Prometheus: It's kinda like a prequel...maybe?

Elizabeth Shaw believes she has found a clue to the origin of man. Together with other scientists and explorers she travels to the far reaches of the universe and discovers a planet that might hold the answers she seeks. But what they find on that planet could not only lead to her destruction, but that of all life on Earth.

So what should one expect from Prometheus? First and foremost, it was a visual feast. Director Ridley Scott filled every frame of the film with so many interesting things (landscapes, cool tech/gadgets, spaceships, etc.) that it was next to impossible to not keep one's eyes glued to the screen (if you have the chance to see it in IMAX 3D, I highly recommend it). Scott was also able to squeeze out as much suspense and thrills as possible  in order to keep the audience at the collective edges of their seats. While not equaling Alien in this regard, Prometheus certainly held its own against other recent science fiction films. Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender and Charlize Theron also provided tremendous turns in their individual roles. Where the film faltered was in its story, which aimed high content-wise, but failed to deliver any real answers to the heavy handed questions it posed. The story did not concern a bunch of space truckers being chased on their ship by a big, nasty nightmare of a xenomorph, rather it pondered just where we as humans came from (against the back drop of a number of nasty things attempting to harm the human protagonists). Were we created by the Engineers (the beings that Shaw and her co-horts discover on the planet)? If so, who or what created them? These are questions that can be tackled/explored within a science fiction film, but the script just posed them and never presented the audience with an opportunity to get enough information to come to their own conclusions. This, along with unexceptional dialogue and the fact that the story was extremely difficult to follow, left the audience feeling alienated (no pun intended) and wanting everything in the film to be just as spectacular as all of the amazing visuals they were seeing on screen.

It's funny but while getting ready to go to the theater and check out Prometheus I found myself thinking, "it's going to be great to finally see a good sequel in the Alien film series." However after the credits started rolling, I realized that my attitude (which I am sure was shared by Alien fans), was the wrong one to have. It is true that there are certain links to the original Alien universe in Prometheus (Weyland Yutani remains an evil corporation, androids are nefarious and dark haired heroines kick butt), but this film is done almost a disservice by the weighty expectations fans of the series have unfairly placed upon it.

Prometheus was not another Alien, which may be disappointing to some, but its visual flair and solid acting made it a worthy companion piece to the series.

Grade: B-

The Thing: Too bad it couldn't have cloned itself into a better film!

After an alien spacecraft is discovered in Antarctica, a team of scientists is dispatched to investigate it. However when the alien life form which was on board the craft is accidentally unthawed, the scientists must find a way to not only stay alive, but defeat the evil visitor.

There is little question that fans of John Carpenter's The Thing (for which this film is a prequel) are not going to be as enthusiastic with director Matthijis van Heijningen Jr.'s take. Carpenter's film was built on the tension and paranoia inherent in the story (who can you trust if the alien can clone itself into anyone?). He seized upon that to create a classic sci-fi thriller with a solid story, terrific acting and amazing special effects. This new "Thing" had its moments of tension and thrills, but never took enough time to utilize the stories' source material (the film is based upon a short story called, "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell Jr.) and make the film the kind of intense thrill ride that Carpenter's was. Instead, Heijningen Jr. focused more on the violence inflicted by the alien and all of the cool new ways he could show it via CGI as opposed to the practical effects used in the original. The results, however, were less than remarkable and the alien looked like something one would see in a SyFy channel movie, not a big budget studio film. The acting by the cast also did little to help the film, although one wishes that more development would have gone into Mary Elizabeth Winstead's character Kate. She was the only one of the cast that felt believable and it seemed as though the filmmakers were trying to make her Ripley-esque (Ripley is the heroine played by Sigourney Weaver in the "Alien" film series), by giving her a flame-thrower at the climax of the film and asking her to be a woman of action, not a shrinking violet that needed to be saved by a man. Alas there was little to no depth to her and when the film ended, it was easy to feel indifferent as to the fate of Kate.

The newest version of The Thing had a lot to live up to given the reverence that the original carries amongst fans and critics, unfortunately it failed to match the original in any way and was an underwhelming experience.

Grade: C-

Paul: A close encounter of the hilarious kind!

Graeme and Clive are two sci-fi fanatics that are on a quest to find out what is really going on in Area 51. But on their way to investigate they run into an actual visitor from another planet named Paul, who is on the run from the authorities. Together they hatch a scheme to get Paul back to his mother ship and back home.

Paul was essentially a buddy road trip film that happened to have an alien and some other screwball shenanigans added in to make it atypical for the genre. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost were hilarious as Graeme and Clive respectively, showing the same kind of comic talent and timing that made the other flims which they have starred in together (Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) memorable comedic fare. There were plenty of sight gags, thinly veiled references to other classic sci-fi films (the audience was finally shown who truly inspired Stephen Spielberg to create E.T.) and just enough dry "British" humor to cause the audience to geniuely chuckle throughout. But the best (and perhaps most unexpected) part of the film was the fact that title character (voice by Seth Rogen) was so entertaining, effective and believable. Usually when one thinks of a character that is completely CGI unfortunate mistakes like Jar Jar Binks pop into their heads, but Paul was different. He was different in that he did not act like one would expect a visitor from another world to. He wasn't screaming, "take me to your leader" or threatening passers-by with death rays, he just seemed like a regular person. He smoked, cursed and acted crude at points but there was a heart to him which made him endearing. Director Greg Mottola was wise to seize upon this and accenutate those moments where Paul, Graeme and Clive were just hanging out having a good time because those were the moments where the audience could gravitate toward the guys and the quest they were on.

This film was one of those rare comedies that was actually funny, and it is definitely worth a look.

Grade: B

Battle: Los Angeles; Humans vs. Aliens, guess who wins?

Alien forces have invaded Earth. When they attack Los Angeles, California it's up to a platoon of Marines to stop them. But will they be able to?

Battle: Los Angeles played out like every other war film you have ever seen in your lifetime. The audience was introduced to a group of Marines, just enough so that their particular caricature (be it the shiny new Lieutenant who does not know what he is doing, the grizzled veteran Staff Sergeant who has a troubled past, the Corporal who is about to get married, the one badass female soldier (played by Michelle Rodriguez, of course), etc.) was easily recollected. Next they face the imminent threat, in this case it’s an invading alien force, which at first seems overwhelming but just might be defeated if they are able to band together and fight as a team. If you realize this is what awaits you with Battle, then you should be able to enjoy it for the action filled adventure director Jonathan Liebesman intended it to be. The film was almost like War of the Worlds meets Black Hawk Down as the Marines engaged in urban combat with the alien menace while the city of Santa Monica burned around them.

Sure, there were some obvious flaws which took the film down a couple of notches. The script, for example, seemed like it was cut and pasted together from various World War II, Vietnam and even Gulf War films and featured some rather trite dialogue and “forced” moments of emotion. Most of these emotional scenes involved the soldiers interacting with a group of civilians they were trying to rescue from behind enemy lines. But instead of making the soldiers seem more human and give them some other purpose aside from kicking alien butt, these scenes slowed down the action and felt completely out of place. Had Liebesman really wanted to get at the emotional core of the film, he should have concentrated more on the relationships between the soldiers (and he should have got another screenwriter too). Thankfully Aaron Eckhart (as Staff Sergeant Michael Nantz) worked through the cliché ridden lines and delivered a convincing enough performance to keep the audience engaged between shootouts and explosions.

Battle: Los Angeles is not another Saving Private Ryan, but the visceral thrills and nonstop action were enough to keep most entertained for its two hour running time.

Grade: B-

The Thing From Another World: A Sci-Fi Classic!

When scientists in the North Pole discover something strange has crashed into the ice near their research post, an Air Force team led by Captain Patrick Hendry is dispatched to uncover just what it is. However, what they find not only threatens them, but the entire world.

Even though it was released in 1951 and contains some unavoidably dated special effects, The Thing From Another World remains a fun and intriguing film to watch. The fun comes from the way director Christian Nyby, (although most film connoisseurs will argue that the film’s producer Howard Hawks did the bulk of the directing for the film), was able to utilize the isolated setting of the Anchorage outpost (where the bulk of the action took place) to elicit a sense of claustrophobia and fear as The Thing went about hunting Captain Hendry and the rest of the cast. There was also plenty of action and crackling dialogue (a standard for Hawks - directed films) which kept the film moving at a compelling clip. The intrigue of the movie came from recognizing the impact that it has had on the sci-fi films which came after it. Movies like Alien and Aliens were influenced, both in story and iconography, by The Thing From Another World (witness the Geiger Counter employed by the Air Force men which is similar to the Motion Tracker used by Ripley and others in the Alien films as well as the desire by the Air Force leadership to capture The Thing for further study, something the Weyland/Yutani Corporation was always trying to accomplish in the Alien films). Beyond the obvious influences on modern sci-fi cinema, The Thing From Another World serves as a sort of time capsule which captures the mood of 1950’s America regarding subjects such as the Cold War and the uncertainty regarding the Space Age which had just begun.

All film theory aside, The Thing From Another World is just a tremendously entertaining film to watch.

Grade: A

Sunshine: Brainy sci-fi at its finest

We as human beings like to believe that we control our own destinies and, if threatened by something such as mass extinction, we would do everything in our power to stop this. But there is also another school of thought which posits that perhaps a threat such as mass extinction is beyond our control and it should be left to a higher power to decide if mankind goes the way of the dinosaur. No, I am not starting a theological debate, merely outlining what the film Sunshine attempted to explore.

Eight astronauts take off in a spacehip called Icarus II to deliver a nuclear bomb to the sun's core in order to restart it. They not only face the usual dangers associated with space travel, but their journey is also complicated by the fact that they discover Icarus I (the spaceship which made the first attempt at restarting the sun) abandoned.

Beyond the solid acting provided by the international cast, the filmmakers are to be commended for creating a sci-fi film that was not only entertaining but also challenged the audience to think about just what Sunshine was trying to show/say. Director Danny Boyle's stunning visuals and screenwriter Alex Garland's smart script were able to draw the audience in by presenting them with an intriguing sci-fi plot. They then ratcheted up the intensity, both action and thrill-wise, during the final quarter of the film before the decisive showdown between Kappa (Cillian Murphy), the scientist and Pinbacker (Mark Strong), the man of religion which was essentially a philosophically-driven throwdown for the fate of humanity. It is hard to believe that filmmakers would tackle a complex debate like science vs. religion and how each could figure in destroying or saving mankind but Boyle and Garland did it in such a way as to not seem preachy or overbearing. They utilized the sci-fi genre to explore this matter and did so with tremendously effective gusto. There are probably naysayers that will point to the lack of sustained action or the somewhat obvious visual cues Boyle seemed to borrow from another thriller set in space (i.e. Alien) as detriments to the film but Sunshine was never meant to be seen as a monster movie.

Sunshine was a bombastic journey that did not shy away from exploring the type of philosophical debate one would not expect to have after the credits rolled.

Grade: B+

Spaceballs: May the Schwartz be with you!

Parody, when it is done right, it can not only pay homage to the subjects it is parodying but also take on an existence of its own, becoming something more than a series of bad one - liners and pratfalls. When done badly,...well you get most of the Scary Movie sequels or any of the most recent parodies done by the guys who wrote the Scary Movie sequels. Leave it to comic legend Mel Brooks to deliver a parody that hits the mark.

When Princess Vespa is captured by Dark Helmet it’s up to Captain Lone Starr and his sidekick Barf to save her. But after they rescue her they must evade capture by traveling, (actually crash landing on) to a distant planet where they encounter a mystical being named Yogurt who teaches Lone Starr about the ways of the “Schwartz” so he can defeat Dark Helmet.

The film not only excelled in parading Star Wars but other science fiction movies like Star Trek, Alien, Planet of the Apes, and others. Fans of the aforementioned Star Wars films easily distinguished which characters in the film were lampooning those of the beloved trilogy. There were numerous scenes which made laughing quite easy including Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis at quite possibly his funniest) playing with toys of himself and other characters of the film, a cross-eyed gunner on the Spaceball ship doing his best to fire a warning shot, and Yogurt revealing how “merchandising” was where the real money of the movie was made (damn you George Lucas, you're the one that forced me to spend all my allowance money upon action figures and other assorted pieces of plastic!). From sight gags like jamming the radar with a really big jar of jam to the use of an instant VCR tape to discover where the heroes escaped the jokes came at lightspeed (yes, I wrote that, it was cheesy but hey, it's six in the morning, what are you going to do?) and left the audience begging for more. It's true that if a person was not a fan of the science fiction films lampooned in Spaceballs, they might not have caught some of the jokes. But Spaceballs the movie is something everyone can enjoy.

Grade: B

The Day The Earth Stood Still: Not the crappy remake, the original

Remember that soap box I was on earlier about how remakes were just bad in general? Well, recently Fox decided that The Day The Earth Stood Still needed to be remade and decided to slicken up the timeless masterpiece with overwrought CGI, a story with more plot holes than you could count and the dude who played Neo in The Matrix Trilogy. Said remake turned out to be as putrid as day old sewage so my advice for you, gentle reader, is to check out the original, which is a classic.

A flying saucer lands in Washington D.C. and the alien onboard, named Klaatu, wishes to meet with every government on earth. He refuses to reveal the reason why he came until he can talk with the governments. After his request is denied he seeks to understand the people of earth and soon befriends a young boy and his mother. As the military continues to search for him he unveils his mission to a few, unsure if he will be able to deliver it to the world.

The film was not an action-packed thriller with a marauding group of alien invaders looking to conquer earth with their death rays. Instead, it was the tale of a peaceful alien attempting to teach the people of earth that their ways and methods of war and powerful nuclear weapons could ultimately lead to their destruction. Also the film carried a message about how man’s intolerance of those different from themselves and fear of the unknown were nothing more than destructive stupidity which needed to change. Far from being excessively preachy the films’ messages of tolerance and understanding were universal and timeless. There were excellent special effects and Michael Rennie’s performance as Klaatu was extremely convincing.

Grade: A

The Descent: (or why I'll never go into a cave ever again!)

Today's film audiences have acquired a sort of "seen it all, heard of it all" attitude toward movies and this is especially true in the horror genre. Think about the number of Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween movies you yourself have watched. Now think about how pedestrian the scares and chills have become as each successive sequel has come out. You might start to wonder if there are any films out there that can actually scare you? I think this one might do the trick.

A year after a tragic event, six friends decide to go caving. However after they become trapped in those caves, their friendships are tested as they must struggle to find a way out and also face a horrifying terror that unknowingly stalks them.

Writer/director Neil Marshall was able to turn what could have been a cheesy and predictable horror flick into an absolutely terrifying white knuckle experience that had the audience pinned to their seats until the final credits rolled. He was able to do this by first creating a group of characters that the audience could identify with and feel for. It’s true that the group of friends was comprised of all women, but they were far from damsels in distress. Each had their own uniqueness and held their own against not only the natural elements, but the evil creatures they encountered. Marshall, paying homage to Ridley Scott’s Alien (an obvious influence on the film), only gave the audience noises and quick glimpses of those creatures in the early parts of the movies, building the tension to an overwhelming degree until they finally appeared and scared the bejesus out of everyone (cast and audience). The audience was so unnerved and on edge throughout due to not only the lack of light in the caves, but their cramped nature as well (claustrophobics need not apply for this one). The Descent will make you sweat, laugh, cringe, scream and everything else a good horror film should.

Grade: A

Alien Vs. Predator Requiem: This time, it's a bore.

If you ever wanted to see an example of a film that was not only horrible, but also succeeded in alienating its built - in fan base then look no further than this wretched movie.

The film picks up where the previous AVP left off, this time around the Alien/Predator hybrid escapes to earth and, along with a menagerie of other Aliens, begins to tear up a small town in Colorado. So it's up to a Predator to hunt them down and destroy them (along with anyone who gets in its way).

Herein lies the part where I explain how I could despise a film which featured two of my favorite movie monsters. For starters, the story was a mess and really had no narrative to speak of other than, "Alien fights Predator in sewer, Alien fights Predator in hospital, etc." The whole purpose of the film was to allow the monsters the room to kick each other's butts, which might work for some viewers but not everyone. It also didn't help that the actors (a bunch of no - namers that I swear the filmmakers snagged from a community theater troop close to where they shot this "masterpiece"), were just included to be fodder for said monsters. When they did try to deliver serious lines of dialogue it came off as hokey and just made you laugh. Finally there was the directing. My Mother always said that if you don't have anything nice to say about someone then don't say anything but I'm sorry Mom, I have to. The directors (The Strause Brothers) were uninventive, repetitive and dilluted. Even to the untrained eye it looked as though they simply reframed some of their favorite scenes from the previous Alien and Predator films in lieu of a fresher more dynamic look. In their minds I'm sure they thought they were paying homage to those great films, but it just came off as lazy and uninspired. They seemed to forget that what made those original films so good was the fact that every one of them was unique and brought something new to the table. Alien Vs. Predator Requiem was just a dreadful attempt at filmmaking which failed miserably at even being entertaining.

Grade: D