The Hunter or the Hunted? Pt 8 (Predator 2, 1990)

Directed by Stephen Hopkins (Lost In Space, Nightmare on Elm Street 5 and Race), Predator 2 is an attempt at being very different. Instead of a jungle, we are in “the Concrete Jungle”. Instead of a heavily muscled soldier, we have have a team of police. The film tries to be different by being very opposite. There are vicious gang wars that are tearing up the street. Captain Mike Harrigan (Danny Glover) and his team are the cops on the front line. They start to find dead and mutilated gang members. Soon the cops find themselves as much targets as the gang members.

This sort of works well, and the film acknowledges the first film with Gary Busey as head of a task force trying to capture the Predator explaining it all to Harrigan. The film also establishes what draws a Predator to a location. Extremely hot weather in volatile areas. It also expands the previous film’s rule that Predators do not hunt and kill the unarmed to not killing pregnant women (even if they are armed).

Predator 2 is competently made, but Hopkins is not as strong as McTiernan. It has it’s charms (such as a very late 80’s action cast including Bill Paxton, Maria Conchito Alonzo, Robert Davi and Ruben Blades) but does not rise to the entertaining levels of it’s predecessor.

There is a throw away moment towards the end where Glover’s Harrigan is on the Predator ship and looking at the trophies on a wall…one is clearly a xenomorph skull from the Alien films. Although just a “wouldn’t this be fun” gag, it set fire in the imaginations of fan who soon wanted a crossover between the franchise. For a long time, this only occurred in the comics. It took fourteen years (seven from Alien Resurrection) to get to the Alien vs Predator films.

June 4, 2017 0

The Hunter or the Hunted? Pt 7 (Predator, 1987)

Predator is from Arnold Schwarzennegar’s action movie heyday. Directed by John McTiernan (Die Hard, Die Hard With a Vengeance and the Hunt for Red October) it is a capable action film. It is a simple plot, a mercenary group hired by the government goes into the jungles of South America on a rescue mission. Instead, they find themselves up against an unseen and unearthly killer.

Arnold is the leader, hired by an old friend (Carl Weathers) for the mission so the American Government can keep it’s hands clean. At first they believe they are just up against warlords…but soon discover they are being hunted like animals. The killer seems to be invisible and unstoppable.

We learn it is an alien, an intergalactic creature who lives for the thrill of the hunt. There is nothing particularly unique, hunting humans is a longstanding plot for thrillers. But McTiernan (who would direct Die Hard only months later) shows he has the chops for telling effect action thrillers.

The cast is pretty ideal for a testosterone romp through the jungle. Along with Schwarzennegar, there is Jesse Ventura (who went on to be Govoner), Bill Duke and Sonny Landham. The effects still stand today, as McTiernan does not try and get overly complex.

Predator is a worthy and minor sci-fi action classic that is a lot of fun to watch.

June 3, 2017 0

Love is the Weapon (Wonder Woman, 2017)

There has been a lot of hype declaring that Wonder Woman is the best of the DC movies so far. But that is not fair to the film. Wonder Woman only had to be mediocre to rise to the top. Wonder Woman is a much stronger film than that. While Batman and Superman have had multiple appearances on movie screens, this is Wonder Woman’s first film in her 25 year history. This in spite of the fact that she is an iconic character, she is part of DC’s “Holy Trinity” along with Batman and Superman.

It is no secret that despite financial success, the DC Cinematic Universe has hit a lot of speed bumps. There have been things to like in previous outings, but overall, the films had a dark oppressive tone and frankly, Snyder and Company really did not get Superman at all. One of the big pluses of Batman V Superman was, in fact Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman. Enough so that I felt encouraged by the film. It help that it was in the hands of a director other than Snyder.

And what do you know? It worked. Wonder Woman is an origin tale, which is no surprise. But the film opens with a beautiful sense of awe on the island of Themyscira (or as Steve Trevor calls it “Paradise Island”). We see warriors training, being watched by young Diana. She want to learn to fight, but her mother Hippolyta is adamant she will not be trained. As time passes, Diana learns combat in secret, much to the disappointment of her mother. Hippolyta eventually relents, but demands Diana be trained harder than any Amazon before her.

When a pilot on the run from the Germans crashes into the ocean near Themyscira it is clear that the war (World War 1) may come to them. Diana makes impassioned pleas to her mother that the Amazon’s must step in and join the war. In the end, she sneaks off the Island with Trevor to find and destroy the Greek god of war, Ares.

Diana is cast in the role of wide eyed innocent in a world she does not quite understand. And the film follows largely in suit. She has moments of child like wonder. For example, sshe sees a baby-something she never saw on her island home-home and instantly wants to run over to it. She tastes ice cream and tells the vendor that they should be very proud. Even the sexual humor is polite in this film. Yet, the innocence is not at the expense of Wonder Woman’s character. No, it is integral to her nobility. She believes the best. She believes mankind was created to be good and noble, only corrupted by Ares’ cruel nature. And then she must come to terms with the fact that this may not be the case. Mankind may be capable of both greatness and the worst.

It is the little moments of goodness that start to drive Diana, as she sees the small treasures in the band of mercenaries she and Steve are saddled with. At one point, one of the men buckles in combat, unable to do the one thing he was brought there to do. When he suggests they leave him behind, Diana looks to him with a gentle smile and asks who would sing for them? This instantly changes his spirit. And that is the thing with Wonder Woman. She is a fierce warrior. She is powerful and dangerous. But she is driven by kindness. She is drive by love. She is driven by hope. And that is something that was missing in the DC Cinematic Universe. A *hopeful* tone. This is what the first Wonder Woman movie brought us. Light in a dark movie universe.

There was a lot of talk about how Warner Brothers took a real gamble on Patty Jenkins as director. That is a whole other discussion. But if it was a gamble? It paid off. And Gal Gadot is proving herself to be the right choice for the role. She has grace and kindness, but is equally convincing as a warrior.

Wonder Woman is most certainly the best DC film, in large part due to the fact that it really understands it’s hero.

June 2, 2017 0

The Hunter Or the Hunted? Pt 6 (Alien Covenant, 2017)

After the beating Prometheus took from critics and fans, the rumor is that Ridley Scott proclaimed, “They want Aliens? I will give them f___ing Aliens.” And so the Prometheus sequel morphed into an Alien Prequel.

Set ten years after Prometheus, we are introduced to a ship called the Covenant. It is carrying thousands of colonists (and embryos) and is headed for a distant planet suitable for human colonization. Piloted by a crew of married couples. When tragedy strikes and kills the captain, the crew goes to fixing the ship. They desire to honor the death of their captain, but Oran (now as the acting captain) is focused on the business. As they finish the work, a transmission is intercepted. It leads to the discovery of a habitable planet just weeks away. Somehow this transmission and planet escaped notice. Oram wants to visit the planet, as their original destination is seven years away. Daniels (who was married to the deceased Captain) expresses concern that this is a bad idea. Also on the ship is a Synthetic named Walter (played by Michael Fassbender). While he looks like David, he is a decidedly different character.

They land on a lush, yet seemingly lifeless planet. And things rapidly descend into horror. Some of the crew is exposed to spores that result in proto-xenomorphs that burst from the backs of victims. You know, instead of from the chest. David saves the crew, only to be revealed as a lone hermit who spent the last ten years trying to create a weaponized life form. In a flashback we discover that when Shaw and David arrived at the planet, he dropped the goo on the Engineer populace. Now he hopes to do the same to humanity.

The film borrows from all the previous films in it’s resolution. For example, there is an airlock fight like Alien and Aliens. The film has a lot of ideas that never play out. And worse, the questions of Prometheus are cast aside, as is Shaw. The film telegraphs it’s twist ending from miles away.

The film takes several moments to cast Billy Crudup’s Oram as a disgraced man of faith. Not disgraced in regards to his faith, but rather that his faith has had him blackballed from further advancement within the company. The problem is, aside from a couple mentions of his faith, we never really see what that faith is in…or why it has been an impediment.

Daniel seems to be in shock the entire film, some of which is understandable, but then she suddenly becomes the “Ripley” of the film. And they try and out-Ripley with Daniel. She swings around the outside of a ship with a giant gun blasting away at the xenomorph.

For the large part, the effects are good, though there is one scene where a newly birthed xenomorph is clearly (and pretty embarrassingly) CGI. Like Prometheus, the ideas seem unexplored and the story incomplete.

I did not hate the film. Fassbender was great in his dual roles. Walter had an entirely different tone and cadence to David. I have always liked the design of the Alien franchise. And the ships in Prometheus and Covenant do not feel like they cannot occupy the same space as the rest of the franchise. In Alien we saw an industrial transport ship in Aliens a military vessel, in the third film a dilapidated prison and in Resurrection a military station. All of these were utilitarian. The Prometheus was a private company’s high tech research vessel and the Covenant is a luxury transport.

I really like the design of the proto-xenomorphs. They are creepy and unnervingly vicious. I liked the characters for the most part, and felt Danny McBride’s Tennessee one of the more stand out characters, in spite of being a fairly standard character in these types of films. I would put Covenant above, say, the Alien Vs Predator films or Alien Resurrection. But it does not rise to Alien or Aliens either. The movie takes so many shortcuts, it results in characters looking a bit stupid. “Lets not wear protective gear in a new environment, after all, we can breath the air!” It is still a disappointing follow up with a annoying and dismal final reveal.

June 2, 2017 0

The Hunter or the Hunted? Pt 5 (Prometheus, 2012)

Resurrection seemed to kill the franchise. But after two Alien vs Predator films, Ridley Scott became very annoyed and wanted to right the ship. Kind of. The vaguely titled Prometheus would be set before Alien, but it was not a direct prequel. Rather, it would be Alien Adjacent. This certainly made for an intriguing idea, and trailers showed a lot of hints of the unfamiliar future with brief glimpses of familiar sites.

The final product is an imperfect attempt at an epic tale. Borrowing heavily from Erich Von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods, Prometheus opens with a gorgeous and vast shot of lakes and mountains. We travel along this landscape until we come upon a “man”. He is tall and muscular, with marble like skin. A large spaceship (which is the same type of ship from the first Alien where the eggs are discovered) is leaving him behind. He drinks a strange black drink and instantly his body starts to break down and he falls into the water, his DNA dispersing.

If you are not sure what Chariots of the Gods is, it was a book in the 70’s that claimed that all religion and technology we know today was the result of guidance from extra-terrestrials who were revered as Gods. Prometheus takes this a step further, positing that mankind was created by these aliens. They become known as “the Engineers” in the film. Considering that Scott completely ignores the Alien vs Predator films, I am surprised he pretty much steals this concept from them.

The film leaps to the future, where we meet Elizabeth Shaw and her fellow archeologist (and boyfriend) Charlie. They have been traversing the globe comparing various ancient sites, specifically the artwork of cultures from all over the world that share common themes. They believe they have assembled the coordinates to a home world of “The Engineers”. A crew is assembled by dying Peter Weyland to visit the planet. They are told he will be dead by the time they arrive.

Once on the planet, the crew discovers an ancient ship with bodies of the engineers and holograms of them running from some threat. Many poor choices are made and everything goes wrong.

The film gives us all sorts of “almosts”. Almost a facehugger. Almost an Alien. Almost the planet from Alien. The film has grand attempts to explore themes of faith, diety, humanity and creation. A lot of this focus is on Shaw and the Synthetic David. David is one of the more interesting characters…he is also both sympathetic and disturbing.

The ending is a massive storm of confusion and destruction, in which Shaw becomes determined to discover why the Engineers have chosen the course they chose in relation to humanity.

Prometheus is gorgeous to watch, which breath taking visuals. It is a stunning and spectacular feats with a strong cast, including Noomi Rapace, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba and Michael Fassbender. Fassbender especially shines as synthetic David.

But the story seems only half cooked. They have ideas at play that never meet fruition. The unanswered questions seem allowable, as the film was clearly left open for a follow-up. With Prometheus, we have a film that is not terrible but not quite great. And if it was part one, it might even be a great start and set up. But, that was not not meant to be. Instead we are left with an incomplete story.

June 1, 2017 0

The Hunter or the Hunted? Pt 4 (Alien Resurrection, 1997)

In spite of a lukewarm reception to the third film, the studio wanted to take another try at the Alien Franchise. Although they managed to pump this one out in just three years, it is a bigger mess than the last one.

This film is set around two hundred years after the last one. It establishes a new wrinkle in the xenomorph mythology. Not only do they borrow from their host, they seem to share DNA. Scientists clone Ripley and the clone has an alien queen in her chest.

A ship of space pirates arrives at the military base that has cloned Ripley with top secret cargo. The scientists are trying to control the aliens as possible weapons. You know how that will work out. The aliens break free and take over the installation, leaving Ripley (along with the Space Pirates) to try and escape.

The film tries to explore the ethics and horrors of genetic experimentation. There is a nicely played moment where they discover a lab full of less successful Ripley clones. One is still alive, causing Ripley true horror. The film has Ripley’s humanity in question (her blood has acidic qualities like the xenomorph) which is punctuated by a late reveal of a synthetic person. The film also tries to add a new breed of alien, but it looks absolutely hideous. Giving the alien beady eyes, white skin and a pot belly is not frightening, just an awful design.

The practical effects are, as they have been throughout the franchise, strong and effective. However, the digital aliens do not stand up well twenty years later.

In spite of a strong cast (not to mention script doctor work by Joss Whedon) the story feels rather pedestrian. Nothing quite gels into a cohesive narrative, and seems like it was built on a series of “wouldn’t it be cool if…” meetings.

May 31, 2017 0

The Hunter or the Hunted, Pt 3 (Alien 3, 1992)

The success of Aliens had the studio rushing to try and get an Alien 3 going. There were a lot of false starts and bad ideas that led to what we got. Good scripts got tossed aside for weird ideas. There were questions on whether Weaver wanted to return. While she did finally return, she pushed for this to be the end of Ripley’s journey.

Music video director David Fincher was given the job of bringing the film to life. It should be noted, Fincher was deeply unhappy with his experience and even producers admit they treated him very badly. Which is unfortunate. Because the end result was a muddled and overall messy film with some good ideas and some terrible choices.

After the events of Aliens, Ripley, Newt, Hick and Bishop are in hypersleep on a small escape pod. There is a malfunction that results in the ship crashing on a small prison planet. Only Ripley survives. The prison operates on a skeleton crew, primarily made up of the inmates. Most have adopted a form of Christianity that sees themselves as so unable to resist the draw of sin, living on a planet without temptations is their only choice. As religious leader Dillon (Charles S. Dutton) notes, Ripley’s arrival has put temptations back in place.

An alien facehugger has escaped with Ripley and finds a host. This film added a new twist to the series. It suggested that the alien xenomorph actually borrows traits from it’s host. In this case it is a dog. This results in a xenomorph that runs around on all fours and is more canine in it’s movement.

Once the xenomorph is discovered, Ripley and the inmates struggle to defeat it. Alien 3 is an attempt at not repeating the previous films. So they drop Ripley on a planet with no weapons. Unfortunately, a lot of the decisions with the script resulted in nullifying the progress of Ripley in Aliens. Killing her defacto family put her back at square one. The studio interference left us with a film disowned by it’s director and far more to weaken it. The strengths are few and far between. The religious aspect is kind of interesting and the cast is terrific. Yet these things cannot save a slapped together script and poor CGI.

May 30, 2017 0

The Hunter or the Hunted? Pt 2 (Aliens, 1986)

About seven years after Alien, hotshot director James Cameron brought the franchise roaring back to life. Rather than make a generic sequel, Cameron made a bold choice. The first film was a haunted house movie, Cameron opted to make a war movie.

Ripley is awakened 50 years after the first film to find everything she knew is gone. On top of that she is plagued by nightmares of the alien creature. Ripley joins a mission at the request of the corporation to check on a colony that is on the same planet they found the eggs with the alien xenomorph. It is promised to Ripley this is a search and destroy mission.

She is joined by a platoon of Space Marines. They don’t believe her claims of an alien monster, but of course, they soon find out she is neither crazy nor a liar. And then things get bad. And then? They get worse.

Aliens is one of those rare sequels that manages to rival it’s predecessor. Ripley is angry and aimless at the film’s beginning. When she discovers a young girl named Newt hiding in the remains of the colony she starts to see beyond merely destroying the aliens. In the extended cut of the film, it is revealed that Ripley had a daughter on earth who grew up and died in the time Ripley floated through space. This gives an added dimension to Ripley and her dedication to Newt throughout the film.

The marines are a hearty and confident lot. Their banter feels natural as they trade insults and yet fight to protect each other when it all comes crashing down. They are a compelling group. And then there is Bishop. A synthetic or android, Ripley does not trust him, due to the fact that the android on her ship tried to murder her. Bishop represents the other side of that coin. He is kind and polite. He is also willing to risk himself. At one point, after volunteering for a risky mission he states, “Believe me, I’d prefer not to. I may be synthetic, but I’m not stupid.” How much of this is programming that compels him, versus a certain human quality is unclear. He notes his programming prevents him from causing harm to a person, but does that programming extend to risking himself to save a person from outside threat?

This is a near perfect action film, with thrills and twists and turns. It manages to expand upon the mythology of the first film’s animal without being a tired retread of information. The performances are compelling and the visual effects have withstood the test of time. On top of that, in spite of being a sequel, you could go into Aliens never having seen Ridley Scott’s film and follow the story with few, if any, questions.

May 29, 2017 0

The Hunter or The Hunted? Pt 1 (Alien, 1979)

Alien begins rather quietly. We see the interiors of a ship that is floating through space. It comes to life and we meet a crew…space truckers, so to speak. We do not know much about what they are hauling, though it does not matter much. We get that these are working class joes. This is not Star Trek. The ship has awakened the crew due to a distress message.

Going down to the planet, one of the crew members is attacked by a strange creature that attaches to his face. And so begins a terrifying trip for the crew as they try to eliminate the alien creature that evolves to become a greater and greater threat.

Alien is a expertly crafted “haunted house in space” tale. The ship is vast, yet it has a confined and claustrophobic feel. The design of the sets is that of a blue collar environment. It feels used, run down. It is an industrial, a utilitarian styled ship. It was assembled for it’s purpose, not it’s beauty.

The alien ship is unique and feels remarkably unearthly. The pilot, long petrified is inhuman and ominous.

Then there are the designs of the creature itself. The work of famed artist H.R. Geiger, the alien (later dubbed the xenomorph in the series) feels uniquely creepy and unearthly. A hard shell, with acid for blood, it seems to exist only to destroy.

The cast is terrific as weary workers just trying to get by, but being forced to deal with something beyond their pay grade. Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley steps up to the plate to lead the fight after the crew takes some losses. At this point the game becomes more one of cat and mouse.

Alien is a film full of surprises and character and manages to stand up to repeated viewings. It has become a classic for good reason.

May 28, 2017 0

Wedding Crashing (Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, 2016)

Mike and Dave are brothers who party hard…so hard that their family is frustrated at how they ruin every even. To be allowed at their sister’s wedding, they are required to bring respectable dates. Mike and Dave get the idea to go on TV and put the call out to get some classy ladies. Alice and Tatiana are lazy who cannot hold a job, in part because they would rather lay around smoking weed. They see Mike and Dave and decide to con their way into a free Hawaiian vacation on Mike and Dave’s dime. Crazy adventures follow.

Well, more like “Standard Comedy Misadventures.” As you might suspect, the ruse is discovered, things fall apart and then the leads must fix their screw up. It is a pretty standard trope. The problem for this film is nothing distracts you from the highly predictable beats.

Most of the characters are very loose sketches. And while I suspect it is intentional, Adam Levine’s Mike is far less sympathetic than Efron as Dave. This is mirrored in Plaza’s Tatiana and Anna Kendrick’s Alice. But that ends up working against the film. While there are funny points, nothing makes the movie stand out. It is trying to be in the vein of Wedding Crashers, but feels like a film trying real hard to look like it is pushing envelopes…but even those moments feel heavily cliched.

The film had a lot of potentials, as it has an excellent comedic cast. I went in hoping to really enjoy this film as some crazy farce. Instead, I found long stretches where the film comes to a standstill. At barely over an hour and a half, this is not a good thing.

In the end, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is a derivative comedy that is mildly amusing…but I suspect will largely be forgotten.

May 17, 2017 0