A galactic hunter chases down his deadliest prey in the universe. OK, technically there should be some high school film projects that are worse, but excluding those, this is the worst movie I've ever seen. It's probably because plot holes and continuity issues drive me crazy. If you can laugh at that kind of stuff, then you'll love this movie. The best part will be when everyone is in a forest, runs off in completely different directions, wanders aimlessly while being chased by monsters, and then all magically end up finding each other at the same time on the other end of the forest. Or when one guy decides he'll sacrifice himself to slow the monster down and buy the others some time, even though his sacrifice is completely unnecessary and doesn't slow the monster down at all.<br/><br/>And that's not even getting started on the miserable acting, writing, and CGI. I guess the sets aren't bad and the music is OK, but that's about all the positives you'll find. <br/><br/>This is the movie that I compare every other bad movie against. First off, let's acknowledge how nice it is to see William Katt in a movie again. He's a long damn way from "House" (the '80s horror-comedy, not the medical "Sherlock Holmes" redux), longer still from "The Greatest American Hero" and an eon from the surfing classic "Big Wednesday." And, he's got a middle school music teacher's "Flanders" mustache. But he's still William Katt, and seeing him here is like seeing your cool, stoner cousin at the 10-year family reunion and being pleasantly relieved to discover he's still cool and still a stoner.<br/><br/>Let's acknowledge, secondly, that this is not AVP, and if you were fooled by the photo on the box and the spacey font, you probably need to pay more attention to a lot of things in your life more important than DVD box art.<br/><br/>That said, acknowledge again that AVP itself isn't exactly "2001: A Space Odyssey." Aping a comic-book action movie and succeeding as a lesser quality one is kind of like being one of those also-ran comic books that launched in the wake of "Action Comics #1" – you're not "Superman," by any means, but you satisfy when "Superman" is sold out.<br/><br/>AVH satisfies like that. It probably cost less than a million to make, the special effects are passable, but work (though they're few and far between), and the "hunter" costume is actually better than you might expect.<br/><br/>Looking for logic? Was there any logic to "AVP: Requiem"? I couldn't figure that one out with flash cards. Here, nobody behaves in the way a normal human being would when faced with a situation like this. But if they did, there would be no movie. Or, at least, there would be a really short movie made up of nothing but people running as fast as they can, yelling, "Aaaaah! Giant alien spiders!" The end.<br/><br/>Me, I'd rather watch them wander endlessly in the woods and talk incessantly about their situation; it being that a giant alien spider is for some reason running around on earth, as is its alien "hunter" that for reasons unclear also chooses to kill humans.<br/><br/>I do love that whenever we're treated to the scene as through an alien's eyes, the director just puts a piece of beveled glass in front of the camera, as if any creature anywhere could survive with that kind of eyesight.<br/><br/>It's disconcerting to see here that decades of smoking have taken their toll on '80s cutie-pie Dedee Pfeiffer, who had always been more approachably attractive than her goddess-like sister Michelle. Nowadays, the Marlboro man has softer skin than this chick. Seriously, Linda Hamilton strikes her matches off Dedee Pfeiffer's cheeks.<br/><br/>And hey! There's a surprise ending! Does it count as a spoiler to say that it's stupid? Not really, since everything else in this film is stupid, too. Not giving anything away there.<br/><br/>But you know, if "American Gladiators" taught us anything, it's that things can be stupid, but also fun. I'm glad to have picked AVH up for $2.99 at K-Mart on the same DVD as two other films produced by The Asylum – the surprisingly effective "I Am Legend" mockbuster "I Am Omega" (which is worth the entire $2.99 itself), and the annoyingly tedious "Cloverfield" mockbuster "Monster" (which you should just leave be, unless someone is willing to pay you $2.99 to watch it).
Weskharm replied
293 weeks ago