Raptor gets Hunted

I’m one of those people that liked Predator 2 so sue me. I also didn’t like Predators vs Aliens but I though PvA2 was pretty good. See first sentence. So I decided to check out Predators brought to us by one of my favourite directors Robert Rodriguez but not directing this time but producing, instead we have Nimrod Antal. So what did I know going in? Well there would be no Schwarzenegger and there would be Adrian Brody as the lead.  There would be multiple Predators, a gazillion I hear. It would be set in an alien jungle and there would be a bunch of bad asses tagging along.

Oh Snap! You got served!

The story went like this: dangerous people from our world are picked up and dropped onto this planet so that the Predators can go hunting. They then try to figure out what happening, survive and turn the tables against the Predators, so really the first movie but with more Predators.

The Predator hounds are pretty horny...hehehe what?

Did it suffer because of the lack of good old Arny? I have to say defiantly not, I didn’t want to see another Arnold film, I wanted to see something a bit different and I pretty much got that with Adrian Brody. He brought a lot of screen presence to the film and he buffed up even on his wiry frame. He is quick like the Minx. He character Royce is ex-military turned merc and is jaded by life and believes that you can’t count on anyone else but yourself. This ideal is questioned by Alice Bragas’ Isabelle, a sniper from some war who lost her spotter on her last mission.  Other characters include the crazy felon Stans (Walton Goggins), Nikolai a Chechnyan soldier who is the 2^nd rate stand in for Schwarzenegger, a cool Yakuza by the name of Hazo (Louis Ozawa Changchien), Mombasa an African soldier and Danny Trejo one of Rodriguez favourite actors and soon to be in the up coming Machete. Then the black sheep and they guy who doesn’t seem to fit into it all is Topper Grace playing a scitterish fish out of water, Dr Edwin.  I guessed it and you will too as to what his bad habit is but he turns out to be a bit of a bastard. One of the cool but disappointing cast members was Laurence Fishburne who played a previous survivor.  His part felt a bit short and expendable. I guess he was there to explain the fact that they were all seriously fucked.  Who knew? The group worked well as a whole and for an action movie there is some character development unless they got killed off early.

 

The most touching part of the movie was the love story between Predator and man.

Now let’s get to the Predator. I lied. There weren’t a gazillion, there were only four. Three of them are from one Predator race while the last is the seemingly classic Predator who they have captured. The three Predators had quite distinct looks and hunt in different ways and they also set traps to lure and weaken their prey. They have their big face offs and such as the Hazo with a samurai sword vs wrist blades which is all pretty cool. Even the classic Predator get’s a few licks in with one of them although not fairing to well. 

Oh come back, I just want to play with your spine.

The SFX were pretty good all round. I can’t really complain at all. The predator hounds looked awesome and were pretty viciouse. There was also a spaceship, laser blasts left right and centre and even a net trap. Dam that Wookie. There was a bit of gore even Predator gore and included such hits as stabbing, beheadings and blaster wounds, overall nothing that would make you to squeamish though. And finally no boobies to be seen unless you count Predator and Brody bare chests.

Mucho Mucho Man. I want to be a Mucho man!

I have to say I liked this instalment of the Predator franchise. It when back to it’s roots but with a bit of a twist. The first act was built up at loping pace and the final act brought it all home. I would defiantly be interested in seeing a Predators 2 if there is talk about it. I give this one an 8/10 for action in your eye.

Raptor Takes a Peak into the 8th Dimension

I do like 80s Sci-fi movies. Mainly for the fact that they were still quite eccentric and hadn’t conformed quite to what we perceive as your typical sci-fi today and the fact that the fashion sucked so hilariously! What movie embodies 80s Sci-fi in your mind? Blade runner? No too good. The Thing? More horror really. Battle Beyond the Stars? Oh yeah, now we are getting somewhere but what I’m talking about it is The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. This has it all, 80’s hair styles, 80’s cloths a who’s who of 80s actors and let’s not forget 80s sensibilities like every hero is in a band. Hey it was acceptable in the 80s.

Anyone wanna rockout with your cock out?..ok no then.

Buckaroo starts off with a great little voice over about how Buckaroo, our hero played by Robocops’ Peter Weller, grew up with a Japanese Scientist Professor Hikita (Robert Ito). It reminded me of a narrative to a documentary about the great American pioneers poetic and matter-of-fact. We then are introduced to the adult Buckaroo who is now a Scientist/Brain Surgeon/Test pilot/Rock Star and adventurer. Wow, women want him and men want to be him. His band, the Hong Kong Cavaliers, are all scientist and adventurers themselves as well as being musicians. With Hikita, Bukaroo has developed a device that allows him to pass through the 8^th dimension….with a car and through solid objects. When they do this they discover rebel aliens locked away by these Jamaican like aliens. They give the Earth an ultimatum, stop the Rebels from escaping or they blow the planet up. What’s a Scientist/Brain Surgeon/Test pilot/Rock Star/Adventure to do but save the world.

Actually I admit, this is a cool shot.

Bukaroos’ cast is really quite large and include Jeff Goldblum (the Fly), John Lithgow as crazy scientist, Clany Brown the bad Highlander from Highlander, Christopher Loyd (Back to the Future) and Ellen Barkin as Penny, Bukaroos’ love interest. You’d probably notice a smattering of other faces that you’ll recognize too. All of them play this for fun and there isn’t a mean bone in the script at all. There are typical 80s scenes like the band getting all rock star and singing and did I mention he knows the America President? Yeah who knew.

I know what your thinking you dirty Fly boy

The SFX are not too bad, we get bug eyed aliens, weird organic ships and little poisonous spider bullets but l some of it is also pretty “oh deary me” too like the trip into the 8^th dimension or the protective masks they put on at one point (think chipped mirrored masquerade ball). You can’t blame them really, I’m sure all the kids were doing back then.

Unfortunately I’m sad to report there was no nudity what so ever in this movie. Alas we see no Ellen Barkin bits but she does so some nice leg action, phwaar. Overall I did like the movie and good natured attitude. I give this one a 6.5/10.

Movie round-up #3

Today I bring a movie round-up of the many average flicks I've endured (plus a couple of ok ones) over the last month. I accept your thanks in advance for sifting through the junk and saving you the time wasted viewing some of the rubbish below. 

The Box

Another mediocre effort from the guy who gave us Donnie Darko. The Box puts to us the premise that a young couple is delivered a box with a big red button on it and pressing the button will grant them 1 millions dollars. Great you say, but of course there's a catch. Pressing the button gives them 1 million dollars but also kills someone they don't know. In the end, it's all a big test by aliens (of course) to see whether the human race is worth saving or if we're all greedy little fucks. Suffice to say that everyone seems to press the button. The other catch is that the unknown person who dies is the last person to have pressed the button, so you get your million but you're pretty much guaranteed to die soon anyway. There's a bit more too it and I thought that at least the end was logical, but otherwise The Box is average. Starring Cameron Diaz and some guy.

5/10





Fire in the sky

A bunch of hicks head out to chop wood and run into a spaceship. Probably more interesting if you're into fairies and UFOs, but I'm not. Based upon the ravings of a real person whose story about alien abduction has been pretty much debunked over the years. Amusing but ultimately not worth the time unless you're short a few dozen IQ. The bit on the alien ship is well done and by far the most entertaining. Starring the terminator who could turn into liquid metal.

5/10

 



The Mothman Prophecies

Apologies in advance, I watched this movie late at night so some details are fuzzy. Richard Gere stars as a guy who, years after his wife's death, starts experiencing odd things. He goes for a drive one night and somehow ends up many hundreds of kilometers away in a different state. Like with teleportation and shit, or something. Anyhow, that's not important. The town he ends up in has experienced many weird things. A 'Mothman' appears to some people and gives warnings of future happenings to others. Gere's wife appears to communicate with him, I think. There's also a premonition of something to do with a river and many deaths. In the end a bridge collapses but through his choices and actions, a youngish female cop whom he flirted with throughout the movie doesn't drown. The end. I kind of liked this movie, it was well made and just a touch creepy. I expected more scary based on the reviews I'd read but it will probably depend on your fear tolerance.

7/10





Battle Royale

A bunch of Japanese schoolkids are put on an island with random weapons and commanded to kill one another. The last survivor will be released, but if there is no result after a specified time frame they will all die when the collars they wear explode. This movie explores what depths people will sink too when fighting for survival and how the dictums of law and society are sometimes the only things keeping certain people fro doing as they please - in the case killing all the people they dislike. There's a decent ending and some good characterisation here, though the ending is overly drawn out. Battle Royale gets a thumbs up as well.

6/10



The 4th kind

Junk. An interesting premise but laughingly put together. Another movie based on the 'real-life' accounts of a few crackpots. Not at all believable and even worse, it's presented as an actual documentary - 'real' footage and recordings interspersed with reenactments, sometimes side by side in split screen for reasons that can only be 'arty'. The fourth kind title comes from their being different levels of alien contact as specified by the FBI (or was it CIA), from first kind to fourth kind. The movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind uses the same designations. 'Starring' Milla Jovovich.

3/10

Raptors thrown up an Alien Uprising

Every now and then you pick a movie that you end up regretting like a cheap $5 hooker from the night before. Alien Uprising was probably that Hooker. At least it didn’t have teeth.

Beware DVDs bearing pretty cover pictures

I sat down to watch it with some hopes of maybe a Sci-Fi channel grade movie. You know, okish but with chances of rain. The first 10mins of Alien Uprising were really good. The crew was waking up from hibernation a space ship. We find out they are marines. Ok maybe this won’t be another movie trying to be Aliens. Nope, no such luck.  The marines need to go to a prison planet to quell an prisoner uprising and find out that they have been using the prisoners in alien hybridization experiments the result of which is terrorising the prison populace. “Wait, Wait, wait Raptor” I hear you say “that doesn’t sound all bad, It can be saved can’t it” Yeah sure. Throw a decent script at it and maybe at least half a mil in green backs then sure. Unfortunately it turns out that this movie is trying to be Aliens,  complete with a crappy alien which is a guy in a Halloween mask as far as I can tell, marines acting all marines and a backstabbing corporation guy who yes eventually get’s killed by the hybrid.

What about the acting? Well some of the mains were passable. Rebecca Kush who played Lt. Louise Dun was reasonably good as were two of the prisoners who I can’t remember the names of (scientist guy and the African American). Unfortunately the rest of the cast sucked 5 day old ass that has been sitting in vomit basted with crap. I mean at one point we had a shuttle leaving in a desperate escape from the prison of stupid and 4/5 of the escapes were shaking with the G-forces of the escape. The 5^th person, some female marine was staring blankly ahead as if she was bored or maybe was watching a day time soap. What’s more is they kept cutting back to her. Really? Why?! For god sake why? Or for example at the end were the corporate guy is about to get killed by the alien he screams out Nooooooooo. Then there is this long pause and….guess what? He does it again. Che? Why? Edit that out. You don’t need that.

Finally the CGI/FX. Boy these were woeful. At the start they show the ship approaching the planet. Not bad. Looks okaish, nothing special. Then obviously there $200 dollar shoe box budget ran out and all the ships, base and position of the cast were shown on wire frame models. This maybe was an attempt at retro cool.  Well it was done badly so it failed and took you out of the movie more often than not.

My advice, if you can’t afford to do a sci-fi or even get a decent script, then don’t. It’s not brain surgery.  I have seen some Starwars fan movies better than this and I’m pretty sure they don’t have a huge budget either.

So at the ass end of this review I’m giving Alien Uprising a 3/10. No boobies for me.

Raptor Visits District 9

The first Peter Jackson movie I ever watched was Dead Alive when I didn’t even know who he was. Well he didn’t direct District 9 but it was his brain child to get it on screen with reasonably new director Neil Blomkamp. Blomkamps first short film, Alive in Joburg, was the inspiration for District 9. He has done a surprisingly good job of directing here. The screen play is tight and the pacing doesn’t lag at all especially once the things begin to heat up and he manages to get a lot out of performances of a relatively low key cast.

I told you to go before we left!

The premises of District 9 is that an alien ship arrives in Johannesburg, South Africa and they find the worker aliens to aboard to be in a bad state of malnourishment and without leaders. The aliens are processed and placed in a slum called District 9 and looked after the MNU corporation. Enter Wicus Van De Merwe played by first time actor Sharlto Copley who is put in charge to relocate the aliens to a nicer cleaner District 10. While his group are serving out the papers he comes across a flask with a liquid in it and accidentally sprays it on himself. This starts his transformation into an alien and a really bad week. Along the way he discovers what the MNUs real interests are invested in alien weaponry and bio technology, which they haven’t been able use yet, and that one of the aliens may be able to help him get back to being a human in a trade to allow the aliens to leave Earth.

For a first time actor Sharlto Copley plays Wicus to a T. He portrays him as a rather enthusiastic and naïve individual who’s well meaning intentions are based on human prejudices towards the aliens and treats them more like intelligent animals rather and advanced race. Little things like calling them “prawns” due to their resemblance and even “exterminating” a cache of alien eggs and the referring to the popping sound they make when set on fire suggest a blasé attitude to creatures. The movie itself doesn’t make any excuse about being an apartheid piece, I mean set south Africa with aliens segregated from, I’m pretty sure that’s blatantly obvious enough for everyone.

Yes, no Michael Jacksons. Gasp!

The locals and gangs are now taking advantage of the aliens as well which is an interesting juxtaposition that suggests that there is always someone praying on the weaker even if things change. Alien sex with whores and buying their alien technology for cat food (It’s like cocaine to them) are just some of the schemes but also more sinister machinations of Voodoo cannibalism of the aliens to gain their powers.

There are some plot holes that can be overlooked, such as, where is the rest of the world? I mean if aliens came to Earth you would have scientists from everywhere looking into this not to mention all the major countries involvements. Overall these can be overlooked.  The SFX are fantastic, the aliens are CGI generated as is the awesome mech suit Wicus hops into at the end. Pew pew anybody?  For those looking for exploding humans and aliens there is plenty of that with a great fight scene at the end.

Hello Sir. Have you seen an anyone who is 7ft tall, looks like a prawn and can't speak English?

This movie is an action think piece with a lot of humour thrown in to boot. You can walk away from it thinking man, humans are bastards or I can see their point or just walk away thinking “Wo awesome dude” but you will walk away thinking about the movie which in my mind makes it great. I give this one 8.5/10 for sheer alien in the eye action.