quotation):

"The Swedish actress Noomi Rapace, who plays British character Shaw, worked on set with a dialect coach to help her achieve an appropriate accent. "

Well, I hope the coach didn't get paid. The vast majority of her lines are passable, and then she slides in a Swedish accent that trips the whole thing up.
If it wasn't for flashback scenes of her as a little girl with a very 'British' accent, there'd be no need at all for it to be an issue. Why did you even MENTION this, The Internet? It's like when they tell Jason Statham to do an American accent, or Ewan McGregor an American one. They can't do it, don't waste your time.


Should I see this at the pictures, though?: Undoubtedly. Despite what I've moaned about there, Prometheus is bloody good. I mean, seriously bloody good. Beautifully made and definitely worthy of seeing on the big screen. Just don't expect to walk out of the cinema with all the answers you've been wanting...



DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.

• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

222: If it bleeds we can kill it... Xeno Season!

CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.



Oh yes, in the absence of any fresh cinematic releases that interest me, it's time to dive to the horror shelf and break out some films I don't watch nearly enough.

The thing is, in the midst of all my Star Wars merch, I always seem to forget how much I like Aliens and Predator…

…By no means "hardcore", but probably more than a 'civilian' fan.

9 days, 9 films (well 9½), in chronological release order, theatrical versions where available. These are more 'thoughts as I go' than full reviews, so probably won't make much sense if you haven't seen the films. No change there, then.
So, without further ado, let the acid-drenched carnage commence!

---

ALIEN (1979)
26 August 2011. Location: Home

For many years, I wasn't a fan of this (indeed, Alan Dean Foster's novelisation is one of the few books I've given up on midway). Turns out I was watching it wrong. Viewed as a sci-fi film, this is badly paced and uninteresting. Viewed as a horror film, it's really quite beautiful.

Random thoughts:
• I love the antiquated computer screens and the fact that smoking is allowed onboard the Nostomo.
• The white-panelled sections of the Nostromo remind me of the Tantive IV from Star Wars.
• The OCD part of my brain admires the queen for laying her eggs in such an orderly fashion.
• As the facehugger's acid burns through Kane's visor, wouldn't any of it drip/splash onto his face? Just a little bit? He seems relatively unscathed.
• Why do they eject Kane's body into space? Before the Ash-revelation, surely they need to keep all the evidence they can on what's happened?
• I like how it's insinuated that other forms of life are known about, just not that one.
• The exponential growth rate of the xenomorph once it's hatched seems ridiculous, but that runs through all the films, I suppose.
• That's not an alien, it's a guy in a suit! It's not the design that gives it away, it's the movement.

So, for 1979, this is well ahead of its time. Ridley Scott's done well,there.


Yes, only 5. It's good, but not that good.

---

ALIENS (1986)
27 August 2011. Location: Home

This one's definitely Sci-Fi over Horror, although there's a greater balance of both than with its predecessor. James Cameron's continued the mistrust-of-authority theme, and added in some mech/lifter suits; both of which he'd use again in Avatar. Except when he did it in Aliens, there's an original story and characters you actually care about (mee-ow, I know).

Random thoughts:
• Seriously, how is Spunkmeyer even a name?
• I always seem to forget that this takes place on planet LV-426 from Alien, even though I know it.
• The lifter-suit wouldn't be fast enough to fight in, even against the bulky Queen-Alien. And why does a cargo-handling device have a blowtorch on it?
• The models look like models, the mattes look like mattes, and the stop-motion animation looks just like it should. It's awesome, and miles better than a-guy-in-a-suit.


I find it more accessible than the first movie, but it's still missing the sense of adventure that's in the next film in Xeno-Season...

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PREDATOR (1987)
27 August 2011. Location: Home

Another twisted-genre movie. As a Sci-Fi, this doesn't work at all; as a throwaway Action flick? Gorgeous.
I honestly think it's a massive mistake to show the Yautja ship in the opening credits. It robs the film of its reveal later on. It's not relevant to the team's mission initially, and since the audience is one step ahead of the protagonists, their discoveries feel a little listless. If the film held back on the infra-red shots until after the enemy camp is discovered, the flow-of-info would work a lot better.

Random thoughts:
• Arnie really is an appalling actor, and although Carl Weathers isn't great, their scenes together make him look worse, too.
• Why is Hawkins wearing massive glasses on a spec-ops mission? Face-camo is supposed to reduce shine and reflection from your skin; with those geps, you may as well wear a hi-vis waistcoat.
• What little credibility the film has is also reduced by Arnie's godawful one-liners. But I suppose that's par for the course.
• Billy stripping off his shirt is ridiculous macho bullshit, even by Arnie's standards. The Predator has taken out an armed SpecOps squad, and numbnuts thinks he can take it out topless with a knife.
• Although this is matched by Arnie, when he smears himself in mud that he laughingly assumes won't warm to his body temperature as soon as it's dry and the moisture's evaporated from it.

It's rough'n'ready, but I get the impression it was meant to be a standalone vehicle for Schwarzenegger.


Intense, but great fun.

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PREDATOR 2 (1990)
19 August 2011. Location: Home

"Okay, everybody just take a deep breath, loosen your sphincters. We don't need any rush-hour Rambos, there."

Even more fun than the first film, largely due to having funny characters, rather than scowling soldiers with corny lines. The city-setting and huge cast of extras reduces the feeling of claustrophobia this time around (which works better for me), and gives the feeling of a much larger budget.
Because Gary Busey's Keys and the feds know something about the Predator (like the audience), while the central characters don't, there's a definite feeling that the story is leading towards something bigger than just a face-off.

Random thoughts:
• There's enough characterisation in here that you actually care about the protagonists (and to a certain degree, even some of the human antagonists).
• Keys says that the thermal blast from Predator "destroyed enough rainforest to cover 300 city blocks" …and yet we saw Arnie out-run that? Hmm.
• Although he's portrayed as a brash bully, I find Keys' motivations more sympathetic, rather than Danny Glover's Harrigan, who's a 'good' cop, yet spends the entire movie disobeying orders and charging into crime-scenes as if he doesn't realise the importance of not contaminating evidence.
• …so Herb's wife hears the Predator roar in the bathroom, but didn't hear the bloody wall being caved in five minutes earlier? Okay then.


Minor flaws, but an excellent movie.

---

ALIEN³ (1992)
29 August 2011. Location: Home

"It's a long, sad story. And more than a little melodramatic…"

This line from Ripley is a pretty neat summation of the film, and it's certainly not what people were expecting after Aliens. The strong Brit-presence and muted dialogue make it less of a sci-fi and more of a dark melodrama. Just as the original Alien is a horror in a space setting, this is a drama first and foremost.

Random thoughts:
• It seems like a cheap move to a) re-hash the rescue procedure from the start of Aliens, and b) kill Hicks and Newt so that their stories don't have to be continued.
• Why is Ripley's gestation period so long when even the dog goes through a relatively 'regular' cycle?
• It almost turns into an Agatha Christie type tale, with the characters being picked off one by one. Except, obviously, we know who the murderer is.
• It's Henry Sellers! "I MADE THE BBC!"
• You can tell the majority of cast are British, the swearing's done properly...





It's a lot better than you remember.

---

ALIEN: RESURRECTION (1997)
31 August 2011. Location: Home

"So… who'd I have to fuck to get off this boat?"
Wise words, Sigourney, but you should have asked that before principal photography even began.

With Joss Whedon writing, and Ms. Weaver in co-production, this should have been handled brilliantly. Unlike its predecessors, it's out-and-out science fiction, and subsequently much weaker for it. Little touches like the hydratable whiskey-cubes are as corny as the whole space-pirate thing, and it feels like a 14yr old's take on the canon.

Now by this point in the saga, we're all very aware of what the Alien design looks like, but there's absolutely no 'reveal' at all, they're just filmed as if they're regular members of the cast. Ron Perlman's pretty good in this - he's playing someone who can't act. Speaking of which, even bearing in mind Winona Ryder's character, she's completely wooden. The only saving grace in the acting department is Sigourney herself, who gives a nice 'otherworldly' performance as a cloned version of Ripley, although it isn't enough to save the film, unfortunately. Even though all bets are off as to will survive 'til the end, there's no tension as you really don't care which of the unlikable characters is picked off next.

Random thoughts:
• The first corridor shootout is so slow-paced as to be completely unbelievable, even for a "space film".
• Versions 1-7 of the cloned Ripleys are so disparately wrong, I find it hard to believe they suddenly got it right with version 8. There doesn't seem to be any actual progress made between revisions, and it looks like the genetic equivalent of throwing Lego at the carpet and hoping it lands in the form of a car. It certainly wouldn't work the eighth time you try it.
• For the record, I'm fine with the swimming Aliens. The underwater sequence was one of the few I enjoyed.

Some interesting ideas, but I think they'd have worked better in the comics/novels (indeed, the false-Ripley has been done better in the novels). The film's reach exceeds its grasp.

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BATMAN: DEAD END (2003)
02 September 2011. Location: Home

Yeah, I'm including this, what of it? It's flipping awesome! It gets a mention not because of its running time (8 mins), but because of its production values.

It's Batman vs. Aliens vs. Predator. A fanboy dream come true. Back in 2003, AVP was still a year away, and we'd hoped it was going to be something like this. Well, we could hope, couldn't we?

Click the link up there to watch this short film, and be amazed at what passion for film can generate.

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ALIEN vs. PREDATOR (2004)
02 September 2011. Location: Home

…it's Jurassic Park, isn't it? That's not intended as a detraction in any way, just an observation. Predator movies have always been loud, brash action films, and this is 66% Predator, 33% Alien.

As an addition to the Pred-canon, there are some nice chunks of backstory development. As an addition to the Alien mythos, other than the Weyland/Bishop backstory, there's fuck all. Not that it really matters too much.

Paul W.S. Anderson directs, and there's a definite feel of his Resident Evil movie, as we move between locations via a wireframe graphic display, and Colin Salmon and Liz May Brice are both here, who also starred (briefly) in RE1.

The amount of time that the facehuggers spend on their hosts is suspiciously short in this version of events, and the hatchling-to-adult process is also sped up ridiculously. I know we've got to keep the plot moving, but still. And while I expect a fairly short awake-gestation period for the humans (remember Kane wasn't up and about for long in Alien before the chestburster), the infected Predator takes a bloody age, but I'll put that down to a different physiology. Oh, and why didn't the Yautja's various vision ranges pick up the gestating PredAlien at the end? After all, it was possible to see Weyland's cancerous cells earlier on.

All in all, it's a dumb action film. That's what Predator does best, let's not require too much of this. It's still pretty entertaining.

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AVP2: REQUIEM (2007)
03 September 2011. Location: Home

Oh, I see, let's spend film-one building up Alexa as a warrior that's recognised by the hunting clan, start film-two directly in conjunction with the first one… then forget about that character, kill the hunting clan, and make a teen-slasher movie. …right.

"Have you got power on that thing?" "Yeah, I just need some light..."
Yet again, the lead character sums up an entire movie in one sentence. It's not thematically dark, just visually. In fact, thematically, this is a sort of beige…

First things first: Why the fuck is this film so damned dark? I can't see what the hell's going on, and I watched it indoors with the curtains drawn.

Second things second: This is, yes, a teen slasher movie, but with monsters instead of a madman. You know it's going to be just great when the cast-list contains no-one you've heard of before. A staple of the slasher film is having teenagers dying left, right and centre. Sadly, a staple of the Predator series, is having characters that you don't want to die, and that's where this film falls down. BIG time.

At no point do the central characters appear to work out what's going on and what they're up against. They're so clueless, they manage to hole up in a fully stocked gun-store, and still fuck things up. Frankly, it's a relief in the final moments when the government decides to just nuke that area of Colorado and draw a line under the whole sorry mess.

On the plus side, we get to see a little bit of the Yautja homeward (MORE PLEASE), and the closing reference to the Yutani Corporation was a nice touch, but they seem like bits of the original screenplay which have been dropped into a below-average straight-to-video sequel.

Like Alien³, this isn't a horrendous movie per se, it's just fucking awful at being a Predator one (let alone an Alien film). I'd expect this from a spinoff TV series, not from an actual bona-fide sequel.


(because I'm here to review Aliens/Predator, not the cash-in shit in Blockbuster with the 'homage' cover.)

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PREDATORS (2010)
04 September 2011. Location: Home

Okay, last movie. With Robert Rodriguez's name on it, and Danny Trejo starring, this should be fucking awesome, right? I mean, you saw Machete? Yeah?

…it's pretty good. Not brilliant by any standards, but certainly back-on-track. We're in a jungle environment, the characters are (kind of) intelligent, and at least they're learning as they're hacked to pieces by the Predators. The infra-red-vision has been updated, which is very welcome in my book. All in all, this is a Predator movie. YAY!

Random thoughts:
• Adrien Brody's great, but not really for this 'badass' role as Royce. He's way too sympathetic from the word go, considering he's meant to be a mercenary by trade and nature.
• I get the feeling that Alice Braga was the second-choice for the part of Isabelle, and that it was written with Michelle Rodriguez in mind.
• For an alien planet, it looks suspiciously like Earth, except for the one single plant that stands out like the out-of-place prop it is.
• This reveal-shot 25 minutes in where the characters work out they're not on Earth by seeing all these planets in the sky: that's not the first time in the movie they've been in an area open enough to see the sky in front of them. If the sun hasn't moved (as Royce says), it stands to reason that the other planets-in-view would always have been there. And don't even get me started on the gravitational anomalies with having planets of that size so close to one another.
• The creature-shots of the Yautja attack-dogs are beautiful.
• It's fucking criminal to kill off Danny Trejo so early in the movie.
• Lawrence Fishburne is delightfully nuts as Noland.
• I see we get another "take my shirt off and fight in honourable melee combat" moment. Although, amazingly, it sort of works this time.
• Let's just ignore that bit in the trailer where Royce gets covered in the Predator tracking-dots, yeah?
• Why is Isabelle so surprised when Royce suggests booby-trapping the injured Edwin? They're all meant to be mercenaries, and Royce is acting like a merc. For once.

Despite its lukewarm reception last year, this is a good return-to-form for the Predator series.
More like this, please.

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SO! That was a fun week-and-a-bit fo'sho! But have I learned anything from this? How does the progression of the canon over thirty-plus years fare, in a comparative sense? Are there any trends or waves that stand out?

There's only one thing that can help us… A GRAPH!


^^ Click to see that bigger. Opens in a new window.

I think we've learned that they don't make 'em like they used to, but Predators is a step in the right direction.

And that's about yer lot!
It's been fun, it's been exciting, it's been emotional. And dripping with acid.













Watching all of these in a row does something to you...

Sleep well!

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.

• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.