Always Will Make Money

Rating: 2/10 (23 February 2018)

Read reviews. What the director does do, and to some extent he said so himself, just make money. He explores scripts, movies or franchise movies if you will, that were already successful or at least in the public consciousness. These movies he does, and this one AVP: Alien vs Predator (2004), all will make money just on their merits alone. Just like if I was to make a King Kong vs Gozilla movie. I would bet you the bank that I would turn a profit.
By picking an established "character" it then becomes how can I make 10 to 15 minutes of suspenseful scenes, albeit not Hitchcockian, and maybe 6 or 7 minutes of action (fighting between the Alien and Predator), so as not to raise the budget to high where the profit will be reduced. And, as in all of his films, almost all has achieved success. He makes movies, his words (and I am paraphrasing), that are not for the critics, this websites reviewers, but to make the majority of the audience happy, thus, having a profit and allowing future investors to allow him to direct because he is a "profitable" director, albeit with already proven " stars" or "monsters" or a universe set up. The directors highest rating for a movie, on rotten tomatoes, I think was 41%. Most of all the other movies were in the 20 to 33% range, yet some of them turned a profit, case and point. When you make movies that appeal to the lowest common denominator intellectually, well, it does a disservice to those with an intellect. But, as usual it's not about making a great, new, provocative movie, it is about (this director at least) making money. Now that's okay but you are making money, as I said before, on an already established "franchise." Too be a really great film maker one has to explore their own interior and make that movie or movies that have no previous formula, but only your own creativity. From idea to script to pre-production and so on and so on till the movie, your "baby", is completed. Then and only then will you truly be called a film maker.
Until then, money aside, you are part of the assembly line and not the stand alone artist.
Further, the people calling the "monsters" classic are way off base. When this movie , AVP: Alien vs Predator (2004) was made it was only 17 years removed from the first one and the creators didn't, at least I my opinion, think is was going to be anything more than one movie, much less a "universe." You need at least 25 years, in cars at least, and certain states at that, for something to be a classic.
So simmer with the classic thing.
Also, again the director knew what he had and that's why she ("The main character ") can stand around in the Antarctica without a hat or a coat and have a 118 pound woman survive where (in the original Predator) three guys (Blain, Dillon & Mac) who are taller and in some cases a better athlete (Weathers) than Arnold not come close to surviving. Oh, and they are specially trained for this. But that is the way of Hollywood. Try to shape society and stop the social ills even if the truth be told, that most pilots flying the aircraft's (stats by the government) are 95% male worldwide.
The movie, as a movie, isn't a on the edge of your seat thriller or a turn away, I'm scared movie. The acting, agian, think budget, because these "Joes" are not Gielgud or Olivier. For that matter they are not Bill Duke or Carl Weathers.
Thanks for reading
God Bless
James