![]() ![]() Not as monstrous as its reputation suggests… Of course, none of the characters are drawn particularly well (with the exceptions of the two played by Dance and Durning – but that might be the performances), and have a tendency to blur into one another. Fincher drew in an extremely talented British supporting cast, and it’s fun to spot familiar faces among the assorted inmates, including future Doctor Who Paul McGann and the wonderfully talented Pete Postlethwaite. Sigourney Weaver is excellent as always (even in the darkest days of the franchise, she was superb), but she’s ably selected by an assortment of respected character actors – including Charles Dance and the superb Charles Durning (that man was born to give stirring speeches). On the other hand, the performances are solid. It tends to diminish the impact of the creature, quite a bit. #Alien vs predator 2010 crack razor movie#The CGI is particularly conspicuous because the movie alternates between actors and models and computer-generated imagery. It was the nineties, so the technology wasn’t there to render the effects as well as they deserved to be rendered, but even by the standards of the time – think Terminator 2 – the special effects aren’t so special. It also makes the somewhat risky (at the time) choice of rendering the creature through CGI. It has some pacing issues, and can’t decide whether it’s more interested in the alien creature or the inmates of the penitentiary. ![]() It doesn’t feel as markedly different as the films that would follow, but it does feel decided distinct from what came before – while still feeling somewhat related. It’s certainly interesting as an experiment – I find it somewhat refreshing in its aesthetic differences from the other films in the franchise. On the other hand, the aesthetic isn’t exactly the most visually stimulating and makes quite a change from the techno-chic with its sterile shades of black, white and grey. It harks back to Ridley Scott’s Nostromo sets, the sense of a future that has been lived in. It’s all lit in shades of gold and brown, lending it a sort of classical decayed appearance. Even the storm outside feels more like a staple from an old English novel rather than a follow-on from the atmospheric disturbances in Cameron’s Aliens. It’s dripping with atmosphere – a gothic horror in the future. And thus it sets the tone for the film, one which is arguable more in step with the original than the sequel: there is no such thing as a happy ending. ![]() The script clears away the clutter from Cameron’s script swiftly – killing off the other survivors in their sleep. The facility couldn’t be more sexually repressed if it tried. The bizarre sexual imagery which peppered the design of the original film (right down to giger’s phallic design of the monster itself) is brought back to the fore here, with Ripley finding herself a lone woman trapped in a prison facility that is also run by clerics. Here, Ridley’s transmission identifies her as “the last survivor of the Nostromu” rather than of the colony. It’s a very definite continuation of Ridley Scott’s Alien, at the expense of James Cameron’s follow-up. In many ways, Alien 3 seems intent on pretending that Aliens never happened. It’s an emotional reunion, to say the least… ![]()
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