Versus!

Caught that movie about those xenomorphic hive-minded animals and those technologically advanced sport hunters. Review eventually, probably pouring out of Robot 1's grille, but who knows? The thing I want to address here isn't so much the Alien or the Predator, but the Versus. Like in last summer's epic team up, 'Freddy Versus Jason', someone took two separate sci-fi/horror universes, with popular villains and interminable sequels, and mashed them into a cinematic blender and aired the result during the summer. Classy, yes, but I'm concerned about how long this trend is going to go on. Face it, ours is a culture obsessed with nostalgia: any show that was reasonably popular in its heyday has been made into a terrible movie, culminating in 'The Courtship of Eddie's Father: in 3-D' coming to IMAX next month. Probably. VH-1 has pushed the near limit for nostalgia up through to the end of 1999, not even five years ago! So, do you think that we will be satiate with a mere two epic match ups? Not hardly! We're in for a world of versussery for a good decade, I expect.

• Leatherface vs. Michael Meyers: Who's got a better mask? I don't know! But we'll all find out in this knock-down, drag-out battle for supremacy and familial dysfunction. Whoever wins, we probably won't see their face.
• Gremlins vs. Transformers: Why not? Really, why not? The Autobots and Decepticons team up to run over those little buggers ('New Batch' versions, of course) in a knock-down, drag-out battle for supremacy and mastery of the eighties. That's right, winner is the master of an entire decade. Good for them.
• King Kong vs. Godzilla: The original 1962 Japanese move... rereleased! And nobody mentions it was made in 1962, okay? Good. Watch as the city of Tokyo is nearly destroyed in a knock-down, drag-out battle for supremacy over who gets to destroy Tokyo! Take that, Japanese! You and your fancy efficient cars and robots and sleeping closets, you're no match for guys in rubber costumes in a scale model of your cities, now are you?
• Terminator vs. Norman Bates: Can a powerful android form the future hope to take down a nut in his mother's dress? Only one way to find out! It's a knock-down, drag-out battle for supremacy between an robot carrying a small army's worth of firepower and a guy who has a knife sometimes.
• Batman vs. Superman: When the two heroes of to leave their respective fake New York Cities for the real New York City, New York City, New York City becomes the playing field for a knock-down, drag-out battle for supremacy and the title of New York City's Greatest Superhero Orphan. Also, they're evidently bad guys in this movie. Sure, why not?
• Fire vs. Iceberg: It's a battle of elemental proportions, only in a way that means big instead of really small! Rumor on the set is, Tornado may have a cameo, but who's side will she be on? It's a knock-down, drag-out battle for supremacy, and showing the world that special effects are pretty much better than God.
• Trek vs. Wars: It's a Star-off! Something goes crazy and the galaxies get thrown through time and space and get all ready for a battle. Actually, if we want a real knock-down, drag-out battle for supremacy and status as the best Star franchise, it should probably be Trek vs. Wars vs. Gate. Although it probably wouldn't make much of an impression on the Death Starship Enterprise &co. when a handful of airforce personnel appears on the nearest planet and just sort shoots generally upwards. Actually, for the sake of completeness, we might as well have Trek vs. Wars vs. Gate vs. Battle- Galactica. Yeah... we all know who's losing that one.
• A Bunch of Agent Smiths vs. Some Other Agent Smiths: Remember the part of 'Matrix Reloaded' that was, um, good? Well, now there's a whole move about Agent Smiths! It's a knock-down, drag-out battle for supremacy and the title of Best Agent Smith. Me, I'm rooting for Agent Smith.
• The People vs. Kramer vs. Kramer vs. Larry Flynt: Divorcees and smut peddlers in a figurative knock-down, drag-out battle for supremacy in court. For reasons that are never completely clear.
• E.T. vs. Frankenstein: The pudgy little snausage gets the everloving crap pounded out of him by Mary Shelly's Boris Karloff's Mel Brooks's Stephen Sommers's most horrific creation, Frankenstein*! It's a knock-down, drag-out battle for supremacy, for absolutely no reason whatsoever!
  
  *'s Monster