Raoul Bova, Colin Salmon, Lance Henriksen, Charles Weyland,
Ewen Bremner, Graham Miller, Sanaa Lathan, Alexa Woods,
Tom Woodruff Jr. |
Directed
by: Paul W.S. Anderson
Written by: Paul W.S. Anderson,
Shane Salerno
Produced by: John Davis, Lawrence Gordonm, Walter Hill, Joel Silver
Distributor: 20th Century Fox Film Corporation |
US:
13 AUG 2004
UK: 22 OCT 2004 |
Set
in the early 21st century (ie, now), this movie follows
a team of drillers, scientists and archaeologists led
by a billionaire industrialist (Henriksen) who travel
to Antarctica to investigate ancient pyramid ruins buried
deep beneath the ice which predate those in Egypt and
Mexico, suggesting they were once the home of a great
empire that ruled over the Earth first. When they finally
reach one of the pyramids, however, they discover human
skeletons and fossilized remains of alien creatures
that appear to hug faces and burst out of chests (wink
wink), along with evidence that such aliens may still
be alive somewhere in the ruins. The danger below them
is frightening, but what the scientists also don't know
is that something as dangerous lurks above them, happy
to have had someone uncover the Aliens: a group of five
teenage Predators, following a tradition wherein young
Predators come to Earth every thousand years to go through
their hunting rituals to reach manhood (or die horribly).
The humans on the scene have to just hope they don't
join them... |
|
Is
this just a cynical marketing exercise to meld the two
best "alien" franchises ever? Maybe not. The
plot actually makes sense in the invented universes
of both creatures. Especially as in Predator 2, the
creature had a trophy skull of the Alien on his shelf!
Setting it in today's timeline seems a clever move in
enabling both franchises to return intacto. Expect Ripley
to kick butt in Alien 6. And don't forget that Lance
Henriksen (playing a billionaire industrialist) was
also the paranoid android in Aliens, so setting an intruiging
posibility of a storyline strand on why the android
looked like him? Well intriuging for those who get off
on such arcane minutia! |
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"Alien
or Predator....
Who'll finally end up on top?"
|
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