Reviews

eh.

frankly, i wasn't too disappointed. i already had low expectations. being a fan of both series for a loooong time, this was a movie that i really looked forward to back then, when the Dark Horse series came out, and when i was in high school.

now, it's been several years later, in the post-Jason vs Freddy-era, where a movie can pit anyone vs. anyone. with a ton of various comic series about it, as well as various video games, it really doesn't seem like such a novel idea anymore. i also found out beforehand that the director is the Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil director. previews didn't look that great, and the ad campaign had that stupid line, "whoever wins, we lose.", with the alien and predator profiles facing each other, like for some Mike Tyson fight promotion. what ever happened to subtlety, like the original Aliens logo, where it was some simple, menacing looking type, with a black glowing background?

GOOD THINGS: anyways, (SPOILERS AHEAD) to make a long story short, i was happy to see it in the theatre. the creature fight scenes were definitely cool (when you could actually make out what was going on). I was impressed with the combined use of CGI and animatronics/puppetry (almost Stan Winston-grade).

also, it was cool being able to see the predator use all his cool weapons. i wish i had that suit.

that's about it.

BAD THINGS: story was pretty lame. my friend told me it followed one of the AVP Dark Horse comic stories; i think that is what happened. the movie was basically a "movie version" of one of the comics, instead of a movie of the Aliens or Predator series. thus, its story was very cartoonish, simplish, and devoid of any character development. now, i wasn't expecting Citizen Kane here, but the dialogue was so cheesy at times and so ridiculous, people were laughing out loud in the theatre. another problem i had was how the film HAD to show exactly how the predators used to rule earth, etc etc...what about just some subtlety, and mystery? does everything have to be explained 100% for everyone so explicitly?!

and where was the blood? now, i wasn't looking out specially for guts, but it was so frustrating never seeing anyone get ripped in half, Bishop-style!!!!

several notable moments:

• the archeologist, within a few seconds, suddenly is able to fluently read the etchings and figure out exacty what the history was, blah blah blah. he also "suddenly" figures out, "oh, yeah, the giant Tetris blocks move every 10 minutes".

• when the predator became all nice and made lex an honorory predator, with her own wittle alien shield and spear. awwwwww! they're so cute together! this is when the audience just started giggling. wtf!??!

• the SLOW MOTION BAYWATCH RUNNING SCENE with predator and lex while the temple exploded behind them. come on. how could anyone not laugh at that moment. the audience was rolling on the floor at that point. what is this, some episode of Knight Rider?!

• the denouement after the explosion, when the lex and predator got all intimate, looking into each other's eyes. predator-human love!!!! audience started making porno bass-line riff sounds here.

• i'm sorry, i can't think anymore. it just pisses me off.

if i had expected more, i would have been sorely disappointed. overall it was a simple popcorn flick with action. it REALLY DOES NOT DO JUSTICE TO THE ALIENS OR PREDATOR FRANCHISES. it really should not even be considered part of those series. it should be considered a video-game-turned movie, and that's it.

My comments (WARNING- POSSIBLE SPOILERS):

I thought overall the movie was decent. I think the excellent soundtrack (did Belle and Sebastian write that track just for this movie?) helped it quite a bit though. Mood and 50's white-bread campiness in acting style was very "Edward Scissorhands"/"Pleasantville"-like...in terms of the nosy neighbors, the conformity, the whole ostracization, the gosh golly gee dialogue...etc etc...nothing really groundbreaking or different though...

Reading the reviews, what irks me is that people are taking the movie at face value and can't just see that some scenes were clearly done tongue-in-cheek and/or were not meant to be realistic in any sense:

• Car going off cliff explodes 3 times before even hitting anything (boyfriend survives) - Boyfriend (Kent?) suddenly becomes understanding, sensitive, and supportive immediately after the accident (Loved his pained grimace when they kissed in front of him) - The "West Side Story"-type soundtrack during the fight (Loved Kent's Fighting Irish fists a la Conan O'Brien) - The rival sorority doing a very staged celebration in front of their sorority house with a monstrous Trophy; you then see a teeny-weeny trophy in the other sorority sister's hands. - Ricci has to go to Long Beach Tech, and EGADs! has to live with regular people, who of course, like all common people, have roosters and chickens in the front yard (hahahahah!)

Come on people. This movie is not supposed to be realistic. It is a quirky little funny film.

OVERHYPED. TOO MUCH TALKING AND IRRELEVANT SCENES. BAD DIALOGUE. ACTION SCENES TOO LONG.

maybe it was just hyped up too much. it was inevitable. the hollywood hype machine. the animatrix movies. the video games. the trailers. whatever it was, i was sorely disappointed.

POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!!!!!

I think what made the first movie work was lack of expectations (I had gone in thinking it would be another Johnny Mnemonic!) and the whole revelation/discovery process as the secret of the Matrix was revealed. That's what made the whole movie so enjoyable. Also, at that time, Hollywood had not been inundated with HK-Style kung-fu acrobatics in every friggin movie. It was one of the first U.S.-produced films with such a major emphasis on HK-style wire-work theatrics. Cool! flying dudes shooting in slow motion while doing cartwheels! Secondly, the crux of the movie was simple and straightforward.

I think during the time after the 1st movie and these other films, the Wachakowski (sp?) brothers just had to really flesh out the whole story line of what was going on with the Matrix and how it became and all this other stuff that had to go into the sequels. They probably had to work backwards, and really did not what to write except to come up with inane, run-of-the-mill sci-fi TV Movie material.

Frankly, I did not care anymore, after the 1st 45 minutes almost put me to sleep. It was just a bunch of gibberish about nuclear reactors and Zion and the 6 others before Neo, and the Keymaster, and renegade agents, and (sigh)love...I mean, I think of myself as a relative intelligent guy, but I found myself falling asleep through the 1st half of the movie. I could not understand what the heck they were doing? Call me a dumb movie goer, or maybe the producers just wanted the film to be confusing so that the average moviegoer would have to see the movie 3 times....but it was just waaay too trying to explain everything.

The second most boring part of the movie was during the Architect scene. I mean, that guy was going on for like 20 minutes. I noticed people int he audience around me dozing off, and just looking at their watches. Maybe for the hardcore fanboys, SF fans, this was a big story revelation time, but the general summer-movie enthusiast, this dragged on waaay too long. I didn't care anymore.

Another pet peeve I have. Keanu's fight scenes were pretty lame when he wasn't using weapons. His kicks and punches were so choreographed and looked so weak, I doubt he could have hurt a fly with those fists.

I have to say the weapons fighting scene and the highway car chases were the high points of the film. They were worth my 10 bucks.

Some other weak scenes. What was with that Club MTV raving scene? Is that a rule of Zion? That only good-looking, twenty-something, sweaty hot attractive people are allowed in the city? I almost equated this scene with the Ewoks celebration scenes in Return of the Jedi, before the big battle. Waste of film. Another weak scene: Neo manually pumping Trinity's heart?! What th-?! I also thought Neo would do his Superman thing and fly around the Earth to make it spin backwards and rewind time to before she died! DUMB!

Man, now i am getting annoyed at myself for getting so excited for this originally! What was I thinking!?

I went not really expecting much, but started to get my hopes up in the beginning, as the story began...Unfortunately, that was soon lost as the movie became a mess.

****POSSIBLE SPOILERS***************** The preview totally did not prepare me for the change in pace of the movie. From The Thing/Aliens-type suspense to a sudden change to It and Stand By Me atmosphere of childhood reminiscence as psychic wonder friends (complete with typically bad/unrealistic dialog as in many King movies, such as It), to Outbreak-type paranoia of containing the alien form, to a sudden switch to action-mode where 4 teeny helicopters try to take out a mother ship (straight from ID4), to the final chase and confrontation scenes.

I dunno, King has written some good books, but there have been also quite a few bad book/story-to-movie translations of his (the Mangler, anyone?). I think a lot of elements in the movie which I thought were idiotic may have been more appropriate within the context of the book.

These idiotic things were: - "I Dudditz!" (Especially when Dudditz yelled that out at the end during the final scene) - What the hell happened to those quarantined? - THe Mind warehouse thing (I'm sure it is better imagined when reading about it than visually shown in a film) - The inane dialogue - The unrealistic kids and their dialogue - The unrealistic dialogue of the 4 men in the cabin (Who talks like that?!)

ARGHGHGGHGH! I'm getting all frustrated again even though I've had 24 hours to cool down...Please save your money!