BEFORE: Finally, this is the last Alien and/or Predator film on my list (though a new film titled "Predators" is coming out this summer...) and I'm anxious to get this one out of the way and move on. I've seen enough people eaten this week to last me a good long while...
THE PLOT: Warring alien and predator races descend on a small town, where unsuspecting residents must band together for any chance of survival.
AFTER: This movie picks up right after the last one (I think...), when a spaceship full of Predators is heading away from Earth. However, they didn't realize that they carried an Alien on board, inside the body of one of their fallen comrades. So, before you know it, the Aliens run rampant on their ship, and it crashes back down to Earth. Damn it, when will be rid of these guys?
The ship crashes in Colorado, and the aliens start taking over a small town - the film shows us a number of the folksy characters, but there's little point in getting to know them, since very few of them will make it to the end of the film alive. The conventions established in the previous "Alien" movies (first the crab-like thing grabs on to their face, then their chests explode, etc.) are combined here with many of the usual horror-film clichés (don't go into the woods alone, don't have sex of any kind...).
Problem #1 - the film takes place at night, during a heavy rainstorm, and THEN the power goes out in the town. End result - for most of the film, I couldn't see a damn thing. The cameraman might as well have left the lens cap on the camera.
Problem #2 - since the lead alien hatched from a Predator's body, it has some of the characteristics of a Predator. I guess they merged DNA or something - because some of the aliens look like...Predaliens, I suppose. Which makes it even MORE difficult to tell what's happening during a fight scene between two similar-looking characters, in the dark, in the rain.
Problem #3 - Like in the last film, neither of the titled characters speaks any dialogue. Which is great if you're trying to sell the film overseas, but terrible if you're trying to follow the plot (what little there is of it...)
So, it's dark, I can't see hardly anything, and what little I can see, I can't really distinguish. Seriously, there are like 3 to 4 minutes at a stretch where the screen is almost pitch-black - and that's during important fight sequences! What the hell? Didn't anyone learn anything in film school about lighting - like, maybe how to TURN A FEW OF THEM ON? So we, the audience at home, have some idea about what might be taking place on-screen? Jeesh!
I will say that I did NOT fall asleep during this movie. OK, maybe I dozed off once, but not nearly as much as during last night's film. Does that mean it's a better storyline? Not necessarily...'
At least this time, there are a couple of actors I have actually seen before - like Steven Pasquale (a regular on the show "Rescue Me"), and Robert Joy (the coroner on "CSI:NY") I could have sworn that one of those teens was Daniel Tosh, star of Comedy Central's "Tosh.0", but apparently I was wrong...
RATING: 2 out of 10 pepperoni pizzas
UPDATE: Well, that's going to wrap up my "Alien Invasion" chain, but I just wanted to point out that this week, noted physicist Stephen Hawking announced that he feels that we humans should NOT be searching for extra-terrestrial intelligence - and it wasn't followed by a line where he said we should first find some on Earth... No, Hawking thinks that aliens DO exist, but if we were ever to contact them, it could be really bad for humanity, since they would probably want our resources, and perhaps enslave us or wipe out our civilization to get them.
This is exactly the conclusion I reached, after watching films like "Signs", "Predator", and even "Meet Dave", so I think it's safe to assume that Stephen Hawking is reading my blog, and watching the same movies along with me. Mr. Hawking, I just want to say that I'm a big fan of your work, but I have to disagree with your latest treatise on the quantum nature of alternate realities generated within black holes - what the heck were you smoking?
So you heard the man, call off the search, and cut funding for SETI unless you want humanity's future to resemble a lame sci-fi movie.
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