Alien Vs. Predator: A History

Alien Vs. Predator: A History
by Steve Finkelstein

(8/13/04 )--The purpose of this article is to review Alien Vs. Predator, but I have a sickly feeling about the aesthetic quality of this film. Fox is not providing advance screenings of the film for critics; hence, the newspaper reviews won’t appear until Monday. When studios pull this crap it is always a sure harbinger that the film is a turkey. However, for those of you in the know, I always remain the sunny optimist (and if you believe that, you’ll also believe there are WMD’s in Iraq), so I never pre-judge movies until I see them, and I won’t be seeing this until Monday.

I never see films on weekends; I like to have rapt attention when I see a movie, and packed crowds full of popcorn-munching cretins talking on cell-phones distract my critical faculties. You Babblog readers certainly deserve better than that. So, to fill in the time before I catch the movie, I’ll give a brief critical overview of the Alien and Predator film series.

When Ridley Scott’s Alien opened in 1979. it was considered a seminal event among movie buffs and filmmakers. The film combined grunge sci-fi with gothic horror, causing both the mass public and critics to be bowled over by its seemingly ground-breaking fusion of genres. In terms of direction and acting, the film is peerless. Scott infused the film with a world-weary dystopian feeling about the future that reflected the pessimistic angst of the late 70’s. Most of the film’s action takes place on a spacecraft called the Nostromo. This ship was not the typical sleek, shiny spacecraft that was usually featured in past sci-fi films. Rather, it was a dreary cargo ship, a depressing hulk of a machine, one that was reminiscent of a broken down galactic tugboat than anything that should be cruising through space. The ship’s crew fit right into this dreary milieu; the crew of five men and two women seemed to be comprised of burned-out losers with a history of possible past substance abuse problems who could find no other job except an ostensible galactic scavenger hunt.

If you've seen the film, you already know that these seven underachievers are pawns setup by a fascistic multinational corporation. They want to use the crew as a seven-course meal to help transport back to earth an invincible, monstrous extraterrestial for nefarious military purposes. The ensemble cast playing the members of the doomed ship were uniformly fine, with Sigourney Weaver and Ian Holm being the standouts. Scott’s direction was expert in conveying the palpable tension the crew felt waiting to be bumped off one by one.

Yet with all these virtues, I’ve always felt the film was overrated, a good film unjustifiably elevated to classic status. Why do I feel this way? Being a sci-fi film completist (some might say fanatic), I had also seen a 1958 low-budget film called It! The Terror from Beyond Space. Like Alien, It! concerned itself with a monstrous alien hijacker entering a spaceship. It also had scenes of a) the monster being pursued by a crewman in the ship’s air ducts, b) a crew member fighting off the creature with a flame thrower and c) the creature dying by having the ship’s escape hatch opened ,forcing all the oxygen out and killing the monster. Does any of this sound familiar?

Don’t get me wrong; It!, while being a neat, above-average film is certainly no classic. It’s hurt by a low budget which forced it to use a somewhat unconvincing baggy monster suit depicting the creature. Alien is a better film, taking the basic premise and improving upon it with better acting, better directing and better production value. But since it so shamelessly rips off a previous film without acknowledgment, I can’t confer upon it the classic status that so many think it deserves.

(8/14/04)--I was wrong about the Alien Vs. Predator review not appearing in print until Monday; the LA Times' 3rd-string critic reviewed the film today (Saturday), and predictably the film was lambasted. My ominous predictions seem to be coming to fruition; however, I will still keep an open mind until I see the film (as opposed to an empty mind, which seems to be the state most movie-goers are in these days).

I’ve had a day to ponder critical reactions to the rest of the Alien and Predator series and here are my feelings re those films: James Cameron’s 1986 Aliens, the sequel to the 1979 film, is a crackerjack sci-fi action film, a terrific movie that is the best of the Alien franchise. The plot concerns Ripley (Weaver) leading a platoon of dim-bulb marines back to the planet that spawned the original villian, now to fight a legion of these creatures who have wiped out the colonists that settled on the planet in the intervening years. Cameron’s film is first-rate, featuring superb action sequences blended with effective moments of poignancy as Ripley maternally bonds with a little girl named Newt whose parents were killed by the creatures. The climax where Ripley, fitted up in a vertical fork lift defends Newt from the “Queen-Bee” alien, is a classic action sequence; Ripley’s line to the creature--"Keep away from her, you bitch!"--is humorous, exciting and poignant, all elements to be found in this fine film.

If Aliens was the series highpoint, David Fincher’s 1992 Alien3 is the series nadir. A truly dreadful film, this was one of the worst films to come out of the major studios in the 1990’s. If you’re interested, the action takes place on a prison planet where Ripley and convicts predictably do battle against the monstous creatures. The film is a dreary, ponderously paced bore that never should have been made; it certainly puts Fincher at the top of the lists of hacks who’ve had their starts directing music videos (Michael Bay also belongs on this list). The less said about this lemon, the better.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s 1997 Alien: Resurrection was the next installment in the franchise. It was critically savaged in many quarters, though some major publications such as Newsweek liked the film). I’ll probably catch hell for saying this, but this film was one of my "guilty pleasures." It’s been seven years since I’ve seen the film, so my recollections are a little hazy. What I remember is that a cloned hybrid Ripley-Alien teams up with a group of space pirates to fight against ruthless scientists who are developing a horde of alien-human hybrids for those damned military purposes again. One particular over-the-top scene involved Ripley’s alien-human hybrid baby tenderly licking her mother’s face with its six foot tongue! If all of this sounds like nonsense, it is, but Jeunet (director of the French sci-fi cult film Delicatessen, as well as the hit Amelie) directs the film with vigor and style and doesn’t give you time to think about how absurd the film’s proceedings actually are until you’ve exited the theatre.

I wish I could say I had a similar entertaining experience with John McTiernan’s 1987 film Predator, but I can’t. The film deals with a monstrous, sometimes invisible alien bounty hunter who picks off a group of commandos in the South American jungle. Though the film had interesting action and special effects sequences, the dialogue was flat and the characterizations non-existent, such that you really didn’t give a shit about the characters being bumped off.

Stephen Hopkins 1990 followup, Predator 2 was another matter entirely. The film was a sleeper, another of my guilty pleasures, in the manner of Alien: Resurrection. It takes place in 1997 L.A., where the monstrous bounty hunter is picking off members of warring drug gangs. The film has a classic, stunning shot of the creature on top of the mid-city Wiltern building hoisting the decapitated head of a drug dealer. The film was full of exciting sequences like this and turned out to be a highly enjoyable sci-fi action romp. At the time, this film also received some scathing reviews similar to those that the current Alien Vs. Predator is now getting. Will I also be pleasantly surprised when I see Alien Vs. Predator? We'll find out.

(8/16/04)--Just got back from Alien Vs. Predator; my pessimistic predictions were right--this is the worst film I’ve seen so far this year. It’s not as bad as Aliens3 (what could be?), but it comes close. This film is too inconsequential and inept to devote much time or space to; let it suffice to say that it details the travails of scientists caught in an underground antarctic Rubik's cube, where they are caught between warring aliens and predators. The writer/director/hack behind this mess is one Paul W. S. Anderson; one of his previous films was Mortal Kombat, which probably gives you an indication of the quality of AVP. But even undiscriminating action fans must feel cheated at the film’s incomprehensible, poorly staged action scenes and lousy CGI special effects. This one is gonna tank at the box office, folks, which will cause the Alien and Predator series to both die ignominious deaths. Sci-fi action fans deserve better than this.

See ya soon.

Steve Finkelstein can be reached at steve@babblog.com.