The Films of 2004: Incident at Loch Ness

SYNOPSIS: A film crew making a cinematic biography of legendary director Werner Herzog follows him as he embarks on his latest project: a documentary, shot on location in Scotland, about the Loch Ness Monster. For the first time in his career, Herzog is accompanied by a Hollywood producer, Zak Penn. Penn feels that Herzog’s ideas will prove even more compelling if backed up by manufactured drama, like monster sightings and busty sonar operators in bikinis. This conflict about the vision for the film creates tension on the boat, the Discovery 4, as Herzog attempts to discern the truth about Nessie.   While Herzog attempts to remain committed to his vision and Penn takes every opportunity to spice it up, something strange happens. A real life sea monster appears, and threatens the ship and filmmakers.

COMMENTARY: Incident at Loch Ness (2004) is a mock-documentary from director Zak Penn that stars legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog. The movie is part horror movie and part comedy.  But like the best of the horror genre, the film goes beyond scary scenes to comment on something really important, in this case, film-making. Specifically, Incident at Loch Ness involves an important, seemingly eternal debate. Is film merely commerce? Or is film something greater. Is it art?  This question is pondered in the mock-doc through two  primary characters, or more aptly, two personalities. They are mirror images.

Herzog is the resolute, thoughtful artist, a man who makes movies to explore ideas and enhance not merely knowledge, but self-knowledge. His movie within the movie -- a documentary about the Loch Ness Monster -- is conceived by the filmmaker as an exploration of the differences between “fact and truth.”  For Herzog, the film isn’t about discovering a monster at all; it’s about discovering why the monster’s existence matters to so many millions of people. Herzog wants to explore what it is about man and his nature that demands the creations of legends like Big Foot or Nessie.  Why do we believe? Why do we want to believe?  These are the questions that consume Herzog.

By contrast, Zak Penn plays the film’s craven producer, a man who feels that Herzog’s movie can only be bankable if there’s some manufactured drama.  Thus he casts a gorgeous, busty Playboy model as a ship’s "sonar operator.' Thus he has a prop man create a fake “Nessie” monster for the documentary crew to encounter. Now, pity poor Zak Penn, because he plays, for lack of a better word, the film’s villain; the individual who wishes to reduce every one of Herzog’s brilliant, cerebral concepts to crass commercialism.  Since he is the director of Incident at Loch Ness, and he casts himself as the voice for film as commerce here, audiences must assume that Penn is aware that he will be pilloried by critics and audiences as being representative of everything that is wrong with Hollywood filmmaking. In fact, Penn is commenting on Hollywood filmmaking. He is using his own name to expose a certain brand of producer, despite the fact that a certain segment of the audience will simply think he is playing “himself.”

He’s actually taking a bullet for the team, and for the movie. But it's a smart move, because Penn's presence and world-view brings better into focus Herzog's world-view. Incident at Loch Ness is presented as a documentary about the search for the Loch Ness Monster, but that surface description tells little of the movie’s style and substance. This is really a film about the gap between independent filmmaking and Hollywood filmmaking, between film art, and film as product, or commerce. The film is sharp, funny, exciting, and caustic in its observations about filmmaking. Finally, Incident at Loch Ness reminds us that what some filmmakers deem “reality” may not be real at all. Reality may simply be that which sells best.

Incident at Loch Ness is funny in part because of the dead-pan approach of all the actors. The result is a film that, at times, feels alarmingly authentic. But here’s the distinction: it feels Hollywood real. If you’ve spent anytime interfacing with Hollywood personalities, you likely know what I mean. I remember, a few years back, being on a conference call with a notable “star” and listening, aghast, as he discussed at length -- during a story session -- how he could not be photographed sitting down, or wearing certain attire.  This went on and on, as he promised to give “110 percent” to the project…so long as he wasn’t seated at the time.

You get to Hollywood, and achieve a certain level of success, and you start to feel entitled to make selfish and weird demands like that. Demands that don’t necessarily concern the project (the art), but rather your image, your career.  In Incident at Loch Ness, Penn brings in "acting" personalities who are like that: a model and an actor who are looking to get screen time and further their individual careers.  For them, the project isn’t really about art, or about ideas. It's about leveraging a credit to maximum profit. When he discovers that a boat’s engine is too loud for filming, he demands either a new boat, or a transplanted engine that will be less noisy. The poor ship’s captain who must accommodate -- or be fired -- has about a day to perform that switcheroo.  Penn bullies him into compliance.  And when the ship’s radio proves too noisy too, Penn orders an underling to have it removed from the ship, despite the fact that the radio is a necessity in case of a crisis on the water. Nothing, in other words, will stop Penn from getting his way.  And his way includes renaming the ship, assigning the crew uniforms (with the word expedition misspelled), adding tits and ass in the form of the ship’s sonar director. He even stages false Nessie sightings. “I distorted things so they would be more dramatic,” Penn reports when things go disastrously awry on the expedition.  He even retreats to the stance that cinema consists of mostly “lies,” but clearly he has misunderstood the amazing career of Herzog, whom Penn holds at gunpoint during one sequence.  

Herzog may stage a “lie” in a (fiction) film to get at some point or deep truth, but Penn wants to lie in a documentary to make it more bankable. He’s incapable of seeing the difference between those two approaches. He doesn't strive for authenticity.  He isn't trying to make a point.  He wants the movie to be a hit. Herzog proves to be a great and powerful presence in the film. He exudes gravitas and authenticity because every student of film understands what he has gone through -- and put others through -- to achieve his artistic vision.   Again, when Herzog pushes people it isn’t for more money, or for fame, it’s ostensibly because he is exploring something. It’s because he wants to discover or know something. There’s something terribly ironic, and indeed Hellish, about his journey here. Herzog suffers not in the pursuit of art, but for commercialism, at the hands of Penn. Perhaps this is why he sees the documentary, during its final moments, as a horror show; as something "doomed from the beginning," that "didn't want to come to life."

Incident at Loch Ness is clever too, in the way it proves self-reflexive. Herzog opines, early on, that mankind “need monsters.” This movie provides not one, but two monsters.  First, there’s Nessie – which attacks the ship -- and secondly, there’s Penn himself. Movies need monsters too, the film suggests.  The audience could not appreciate Herzog’s character if if  did not witness it in direct comparison to Penn’s. The filmmakers need Penn to take that bullet for the movie, and to play the worst, most craven and crass producer imaginable. The audience couldn’t understand, perhaps, the value of a “typical Herzog-ian moment” if it didn’t have the anti-matter representation of its opposite, symbolized by Penn. It’s also quite ironic that Herzog is described, in the film, as having a reputation as a “dangerous” filmmaker for exploring worlds and ideas that are uncomfortable and difficult to capture on celluloid).  Because what Incident at Loch Ness proves so adeptly is that it is actually the film-as-commerce voice -- Penn -- who is truly dangerous. To make money, he risks everybody’s survival. People die because of the choices he makes on the documentary. Cinematographers may not be “cowards” according to Herzog, but that rule does not apply to entitled producers, apparently.

This review likely makes Incident at Loch Ness sound ultra-serious, but the truth is that the movie is both funny and tense, and finally a little scary and sad. The result? A life gets turned into a horror movie. Fortunately, not a “vulgar and pointless” one, as Herzog fears during the film’s conclusion.  Rather, a supremely entertaining and thoughtful one.

Cult-Movie Review: Dawn of the Dead (2004)

SYNOPSIS: A nurse, Ana (Polley) gets off duty after a busy shift, goes home to her loving husband, and falls asleep, like she would on any normal day. But this is not a normal day. Ana awakes to blood-curdling terror as her husband is killed, and the zombie apocalypse begins. Ana flees her neighborhood, and joins up with a tough police officer, Kenneth (Rhames), Michael (Weber), a criminal, Andre (Phifer), and his very pregnant wife, Luda (Korabkina).  Desperate for sanctuary, they hide in Crossroads Mall, but meet up with a Mall security team led by C.J. (Kelly). An uneasy peace is forged, but the zombies are gathering outside the mall, and the end of the world is nigh.

COMMENTARY: More than fifteen years after its theatrical release, Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead is widely regarded as a remake that doesn’t suck. There's no reason quibble with that assessment. This remake is successful to such a degree because it adapts basic settings, lines of dialogue and the general premise of George A. Romero’s 1978 masterpiece, but then spins these element in a new and original direction.  Importantly, Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead does not feature the same main characters undertaking the same horrific adventure.  

This change leaves room for the remake to prosper; to create new personalities, and to explore different aspects of the zombie apocalypse. This film could actually be considered a “side-quel” as much as a remake if not for a few significant changes in the zombie nature, and mode of zombie virus transmission. The memory of the original Dawn of the Dead is honored with some well-placed in-jokes (like the department story, Gaylen Ross), and brief cameos from originals stars Scott Reineger, Tom Savini, and Ken Foree but the central occupation of this film is neither fan service, nor homage.  Instead, Snyder updates the zombie formula with scenes of epic, spectacular destruction, and frenetic, bone-jangling action scenes. Such jaw-dropping moments would not function adequately, however, if the characters did not matter. Fortunately, they do. Dawn of the Dead adopts from Romero its focus on people, on human beings, and the diverse responses to crisis that different people might legitimately have during an absolute breakdown of society.

This movie concerns, more anything else, questions about how people define morality in times of chaos.  When is the right time to kill someone who might be a threat? When is the right time to realize that you, too, represent a similar threat? Culturally speaking, this is not a small issue. In 2003, an America still grieving after 9/11 launched a pre-emptive war against Iraq because that foreign country could one day metastasize as a threat to our nation.  Similarly, today, there are those of us who want to wage a similar war against Iran on the possibility of what might, one day, be a threat. It is abundantly true that this Dawn of the Dead does not satirize conspicuous consumption, the social preoccupation of Romero’s Carter-Era work of art.  Yet that fact, does not mean it is devoid of commentary on humanity. In the immediate post-9/11 age, when Iraq was starting to turn towards chaos, this Dawn of the Dead could have focused on many ideas roiling the culture. But what Snyder’s remake seems to concern most deeply is the idea that people don’t remain “human” if they surrender their morality for the possibility of security, if they see in other people only eventual threats to our own survival. This Dawn of the Dead makes note that in a real crisis (forecasting Hurricane Katrina, to some extent), the U.S. government and/or military simply can’t come to the rescue for everyone, and many people will have to rely on their own abilities, and relationships, to survive the dawn. 

Here, one character, C.J. notes that “America always sorts its shit out.”  But that bumper sticker slogan falls by the wayside when rescue helicopters don’t come to the rescue, but just fly on past the mall. As the film’s characters reckon with the fact that their previous lifestyle can no longer be sustained -- “I wanted a mocha latte with cream!” complains one character -- a new order must be erected from the ruins of the old.  The problem, of course, is that the zombies represent a competing social order, and one of numerical superiority. None of these points are lingered on to the exclusion of thrills or entertainment, and this version of Dawn of the Dead succeeds admirably on the basis of its characters, for its dramatic twists and turns, and for its dedication to scaring the audience silly. 

There are some good horror remakes out there.  Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), The Thing (1982), The Fly (1986), and The Blob (1988) jump to mind. Dawn of the Dead (2004) earns a slot on that list.

In some ways, the most significant character in Dawn of the Dead is Michael, played by Jake Weber. He is an average sort of guy.  He’s worked a lot of jobs, been married, and is generally a reasonable fellow. He prefers building consensus. He doesn’t like confrontation. But when injured people arrive at the mall requiring medical aid, Michael changes from wanting to help others to wanting to immediately kill Frank (Frewer), a man who will, because of a bite, eventually become a zombie. For the moment, Frank is fine, however.   He is a father to Nicole (Lindy Booth), and wholly reasonable. He doesn’t want to be a danger to anyone. Yet Michael decides, preemptively, that he must be killed, and furthermore killed right now. On one hand, his view-point seems reasonable. Infection always ends in zombification, no exceptions. Frank will be a threat, and will attempt to kill the survivors. On the other hand, to pre--emptively kill a human being -- one with feelings, relationships, and a soul -- on the basis entirely of future danger, is representative of a kind of harsh, bunker mentality. Precautions can be taken instead. Frank can be contained, and pre-emptive murder is not actually necessary, or preferable. But people when people are afraid, they act out of cowardice and fear. The Bush Doctrine states that America can attack any country, preemptively, that it feels is a threat. If scared, it reserves the right to act out of that fear, and not fact.

Indeed, this is what occurs in the film. Frank is given his life, and Kenneth watches over him, in a locked mall shop, as death comes. Because of this, Frank is given the opportunity to say a tender farewell to his daughter. Something good came out of something bad. Later in the film, Michael is himself bitten by a zombie in a heart-wrenching scene and realizes that he has no place in the future, either. He doesn’t travel with the survivors to their destination, a distant island, but rather remains behind to watch “the sunrise.”  He shoots himself in the head before he can become a monster and imperil those he loves. But the important thing is that in this case, Michael chooses.  He makes the choice that, earlier, he would have expressly denied Frank.  Nobody pre-emptively kills Michael. No one pre-emptively puts a bullet in his skull. His own choice, though heart-breaking is respected by the others.

Dawn of the Dead is not specifically about the Iraq War of course. But it is about morality, and the mind-set -- the bunker mentality -- that permits pre-emptive strikes to be considered a valid option. Even during a zombie apocalypse, the film tells us, we can’t make choices based on a possibility of what might occur. Why? We’re all going to die one day, but in the meantime, we want “every single second,” as Frank notes, of life, on his death-bed. We want that last sunrise, the very one Michael affords himself.

Andre’s subplot also plays into this philosophy, this debate about the morality of a pre-emptive strike.  Andre fears that the others will kill Luda and his unborn child, because Luda is infected. So, quite dangerously, he hides the truth from the group. If Andre did not fear the pre-emptive murder of his family, Luda and the pregnancy could have been watched -- as Frank was watched – and Andre and Norma (Jayne Eastwood) need not have died.  So Andre’s fear of a pre-emptive attack on his wife and unborn child is, actually, the thing that led to so many deaths. Both the group, and Andre himself would have been safer with a policy of containment.

This Dawn of the Dead also features a leitmotif about the limits of military power, also an appropriate topic given the quagmire in Iraq, and the failure to get Osama Bin Laden in Tora Bora. Initially, the survivors hold out hope that they will be rescued, and that all will be well. This interruption in their life-style is just temporary until the cavalry rides in. Or so they believe. They are disabused of that notion when a rescue helicopter flies by, and doesn’t even acknowledge their presence. All zombie movies are, in some sense, about the breakdown of infrastructure and an acknowledgement of government, military limits. This Dawn of the Dead takes that thought to its logical conclusion, however. In a time of total disaster, there is no rescue. People must fend for themselves because of the scale of the problem.

And Dawn of the Dead does a remarkable job exploring the scale of the problem. Snyder has been afforded technology and a budget that Romero never had.  He can thus show-case zombie multitudes, the likes of which have never been seen (at least until World War Z [2013]).  He artfully creates these sweeping long shots revealing the scope of the “invasion,” and the damage to neighborhoods and cities. It’s a stunning new take on the zombie apocalypse that makes it feel “real” in visual terms.  One of the film’s most amazing and resonant shots reveals two trucks in the dark of night, pummeled by an ocean of zombies that extends as far as the camera’s range.The film also lingers on long, overhead shots which first show us a satellite’s view of normality, and then show us that “normality” turned to utter chaos. This, as written elsewhere in the book, is the God's Eye Shot, or view. These visual compositions help the audience see why Dawn of the Dead benefits from a remake. Horror movies of this type can now depict an apocalypse with frightening reality; terms that the low-budget Romero films simply can’t compete with. That doesn’t mean that the classic films aren’t great (or that I don’t love them), only that the 21^st century gives filmmakers the opportunity to take on the zombie apocalypse from a new perspective. An update is warranted, because filmmakers have realized a new way the story can be told.

In the 2000's, there was a debate among horror aficionados about "slow" zombies vs. "fast" zombies. It matters not a whit.  With the right director at the helm, zombies can be terrifying in either mode, and the zombie hordes in this move fit the bill. But all of Dawn of the Dead’s remarkable visuals would not mean a thing if the drama among the characters did not work so well. These particular characters as very 2004 in a way, divided by the press and politicians in their beliefs on about every hot-button topic in American life.  Still, they are willing -- finally -- to put all that nonsense away for the common good.  The TV evangelist played by Foree attempts to take wedge issues -- abortion, gay marriage and so forth -- and use them to divide people.  The zombie apocalypse is God’s punishment for those “evils," and so forth. He is a stand in for the media, and the political campaigns of the day. Yet the films’ characters don’t stay divided for long, despite racial, ethnic, and even sexual orientation differences. One great aspect of the film is the manner in which the C.J. character develops. He begins as an obnoxious, condescending asshole -- a kind of stand-in for Night of the Living Dead’s (1968) Mr. Cooper -- but eventually he gets on board with the program, joins the community, and proves himself a courageous and even noble fighter.  In real life I probably wouldn't like C.J. at first, either, but by the film's end, I was hoping and praying he would survive the crisis. The filmmakers made him more than a redneck stereotype, and so, in the end, we root for him.

Similarly, Michael, goes from being reasonable to unreasonable to reasonable again, in a very realistic, very human way. For a while, his fear gets the better of him. There are few of us for whom that wouldn’t be the case, considering the circumstances. The only truly cardboard character in the film is Steve Marcus (Ty Burrell), a guy who doesn’t realize that the old order is shattered, and that he has to live in a new way. He is rich, indulged, entitled and obnoxious, and he can’t ever seem to get over that, as the 1%, he’s the most important person in the room.  Or any room.

The only aspect that diminishes Dawn of the Dead a bit is the post-credits sequence, which reveals the group’s catastrophic arrival at the island.  It is not necessary to see this attack of the zombies, when it could have been left entirely to our imagination what happened to Ana, Kenneth, Terry, and Nicole. It’s true that Night of the Living Dead features an absolutely cynical ending, with the death of Ben, so it is possible to interpret this Dawn’s ending as being right in tune with the Romero aesthetic. I don’t object to the fact that these characters might die, I just object to the fact that the film feels it needs to show us what happens. The important aspect of the narrative is life in the mall, and the escape from the mall…the hope for something better out there.  As in life, there may be nothing better out there, but again, that idea doesn’t need to be made concrete. I would have rather been left wondering about the fates of the characters of Dawn of the Dead, then spoon-fed the answer about the end of the world, and the presence of the zombies on that island.

Movie Trailer: Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Cult-Movie Review: Alien vs Predator (2004)

There’s a moment that feels like authentic cinematic destiny in Alien vs. Predator (2004), or rather, AVP. 

From opposite corners -- left and right -- two classic movie monsters enter the same frame, and cast wary eyes on one another for the first time. 

The battle is joined.

The moment may work in a manner other than that as well, and perhaps in a way not entirely intended.

A fruition of fan boy dreams and fantasy, this meeting of the monstrous minds may also represent the first time in either franchise’s history that geek or fan desires are, well, pretty much the point of the whole enterprise.

Matters such as story, character, theme and humanity are given short shrift so that two of the greatest silver screen monsters in history can duke it out.

Again and again.

In short, the movie is its title. 

You get exactly what the words Alien vs. Predator promise: a wrestling match between two extra-terrestrial menaces of different characteristics, but equal power or strength.

When the film premiered, in 2004, it was advertised with the tag-line “whoever wins…we lose,” and many critics ran with that self-inflicted wound, noting the veracity of the studio advertisement.  “We lose” was a symbol, in fact, of any audience unlucky enough to sit through the film.

I felt much the same way in 2004, though -- over a decade -- I’ve come to appreciate Alien vs. Predator quite a bit more.

Why?

In part, because of what came after.

If you want to see two of the greatest horror movie monsters treated in genuinely shabby fashion, just spend ninety or so minutes with Alien vs. Predator Requiem (2007). That movie illustrates by example just how much Alien vs. Predator actually gets right.

But moving beyond invidious comparisons to the worst film in either monster line, Alien vs. Predator possesses some merit on its own terms. 

First, the 2004 grudge-match features some remarkable and imaginative visualizations, particularly in terms of its flashback sequences. 

And secondly, two characters seen in the film manage to make the enterprise feel like more than just a by-the-number monster-on-monster contest.

AVP’s biggest deficits, by contrast, involve the nature of the action -- which is toothless -- and the depiction of the vast majority of human characters. Beyond the two I mentioned above, the majority of the characters are -- as the script describes them -- literally cattle to be manipulated by one “monster” side or the other.

Still, I'll readily admit that I can watch Alien vs. Predator anytime and get a thrill or two out of the experience.  

If that’s the benchmark you require of the film of this type, it may be judged a success of sorts.  

The disappointment, I suppose, is that the film possesses no ambitious sub-text or theme.  Even the flawed Alien Resurrection (1997), by contrast, tried to get some message across to audiences. 

Alien vs Predator feels slight or empty, somehow, and therefore not the fitting heir to two remarkable franchises.

“The enemy of my enemy…is my friend.”

In October of 2004, a satellite belonging to robotics genius Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henriksen) detects a heat signature 2,000 feet below the ice of Antarctica. Soon, satellite imagery makes out a subterranean pyramid of unknown origin.

Bishop quickly assembles a team, including guide Alexa Woods (Lathan), archaeologist De Rosa (Raoul Bouva), chemical engineer Grame Miller (Ewen Bremner), and mercenaries Verheiden (Tommy Flanagan), Quinn (Casten Norgaard) and Adele Rousseau (Agatha De La Boulene) to investigate the pyramid.

When the team arrives at remote Bouvetøya Island, it discovers that someone else has already drilled down to the vast pyramid.  Alexa leads the way down, though she boasts reservations about Bishop, who is dying of lung cancer, participating on the mission.

In the subterranean cave far below, Bishop, Alexa and the other humans discover that they have walked into a trap; a trap sprung by beings called Predators who were once revered as Gods by primitive man.  

Now, the human beings are to be "fodder" for another alien race: fierce serpents who gestate inside living human hosts. 

Alexa attempts to survive, even as the two alien species go to war.

“It’s time to pick a side.

The idea of ancient astronauts visiting Earth and shaping human culture -- the Von Daniken Theorem -- may be absolute, total hooey in terms of history and science. 

But much like Prometheus (2012), Alien vs. Predator utilizes the idea to good effect. Here, it is the hunters, the Predators, who taught man how to construct pyramids, who used us in human sacrifices, and who basically taught mankind the fundamentals of civilization. 

Whatever its flaws, Alien vs. Predator’s flashback imagery -- of Predator strutting atop pyramids, hovering spaceships behind them -- remains powerful stuff.  The script is clever in the way it accounts for the disappearance of Mayan culture (a hunt gone wrong, and the deployment of a Predator self-destruct mechanism) in terms of franchise history. Similarly, human sacrifices are re-purposed to involve the aliens in a way that is imaginative, and yet doesn’t seem like a stretch.

The best imagery in the film, in fact, involves the Predators and humans battling teeming aliens...defending Earth territory from the “serpents” before that apocalypse occurs.  The imagery here is spectacular, and it suggests that aliens and predators have always been with us…we just didn’t know it.

In fact, a truly bold AVP film might have been set during that encounter, in that civilization, with man playing an even more peripheral role.  Critics couldn't very well complain about paper-thin characters and characterizations, if no one spoke English, and the main characters were Predator "Gods" in an Aztec or Mayan city.

Another powerful image in the film involves Alexa Woods and the weapons a predator, Scar, gives to her.  She receives an alien tail as a spear, and an alien head as a kind of glove/shield/armor that stretches up her arm.  

This imagery reveals a lot about how the Predators regard their prey, and -- even more than that -- acts as a pointed call-back to both the flashback scenes, and the finale of Predator (1987). 

In the latter case, Dutch (Arnold Schwarzenegger) had to go “primitive” and prehistoric to fight off an alien threat.  In this case, Alexa does the same thing. She uses the resources available to stand in battle beside the Predator. The impression, overall, is that we are seeing a timeless partnership replayed in the present for our own eyes.

But a human wielding an alien head as a weapon is an unforgettable visual, 

I wish the film had more moments like the ones mentioned above.  Instead, Paul W.S. Anderson relies on clichés -- both visual and written -- for much of the film.  There’s the dreadful moment that you will recognize from all action movies of the 2000s, in which Scar and Alex, for example, outrun a giant fireball.  It’s such a hackneyed visual at this juncture, and could be piped in from any number of insipid buddy movies.

I should probably establish that I am not an Anderson hater, as some folks apparently are.  I have written positive reviews of both Event Horizon (1997) and Soldier (1998) on this blog, as evidence of that assertion.  But facts are facts. The director crafts Alien vs. Predator with absolutely no sense of suspense of tension.  

There is no build-up to the action...it just happens. The film opens in Antarctica on October 10, 1904, for example, and we follow a person being pursued by something, or some things, specifically an alien and a predator. The scene is so rudimentary and by-the-numbers that it makes us feel nothing. The scene’s final jolt doesn’t even provide a good jump scare.  

When one considers the level of suspense and terror in Alien (1979), or even in Predator (1987), AVP does not "feel" faithful to what has come before. The filmmakers demonstrate no patience, and do nothing to establish the setting or mood before leaping into the horror moments.

Again and again, the action scenes play out in this fashion with no real tension or suspense underlying them.  Most grievously, the final battle on the surface with the Alien Queen plays out this way too.  The special effects are fine -- extraordinary even -- but there’s no real sense of danger or surprise in the unfolding of the climax.  The movie just hums along, oblivious to the notion that its horror isn’t sticking the landing. We never feel scared or tense; we never feel the pure terror of these warring goliaths.

It would be something if the scare-less movie could make-up for its lack of suspense and tension with a sense of the visually grotesque.  Alien and Predator, after all, are both R rated franchises, noted for their violence and gore. But in an attempt to appeal to the widest possible audience, Alien vs. Predator is PG-13, meaning that almost no real, dynamic or memorable violence is depicted. 

Every time there is a promise of blood or gore, or even violent impact, the film simply cuts away to another scene, or to a post-impact shot that reveals nothing in terms of damage to body parts.  

No real suspense plus no real gore makes Alien vs. Predator a dull boy, or at least a very bland, generic one.

The characters are mostly fodder, too, for poorly-executed, poorly-shot death scenes. Few characters register here in the way that Hudson does in Aliens (1986), for example, or even the way Johner (Ron Perlman) does in Alien Resurrection. There’s just nobody that distinctive or memorable, overall.

With two important exceptions.

First, what sense of humanity Alien vs. Predator possesses arises largely from Lance Henriksen. 

This is his third franchise appearance, and his third variation on the Bishop role.We’ve seen the innocent child/android (in Aliens), the malevolent tempter (Alien³) and now the ambitious, determined man behind all that futuristic technology, Charles Bishop. Henriksen brings his trademark humanity to the role, and shows us Bishop the climber (willing to go anywhere to achieve his goal), and Bishop the sick man, facing his own mortality.  

Henriksen gets a great scene with Sanaa Lathan in the film; one where he describes how climbing to a new summit is worth the risk, even if death is the result of the journey. The dialogue is good, but Henriksen makes it soar, and grantsthe audience a thorough understanding of this flawed but admirable human being.

I also love his death scene. Refusing to be ignored as harmless (and therefore unimportant) by the Predator, Bishop strikes the hunter with a flame, showing it his teeth. The Predator stops in its track, and gives Bishop the death he has earned, the death of a warrior.  It’s a fantastic scene, and in many ways, the highlight of the film's action. Bishop didn’t get to his position of power by being ignored, by being written off as sick.  

And if he has to die, he’s going to go out the same way as he lived: noticed and notable.

Secondly, Sanaa Lathan is a solid, promising lead as Alexa Woods. She’s not Ripley, and yet she displays a similar ability to survive by adaptation. 

Alexa thinks on her feet, and the audience can see her thinking things through.  That quality makes it easy to identify with her, especially since Alexa has to do a lot of catch-up learning about her enemies in the course of the film’s action.  

Specifically, I admire Lathan’s tendency not to over-emote, or play things for melodrama. Instead, she keeps just the right amount of distance from the material. There’s one moment in which Scar takes a bloody alien stump to her face, to mark Alexa as a survivor or hunter.  She endures it without complaint or drama, but you can see her in her eyes that she is girding herself.  

No, she probably doesn’t want an acid scar on her face. But are you gonna stop a Predator in his tracks when he is, in his own fashion, honoring you for bravery?

In short, I feel that Lathan takes the character and material seriously, but doesn’t fall into the actor’s trap of overplaying scenes that, if exaggerated, could transmit as silly.

I have read a lot of reviews that claim the fight scenes in Alien vs. Predator are too dark, but -- having seen Requiem -- I can’t make the same observation. Basically, I could make-out the details of each fight in the film and I would be a liar if I said I didn’t enjoy the battles on some visceral level.  Again, if that's all you're looking for, you will find it here, and likely enjoy the film.

My big complaint with the monsters in Alien vs. Predator is that all the Predators are squat and chunky. They look more like over-fed professional wrestlers, than the lean giant hunters we saw in Predator and Predator 2 (1990). A couple of times, I was taken out of the film’s reality by the short, steroidal stature of the Predators here. They resemble muscle-men in costumes more than ever before in franchise history.

There are qualities to admire in Alien vs. Predator, as I hope I’ve enumerated in this review. 

So why don’t I like it more?  

Perhaps because the pedigree of both franchises is so strong. I feel that the Alien films are mostly great.  Same thing with the Predator franchise.  

So you put the two monsters together and get a film that is....merely serviceable?  I’m not certain how that really serves either franchise in the long run. 

But I suppose it did: the film was very profitable (though not as profitable as Prometheus was). Still, the film feels more like a high-concept gimmick than a fully developed, fully coherent narrative at times.

Indeed, there are points throughout where you sense the writer and director struggling for some meaty hook that will carry the movie across the finish line.  One such idea: the pyramid is like a prison! The aliens are escaped inmates, and the guards -- the Predators -- need their guns.  Another idea: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

And finally, the script sees bound and determined to feature endless variations of the joke “you are one ugly…fill in the blank.” 

So Alien vs. Predator? 

Those who choose, may enter.  

But you do so at your own risk.  

I have taken the plunge at least a couple times, in part for the visually exciting flashback sequences and special effects, and in part because I truly enjoy the performances of Lance Henriksen and Sanaa Lathan. 

And again, Alien vs. Predator is masterful, accomplished filmmaking in comparison to the follow-up  effort (to be featured here on Thursday): Requiem.

Movie Trailer: AVP (2004)