"Arrow Recommends is a column that has my sorry ass advise older movies to your royal asses. I will be flexible in terms of genres i.e. I will cover whatever the bleep I want. For now, it will be the way to keep my voice on the site."
PLOT: A team of archaeologists & scientists are recruited by Weyland Industries for a mission. They wind up in Antarctica and find an underground Pyramid (what else) filled to the brim with peeved off Aliens. A motley crew of brash young Predators eventually crash the party and all hell breaks loose. Yeehaw!
"The enemy of my enemy… is my friend. " – Sebastian de Rosa
LOWDOWN: With the impending arrival of Ridley Scott’s return to facehugger-land ALIEN COVENANT, much like many of you out there, I’m going a little bit ALIEN crazy these days. So I’ve been re-visiting the flicks off the franchise that I haven’t seen as much as the first 3 entries. And that also means cuts that I had never tackled.
First I took on the Special Edition of ALIEN RESURRECTION (with 7 minutes of added/altered footage) and for the first time in my pitiful existence, I actually managed to enjoy the thing. It was gorgeous to gawk at, was gory as f*ck, Weaver owned it and it has aged very well! NOTE: It also echoed Covenant in some places plot wise – you'll see. After that I went back to Paul WS Anderson’s much maligned 2004 monster mash ALIEN Vs. PREDATOR. Now I had seen the theatrical cut, and unlike the masses I had dug it to some degree. But I had never glimpsed the unrated director’s cut (WATCH IT HERE), which was released in March of 2005. I gotta say it, am happy that I did!
For starters, there was more meat on them bones. Am talking a new prologue, further characterization (that short haired French chick still didn’t get the screen time she deserved though) and more dialogue/exposition as to the WHY behind the wam-bam. Moreover, the battles, the horror elements and the kill scenes were thankfully extended with further focus on the nastiness at hand, an up in tension and of course way more red grub (CG blood that is, but I’ll take it!). All of that made for a way more satisfying chow-down than what I saw in cinemas and if you’ve never seen the movie, this is the only version you should tap in my useless opinion.
On another note; watching the flick today I got to value it on an all new level. I’ve always thought that the manner in which Anderson tied the ALIEN and the PREDATOR universes together via channeling “The Chariots of the Gods” theory and tossing in that rite of passage pyramid test, was genius. But on this round I was also wowed as to how slick the movie looked on every level. Anderson injected elegance/maturity in many of his shots, the practical creature effects (by Amalgamated Dynamics of Alien 3-4) were outstanding (that Alien Queen was a thing of sheer beauty), the Predator gadgets/weapons were freaking badass while the stellar set/production designs (by designer Richard Bridgland) kicked my derriere!
Lots of artistry went into this film, way more than I remembered. Granted this D. Cut sported the same problems as the theatrical cut: random hokey dialogue, quick-fix alien gestation to serve the plot, some duh moves (you’d freeze to death quick just wearing a shirt in Antarctica) and it didn’t always go all out with its cool set ups (we so needed an alien chasing that dude down that tunnel, but that's just me). Overall though, it went down way smoother than I remembered. Finally the cast was able but it was the presence of LANCE HENRIKSEN that classed up the joint big time. Dude possessed the screen it (so much presence) and the little nods to his character of Bishop from ALIENS were mucho esteemed by this ALIEN nut.
In my "Necronomicon", ALIEN VS PREDATOR never got the respect it deserves – it's way better than it should have been and I tip my knife to Anderson for pulling off mixing these two franchises together and delivering a visually striking, inventive (loved the ever changing labyrinth Pyramid interior), quasi suspenseful and cool as f*ck exercise in fun times! All you gotta do is watch the gore filled yet inept sequel AVP 2 REQUIEM aka I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST XENOMORPH right after this one to realize just how much RIGHT Anderson did with this first effort.
I think I've been saying this often now of late, but it's a pattern that keeps popping up in my pitiful world: films that were average back then come off as way better when clocking them today. Why? I'll speak for myself here, but maybe it's because the quality in terms of current films has diminished, by result making older flicks look even better by comparison! Or maybe I'm just talking out of my ass. Who knows? And more importantly: who cares. If you give AVP another shot – I hope you manage to get some kicks out of it like I did. Later y'all!