AVP2 rated at 25%

[dragon]

Ouch 25% rating granted rotten tomatoes should be taken with a grain of salt. So how's seen it or planning on seeing it.

[FA Xerrik]

I saw it last night, and I had a blast. I think it's everything you can expect from a movie about two aliens fighting the shit out of each other. My only real gripe was the close camera on the fights which made everything a little disorienting. I chalk some of it up my being so close to so large a screen, and very late at night, but it's also some of the typical Hollywood "action cam" style filming. I thought the human characters were more compelling than the last film, but there was still plenty of cheese to go around. Some of the younger characters, in particular, have a few genuine laugh-out-loud moments where all you can do is think "Wow, really?" and just carry on. The effects never looked better I thought, and there's plenty of both subtle and not-so-subtle nods to the parent films. If you're a fan, this movie will rock. If you're out for a good popcorn flick, I think you'll still have a lot of fun. If you want a really tight action production, well, you might be out of luck. Overall, however, I heartily recommend it.

[Ghost Rider]

Given my expectations are everyone is stupid, growl, something splatters, and heart warming pointless dialogue before being shot/eaten/fucked? I expect this movie to get panned. It's going to be my morning matinee movie I'll watch for $5.

Course, the problem with films like this is the tendecy to pace action poorly, which makes me regret even spending the five dollars.

[Kuja]

SPOILERS



Far better than the first, but still klunks along at points, moves predictably, and didn't have quite as much solid action as I was hoping for. The movie lags a lot between the opening action and the mounting struggle towards the end. The characters are pretty faceless, even moreso than the last film where they at least had some definition to them.

The movie pays homage to the originals with a few throwaway lines ("GET TO THE CHOPPER!") and snatches of the old Alien creep-music and the classic Predator drums, which I found satisfying. The Predator's descent to Earth mimics the visual style of the original movie's as well, a nice touch.

One annoyance I had was that I don't think the movie really earned its 'R' rating. Aside from the Aliens killing a 12-year-old and a pregnant woman, a little cleaning-up of curse words and the damn flick could have been another PG-13 crapstain. It also commits the sin of cockteasing, one of my peeves. If your movie is rated R and some girl is going to strip down to bra and panties, don't fucking stop there you morons. You're already rated R, why the fuck are you going to stop short?

Another peeve of mine is that once again, the xenos get all the breaks. The Predator has all this tech at his disposal, and yet he'll pop off six or seven shots with a LOCK on his target and miss. Why? Well, it would end the film too early and we can't have that. Dumb and fucking annoying. Same thing when the national guard shows up. The xenos are almost comically silent in that scene, snatching guys right from the formation without anyone noticing without so much as a hiss or rattle. You can practically see them tiptoeing around like the old Looney Tunes characters. The dumbing-down of the Predators to make the xenos viable opponents never fails to annoy the fuck out of me.

[Vendetta]

Sequel to sucky movie still sucks? World shattering news!

[Battlehymn Republic]

To say AVP2 rated only 25% is rather disingenuous at this moment. For one thing, right now merely 12 reviews have been submitted. And so the rating is at 17%. We don't know how truly bad the film is yet. Give it time.

[Molyneux]

Spoilers:


National Guard was portrayed as being fairly incompetent, despite somehow having the foresight to come in in full attack mode (after just having reports of a serial killer and power outage).

I strongly dislike that they portrayed the Predators as a) incompetent enough to blow up their own ship, and b) too stupid to detect the Predalien growing until it was literally killing them left and right.

Wolf was badass, though. The Predators also seem to have been somewhat Hannibalized - with the exception of one unexplained (and seemingly pointless) skinning scene, every human who Wolf kills is either about to shoot him, or an unintended target. On the plus side, I did get to root for the Pred without any real twinges of conscience.


...and is it just me, or was the implantation scene in the hospital disturbingly sexy? (Emphasis on the disturbing.) Darn H.R. Giger...

[Stark]

The really surprising part is that people honestly expected anything else. Brand loyalty?

[Darth Wong]

I'm so sick of xeno-wanking. I'm sick of all the contrived reasons that they always do better in those movies than they should.

[Molyneux]

I'm so sick of xeno-wanking. I'm sick of all the contrived reasons that they always do better in those movies than they should.

On the plus side, the National Guardsmen did kill quite a few, and when the humans were actually gathered in a circle, well-armed and with space cleared around them, the xenos had no chance of getting anywhere close while the humans still had ammunition.

Not to mention, once a largely untrained human got his hands on a Predator weapon, he started racking up Alien kills almost as fast as Wolf himself had!

[CorSec]

Did we watch the same movie? I thought it was crap from beginning to end. The pacing was atrocious. Too many humans shown going through their daily motions, with too much zomgdramaz added for no reason. The action, if you want to call it that, starts so late in the movie I don't care who is getting killed. And, really, this was the retarded predator, right? He comes alone and can't see the xenomorphs when they're standing right next to him. I have no illusions of AvP (the last one) being a good movie but it was so much better than this steaming pile of ... whatever the fuck it was.

[Xon]

I strongly dislike that they portrayed the Predators as a) incompetent enough to blow up their own ship, and b) too stupid to detect the Predalien growing until it was literally killing them left and right.

It does however fit with how outright stupid the Predators are shown to be in the games/novels.

[FSTargetDrone]

I strongly dislike that they portrayed the Predators as a) incompetent enough to blow up their own ship, and b) too stupid to detect the Predalien growing until it was literally killing them left and right.

I strongly dislike the concept of a "Predalien."

Sounds like this won't even be rental for me.

[Molyneux]

I strongly dislike that they portrayed the Predators as a) incompetent enough to blow up their own ship, and b) too stupid to detect the Predalien growing until it was literally killing them left and right.

I strongly dislike the concept of a "Predalien."

Sounds like this won't even be rental for me.

Umm...why do you dislike the concept?
It's been established since the beginning of Alien that they adapt themselves based on their incubation environment, I thought.

...having the Predators not, you know, cremate the dead Predator from the first movie (just in case) is criminally stupid, though.

[Kuja]

Xenos depend on unpreparedness/criminal negligence in order to present themselves as a viable threat.

And anyone who denies that is just plain stupid.

[PREDATOR490]

I am planning to see it some point after New Year but I'm not exactly going in expecting anything grand. Even less so after these comments.
I recently managed to watch the video on youtube that was brought up before and I have to say I'm somewhat disappointed.

I found the facehugger acid burning through the guy's arm pretty retarded. Additonally, am I wrong when I recall Aliens stating that acid was supposed to have a paralysing effect for humans ?

From the comments above would I be correct in assuming a lot of the initial encounters are your cliche horror flick ?
I.E some random guy walks along while his buddy disappears or you get the standard couple getting it on only to be cut short. I guess I shouldnt be surprised if this is the case because having Aliens and Predators on Earth pretty much takes the role of any standard monster movie.

[FSTargetDrone]

Umm...why do you dislike the concept?
It's been established since the beginning of Alien that they adapt themselves based on their incubation environment, I thought.

I've always disliked the idea of hybrids in sci-fi. The half-human/half "insert non-human alien race here" concept hurts my brain. I suppose the Xeno and Predator/Yautja combo is less objectionable, because, as you rightly point out, it's implied that the Xeno adapts, but it's still somewhat bothersome to my tastes.

...having the Predators not, you know, cremate the dead Predator from the first movie (just in case) is criminally stupid, though.

Yeah. They could have left that story element out of AvP and just gone on with the sequel never mentioning it, but I guess that was the easiest and most "obvious" route to take: "Wow kids, you thought Predators and Aliens were pretty bad-assed, well, wait to you see a Predalien!

[Molyneux]

Umm...why do you dislike the concept?
It's been established since the beginning of Alien that they adapt themselves based on their incubation environment, I thought.

I've always disliked the idea of hybrids in sci-fi. The half-human/half "insert non-human alien race here" concept hurts my brain. I suppose the Xeno and Predator/Yautja combo is less objectionable, because, as you rightly point out, it's implied that the Xeno adapts, but it's still somewhat bothersome to my tastes.

...having the Predators not, you know, cremate the dead Predator from the first movie (just in case) is criminally stupid, though.

Yeah. They could have left that story element out of AvP and just gone on with the sequel never mentioning it, but I guess that was the easiest and most "obvious" route to take: "Wow kids, you thought Predators and Aliens were pretty bad-assed, well, wait to you see a Predalien!

Well, it's pretty damn obvious that Aliens are not a natural species. They're way too bizarre to have evolved naturally in any kind of realistic timeframe.

For an artificially created species, I find the hybrid thing to be slightly less disbelief-breaking.

[Anguirus]

Additonally, am I wrong when I recall Aliens stating that acid was supposed to have a paralysing effect for humans ?

Uh...yes. It's implied (not in dialogue but in some Alien attacks) that their stingers have a tranquilizing effect. And in fact, this seems to hold true in AvP2.

Anyway, I just saw the film. It's not quite as bad as the first one, and was indeed pretty much what I expected. I wouldn't even characterize it as a movie...rather, it's two special effects guys making a 95-minute fan-film and having the time of their lives doing it.

SPOILERS below





















I wonder what the cover story was for dropping 200 kilotons on Bumfuck, Colorado? Although at least the "Colonel" felt shitty about it rather than being LOLZ EVAL. (Speaking of which, did anyone else hear the "Mother" sound effect from Alien in those scenes? I kind of expected the camera to pan and reveal the computer to be running the whole show!)

The Wolf had a lot of moments of pure awesome, but a lot of stupid bits too. He had no reason to skin that guy, especially when he made a point of destroying EVERY OTHER BODY. He also got ambushed a few too many times for me to buy him as an exceptional Predator. I know the filmmakers wanted him to be the "lone warrior" but if they wanted to have that crap going on they should have had cannon-fodder Preds from the crashed ship running around for a bit. A rare case of a character not wanked ENOUGH for my taste, I suppose!

I'll agree with another review I saw that said the rooftop battle compared unfavorably to the end battle of AvP. AvP had two really awesome battles and that was it...this movie had three or four awesome fights, a lot of generally cool stuff, but then never ramped it up for the end.

Is there a reason that the Predalien can implant people through the mouth? I mean, it's wonderfully squicky (NOT sexy Molyneux!) but why can only a Pred-hybrid do that? It would be interesting if it had something to do with Pred reproduction, but I'm not sure I ever want to have that hypothesis confirmed.

Speaking of Pred society...we found out zip about it here. Why would they show us the Pred HOMEWORLD, but only show the one guy? One one-minute scene with the Wolf talking to SOMEBODY, his boss, his mate, a war council, WHATEVER would have been kinda nice. It looks like he's the only guy on his whole planet and he just goes after the Predalien cause it looks fun. Which fails to tie in with his efforts to cover everything up, of course.

This movie gets major bonus points for having Yutani at the end. The Strauses say they want to do a sequel set in space...despite the mediocrity of this installment, I hope they get their wish and continue the conspiracy subplot that so far has connected all of the films.

I give props for a lot of really amazing shots. They went a little overboard, if anything, on the references to the other films, but what the hell. More importantly, these guys really know how to shoot Aliens and Predators, and how to get a ton of performance out of those bulky suits. (Unfortunately, in the one or two shots when they were forced to cut to CG creatures instead you can tell easily.)

Predators are revealed to have uber-tech of pretty much arbitrary power, yet still have a stupid hunter-culture thing going on. At least this Pred never voluntarily abandoned a gun, though he did ditch some equipment in the final fight (why did the Predalien give him time?)

[ray245]

Random killing just because they want to show blood?

Hell...give me AVP 1 over this movie.

[FSTargetDrone]

Well, it's pretty damn obvious that Aliens are not a natural species. They're way too bizarre to have evolved naturally in any kind of realistic timeframe.

For an artificially created species, I find the hybrid thing to be slightly less disbelief-breaking.

I think Ridley Scott said something in the commentary to Alien that he would have liked to explored the origins of the Xenos.

In any case, since AvP came out and now reading about its sequel, I think back, remembering when I saw Predator 2 (which I actually enjoy, even now!), seeing the Alien skull in the trophy case, that first hint that Aliens inhabited the same universe as the Predators, imagining all the cool stuff we might just see, years from then. Only to be let down so badly...

[Kuja]

On the plus side, the National Guardsmen did kill quite a few, and when the humans were actually gathered in a circle, well-armed and with space cleared around them, the xenos had no chance of getting anywhere close while the humans still had ammunition.

Are you kidding? Sure we heard plenty of combat, but we didn't see any more than three or four xenos being taken down between the two groups. The movie played down the retaliation so much it may as well have not happened.

...and is it just me, or was the implantation scene in the hospital disturbingly sexy? (Emphasis on the disturbing.) Darn H.R. Giger...

I thought that scene was dumb as fucking hell. Alien reproduction is bizarre as hell, it's true, but fuck it, we're just going to make up whatever the fuck we want now? Fuck the facehuggers and fuck the queen and all else, the warriors are just going to implant whoever they damn well feel like now? And no, being a special Predalien is NOT an excuse.

Something else that bothers me is that with every progressive Alien movie, it seems like those little fuckers pop out faster and faster. At first, it seemed to take the better part of a day, maybe two. Then in Alien3 and Resurrection, it seemed to take a shorter period, but still a good few hours. Then all of a sudden AVP comes along and those little bastards are chewing their way out in just a few minutes! AVPR didn't seem any better, by the time the doc got to the woman's room, the chestbursters were already set to vacate the premesis. How the fuck are these little bastards not just chewing their way out of their carrier's guts? You'd think that with such an appalingly short incubation period they could just bypass a host entirely and rip their way out of their hugger's frame.

[FSTargetDrone]

Something else that bothers me is that with every progressive Alien movie, it seems like those little fuckers pop out faster and faster. At first, it seemed to take the better part of a day, maybe two. Then in Alien3 and Resurrection, it seemed to take a shorter period, but still a good few hours. Then all of a sudden AVP comes along and those little bastards are chewing their way out in just a few minutes! AVPR didn't seem any better, by the time the doc got to the woman's room, the chestbursters were already set to vacate the premesis. How the fuck are these little bastards not just chewing their way out of their carrier's guts? You'd think that with such an appalingly short incubation period they could just bypass a host entirely and rip their way out of their hugger's frame.

That's an interesting point. Does anyone know exactly how long it was from the point Kane started sucking face with the occupant of the egg to the chest-bursting? And then from the bursting to the first time the alien is seen making a kill as an "adult"?

[Battlehymn Republic]

Xenos depend on unpreparedness/criminal negligence in order to present themselves as a viable threat.

Don't forget internal sabotage. I thought that Aliens, like Jurassic Park show that while you may have a powerful primal foe, eventually it's humans who fuck up the situation and cause them to spiral out of control.

[SylasGaunt]

I thought that scene was dumb as fucking hell. Alien reproduction is bizarre as hell, it's true, but fuck it, we're just going to make up whatever the fuck we want now? Fuck the facehuggers and fuck the queen and all else, the warriors are just going to implant whoever they damn well feel like now? And no, being a special Predalien is NOT an excuse.

What is 'normal' kind of goes out the window when you're talking about a huge fucking mutant. Given what we know about lone drones metamorphosing into queens and the (as much as I hate acknowledging Alien: Ressurection) somewhat.. odd effects on the alien reproduction system introducing large amounts of foreign genetics into them seems to have it doesn't seem that out there. None of the other aliens did anything similar and from what we saw the Predalien's spawn were nothing more than normal xenos aside from their AVPish incubation period.

Something else that bothers me is that with every progressive Alien movie, it seems like those little fuckers pop out faster and faster. At first, it seemed to take the better part of a day, maybe two. Then in Alien3 and Resurrection, it seemed to take a shorter period, but still a good few hours. Then all of a sudden AVP comes along and those little bastards are chewing their way out in just a few minutes! AVPR didn't seem any better, by the time the doc got to the woman's room, the chestbursters were already set to vacate the premesis. How the fuck are these little bastards not just chewing their way out of their carrier's guts? You'd think that with such an appalingly short incubation period they could just bypass a host entirely and rip their way out of their hugger's frame.

The only ones that seemed to chew out fast are the spawn of the Predalien which judging from the implantation scene is implanting something considerably larger than the egg from a face hugger.

The standard aliens easily took a number of hours to come into their full growth based on what we see, possibly longer (it may have just been me but it looked to me like the hunter's arm had started decomposing by the time it was found).