Hey, fuckers! It's RFB, shooting in to review a few of the ALIEN movies just in time for the release of AVP-R, coming April 15th from 20th Century Fox home entertainment. Joy. So, I'll be quick and to the point. I won't go to in-depth with the reviews of the movies 'cause many of you complain that my vocabulary is too advanced and entirely too long. I apologize. Anyway, I kinda need to keep it short 'cause I got that job thing to do and I need to shower before I do that. So...yeah. Time to get rolling.
ALIEN
"IN SPACE NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM"
In my humble opinion, this is the greatest tagline for a movie, ever. It's succinctly chilling and underlines the consistent predator vs. prey tone of the movie. It's a brilliant psychological horror movie because it uses it's monster conservatively, revealing pieces of it in silhouettes. And as such, the three-dimensional passengers of a commercial towing starship confront an imminent doom that is beyond all levels of human comprehension. And it builds to a heart-stopping finale when lone survivor Ellen Ripley is forced to go mano a mano against the savage extraterrestrial cockroach.
Absolutely brilliant film that takes its time to develop it's characters, something not inherent in many horror films. It's frightening; the art design is among the very best in motion picture history. The author feels (i.e.: ME) that this is the greatest American horror film of all time. Anybody that questions the author (ME) will receive a swift kick in the balls. Sorry 'bout ya.
ALIENS
I enjoy the concept of this film. Take the title of the first ALIEN and simply pluralize it. Quite intelligent. I never did quite get the whole "tacking" on the number 2 to a movie sequel. I can understand it, however, as most movie sequels result in a number 2, if you know what I'm saying.
Anyhoo, I have a love-hate relationship with James Cameron. He has innovated amazing, groundbreaking visual effects, directed the highest grossing film of all time, gave Arnold Schwarzenegger the role he was born to play and directed arguably the greatest action movie of all time: TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG.
However, James Cameron homogenized the current day action/adventure movie and it sorta pisses me off. From the original ALIEN, he circumvented the brilliant horror elements altogether and brought to life a pseudo-intelligent action film containing pulse rifles and--gasp--multiple extraterrestrial cockroaches to use the rifle ons.
Now, there was a phrase I used in the RAMBO review that was kinda popular. My fans (all two of them) bring it up all the time when I see them. It is now unofficially retired, kinda like Michael Jordan in the mid-90's. Not really retired, per se...it gave up the basketball gig to play baseball, metaphorically speaking I guess. Perhaps its sitting in the corner of it's affluent mansion, bawling its eyes out over it's recently deceased father when nobody is looking. I don't know.
The phrase has been applied to different things over the course of my writings. Exploding_________motherfucker(s). Asians. Bunnies. Well, it is coming back to play on the Chicago Bulls court. That's right. I'm bringing it back one last time. These creatures are intensely aggressive, they move like cheetahs, presumably possess the intelligence of a chimpanzee and you can't kill them so easily 'cause they bleed molecular acid.
So what does Cameron do? Dumb it down by presenting inescapable hapless situations that would otherwise spell an inevitable demise for the players involved--escapist fun movie fare that has been imitated, spoofed and admired since the day it was released on the big screen.
ALIENS is merely an extended sequence of exploding extraterrestrial cockroach motherfuckers.
When the soldiers shoot the fuckers at point-blank range, the blood rarely splashes on them unless it is convenient for the pace of the movie. Bishop shows up with the dropship just in the nick of time to rescue Ripley and that annoying little girl with the annoying accent who likes to repeatedly shout the supporting characters last names for no reason whatsoever. The reactor blows up just as the dropship gets the heck out of dodge. And the Alien Queen is sucked out of the airlock just as Ripley seals the door.
It's a film that grounds itself on simple conveniences and coincidences to the point that it grows insulting. And sadly, Stephen Sommers, Brett Ratner, Paul W.S. Anderson, Uwe Boll, Michael Bay...I guarantee you that this is their favorite movie of all time. They saw this one when they were little bastard spawns and decided that they were gonna make movies like this, but not execute them as well. It's as if these guys live by the mantra: Character development not necessary.
Don't get me wrong. The first two Alien movies are probably in my list of twenty favorite films of all time. It's ambitious, contains some of the best action sequences in movie history, two great lines ("Get away from her, you bitch!" and "Game over, man! Game over!") and hey--at least we have Badass, "exploding extraterrestrial cockroach motherfucker" Ripley to carry it. Vastly overrated, though.
ALIEN 3
Never seen it. And from what I hear I don't need to.
ALIEN: RESURRECTION
I've only seen parts of this movie on the Home B.O. channel. My consensus: Gay.
AVP: ALIEN VS. PREDATOR
What do you get when you combine two of the most popular film franchises in history, remove the characters that drove each series, replace them with caricatures, hand it over to a video game movie director and water it down to achieve a family-friendly rating?
A train wreck. Horrible, horrible, horrible. But compared to...
AVP-R: ALIENS VS. PREDATOR: REQUIEM
It's a goddamned masterpiece. Of course it's R, but this film is fuckin' terrible. Oh, shit! Look at the time. I'm not even gonna get into this one. Don't rent it, don't buy it! Steal it from Best Buy, download it illegally, donkey-punch anybody who purchases it, etc. I'd recommend the latter. The fact that this film exists and was produced and directed with such pedestrian resolve is a spit in the face of these two great film series. So spit in the face of 20th Century Fox, the studio that raped this series, sabotaged the X-MEN movies anyway they could, dropped the funding for a motion picture based on the video game HALO because it "cost" too much to make and then proceded to produce the Fantastical Four movies.
Wow. There really isn't a God.
--Don't die in a fire.--
RFB
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