An appreciation: Alien Vs. Predator, HP Lovecraft, and flying vagina monsters. And Ewen Bremner!

What does it say about a filmmaker when his best film might just be Alien Vs. Predator?

I mean, no offense, Resident Evil franchise. No offense, Event Horizon. I have seen a few Paul W.S. Anderson films now and may see more in the future. I cast no aspersions on him, his films, or his fans. But as of right now, my favourite film in Anderson's body of work - maybe not technically his best film, but my personal favourite - is Alien Vs. Predator, and the reason has less to do with its objective qualities as cinema - it is a silly, silly film, about on the intellectual level of Stephen Sommers' Deep Rising, which I also enjoy - and more to do with it being, at its heart, a transparent plagiarism of At the Mountains of Madness, by HP Lovecraft, which is its sole claim to cultural respectability. It is tricked up by lots of explosions, gunfire, and pretenses of taking in Aztec myth (to say nothing of those flying vagina monsters) but the basic plot - scientists discover evidence of an ancient civilization beneath the ice in Antarctica, and learn that earth's history was once a site for a feud between two alien races - is the same for both films. It's like someone who had read Lovecraft took a big hit on a joint and proposed to a fellow geek, "What if the two races of aliens were Aliens and Predators?" ...and lo, a sub-franchise is born.

But hey, I like a good flying vagina monster! Plagiarism or not, it is (sorry, Guillermo Del Toro!) looking likely to be the only adaptation of this particular Lovecraft novella we will get for awhile, if ever, and as such is right up there with other classic cinematic plagiarisms, like Yojimbo or Nosferatu. It also probably makes moves that are necessary to making that unfilmable novel a gripping narrative, though it may go a bit far in that direction, Hollywood-wise.  

Even so - granted the film's idiocy and excess - I find it very entertaining. It is, surely, exactly as entertaining as anyone could expect it to be, as a late-franchise-crossover/ comic book-inspired fanboy film. Anyone who enters this movie expecting something better than they get should simply not go see movies called Alien Vs. Predator - I mean, what, were you expecting it to be an Antonioni movie? You will get EXACTLY what you pay for with this film, and maybe even a bit more. Implausible science? Ridiculous dialogue? Unknown leads? A small but essential role for Lance Henriksen? Yes, you get all this too, and LOTS of "Alien versus Predator" action. LOTS of it. And you get Ewen Bremner! 

If you are a film fan like I am a film fan, Ewen Bremner - yes, folks, Spud - alone is enough to make this essential viewing. I mean, who else in this film is one degree of Kevin Bacon away from Werner Herzog? Or Danny Boyle? Or Bong Joon-Ho? Or Kelly Reichardt? Or Frank Oz? Or Guy Ritchie? Or Mike Leigh? Or Harmony Korine? Or... you get the idea. A cult actor's cult actor, granted a couple of very entertaining moments. Even if you think the rest is crap, if you are a Ewen Bremner fan - and is anyone among us not? - he's a fine justification for seeing this ridiculous (but very entertaining) film. 

Or so says I. If you decide to take my word for it and check this film out, if possible, do so on physical media, so you can appreciate the PG-13 warning, which includes among the objectionable elements in its list things like gory violence, natch, but also slime. Slime! THE FILM HAS A PARENTAL ADVISORY ABOUT SLIME! 

Nothing about flying vagina monsters, though. Why on earth not?