in terms of movies, if your hear the name Paul WS Anderson you run fast and you run far. Not to be confused of course with Paul Thomas Anderson, of Magnolia fame, WS has given us 10 years and maybe 5 films that rip of Aliens, with a couple of others left to just to be bland. These films just about make enough money to keep our man from fleeing back to the UK to direct episodes of 'Hustle', which is where his true destiny lies. Thankfully he's only a producer here, so the film is just stock, a waste of two hours and seven pound fifty, rather then a direct negative assault on body and mind. It's directed by German Christian Alvart, who's got a few vacuous visual tricks up his sleeve in effort to hide the fact that Anderson has just served up Aliens again, only this time he's robbed the bad guys from The Descent and hired semi-credible actors to run about through dark metallic corridors.
The lead, Ben Foster, is an actor I like perhaps more then his career has warranted, but he's given at least at least two very good performances that indicate he is worth our time. The best of which is 3:10 to Yuma, in which he pretty much stole a movie from under the noses of Russell Crowe and Christian Bale. Here he does well with a character that essentially just 'The Hero', and that's that. Dennis Quaid completing his 2009 one-two of GI Joe and this, of which this is perhaps the superior, if narrowly. His character is another mentor/authority figure who turns out secretly to be the bad guy, a trend all too common of late. Still evil Quaid was the highlight of this movie, in which strictly speaking the monsters were superfluous and you get the sense that began life as a script about isolation in deep space, before becoming a compromised monster movie.
If you like Aliens and don't object to regurgitated material, have a ball but otherwise watch Aliens on DVD. It will be better that way.
Rating: 5/10
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