This week's premiere (s)
photo: Tatrafilm
Alien vs Predator (Votrelec vs Predator) - Action horror by Paul WS Anderson. It was inevitable that they'd meet, wasn't it? The Alien series and the Predator movies were two of Hollywood's most successful franchises throughout the 1980s and 1990s. But, sadly for them, with their stars - Sigourney Weaver and Arnold Schwarzenegger respectively - having moved on to supposedly bigger and better things, simple sequels just wouldn't do. So the natural solution, obviously, was to combine the two franchises, sans their human stars. And who could be better as the human star than sci-fi B-movie stalwart Lance Henriksen? He plays a billionaire who leads a team of drillers and archaeologists deep to an arctic pyramid ruin. But, little do they know what awaits them: The race of aliens and the race of predators are deep within a fierce battle, and they don't particularly care what happens to those that get in their way.
photo: Tatrafilm
The Prince and Me (Prince a ja) - Romance by Martha Coolidge. Julia Stiles plays Paige, a smart American college student who strives to become a doctor. She gets sidetracked from her studies after meeting Eddie, a handsome foreign exchange student from Denmark. What she doesn't realise is that Eddie is actually the prince of Denmark masquerading as an average Joe. What will she do when she learns the truth? Return to her medical dreams? Or sacrifice them in the name of love?
Other movies playing
photo: Tatrafilm
The Bourne Supremacy (Bournov mýtus) - Action thriller by Paul Greengrass. Matt Damon returns as the amnesiac super spy, and he's once again appropriately cold and tough. This one's less about the action than The Bourne Identity, and more about Bourne's inner demons. But there's still plenty of taut action to go around, and just enough ethical murkiness to make this one better than most of its contemporaries.
Exorcist: The Beginning (Vyháňač diabla: Začiatok) - Horror by Renny Harlin. Though not nearly as good as its reputation would suggest, William Friedkin's The Exorcist stands as a popular classic of the horror genre.
photo: Tatrafilm
It spawned two sequels, countless spoofs, and, for years, a planned prequel. But the whole production seemed doomed: The first planned director, John Frankenheimer, died before shooting started, which then precipitated the exit of star Liam Neeson, who was to play Max von Sydow's Father Merrin role. Paul Schrader then completed the film with the great Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgaard in the lead, but the studio rejected it, reportedly wanting more gore. Enter Renny Harlin, whose previous credits include successful action movies like Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger and box office bombs like Cutthroat Island. Skarsgaard remains in the role of Father Merrin, who comes across a boy possessed by demons while in the wilds of Africa following the second world war. Will he expel the boy's demons? Will the movie overcome its own?
photo: Tatrafilm
The Whole Ten Yards (Môj sused zabijak 2) - Comedy by Howard Deutsch. The Whole Nine Yards relied far too heavily on obnoxious Friends star Matthew Perry and Amanda Peet's breasts. Luckily, Bruce Willis and Kevin Pollak kept it afloat. All of these players (well, probably minus Peet's bare breasts) return for part two, which begins with retired hitman Jimmy the Tulip (Willis) living quietly in Mexico with his wife Jill (Peet). His former neighbour Oz (Perry) disrupts the quiet, however, when he asks Jimmy to help rescue his wife (Natasha Henstridge) from the Hungarian mafia. Mob boss Lazlo Gogolak (Pollak), has orchestrated the kidnapping in an attempt to bring Jimmy out of hiding to get back at him for killing his son.
Prepared by Jonathan Knapp
