Great Saturday Afternoon Matinée Monster Movie

Rating: Null/10 (14 August 2004)

From the perspective of a fan of the Alien movies - This is a very entertaining movie. Don't expect much in the way of a sophisticated plot or to "make sense" in terms of real history or the alien mythology. But, there are lots of well designed critters running around and, thank Cthulhu, it appears that the aliens(for the most part) are not CGI. I would compare the way CGI is used in most movies to the use of the digital drum machine in music. Once the visuals/music is recognized as being digitally produced, the effect can become quite annoying.
The first Alien movie drew heavily from 1950s films like "IT- The Terror from Beyond Space" for the general premise and "Night of the Blood Beast" for the idea of an alien using a human as a living host for embryos. What set this movie apart from the drive in flicks was a superb cast of great actors and sets and creatures designed by true visionaries like Giger and Moebius. Aliens expanded upon the alien "mythology" and was a well crafted/well written sci-fi action movie. Alien 3 was a terrible, perhaps the worst, betrayal of fan loyalty by Hollywood idiots. So was Resurrection with the incredibly poorly designed human/alien hybrid(where was Paul Blaisdell when we needed him most?) and all those "action flick" one liners. I never intend to see either Alien 3 or Alien Resurrection again. Ever.
However, this new film I will see again. And, I will go back and watch the Predator movies. I may tune out the lame dialog and whatever other faults I may see in AVP, but I will enjoy the "Mountains of Madness"(the Lovecraft story, not the movie) atmosphere and the visuals. Sure, a more intelligent movie remains to be made that will add depth to the Alien/Predator Mythos - I know there are great scripts floating around - but, in the meantime, this will do quite nicely.