Alien vs. Predator Review
by Ryan Ellis (flickershows AT hotmail DOT com)August 19th, 2004
Alien vs. Predator
reviewed by Ryan Ellis
August 17, 2004
My Tagline---Careful...it's rated PG-13 for "slime"
According to scuttlebutt, this crossover project has been in the works since the dawn of time. I guess it took that long just to get the script up to the level of cruddy absurdity. In any cae, the alien is finally making things slimy & gooey for the invisible hunters. If you've been following the "AvP" storyline in comics and video games, this movie might be a thing of salivation-inducing proportions. What about those of us who enjoyed only 3 of the previous 6 'Alien' and 'Predator' movies and weren't jonesin' for a 1 on 1? Is there any reason for a non-fan to ante up bucks for 'Alien vs. Predator'? No bloody way, Jose.
This flick takes place in the modern-day Antarctic wilderness (all the better to isolate the characters and remind us of John Carpenter's creepfest, 'The Thing'). Actors who will work for scale have travelled to find an ancient pyramid buried under the ice. Little do they know that Ripley's futuristic nemesis is down there, dying to lay some eggs and attach some face-huggers on as many human hosts as possible. Also, the predators have returned from a century-long outer space vacation to play a shades-of-gray role in this fiasco. The human adventurers are caught in the middle of an extraterrestrial battle...which might look and sound like fun, but the whole project makes as much sense as Mush Mouth from "Fat Albert".
I dumbed the story down a bit there, but that's deliberate. It would help you to shut your brain down if you go see this movie. I could barely follow the story anyway, partly because I was busy aging a few years while waiting for either the aliens or the predators to show up. For some reason, writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson ('Resident Evil') thinks it's a good idea to go 30 minutes before bringing the headliners into the mix. That means we've got way too much time to spend with minimum-wage actors you've never heard of before (except for Sanaa Lathan and Lance Henriksen, who get the most screen time). Since a dozen producers and lots of special F/X had to be paid for, there must not have been enough money left to sign bigger names. It's not really the actors' fault, though. Brando, Newman, and Streep couldn't do anything with this idiocy either.
Henriksen---who should form a singing group with Kris Kristofferson and Sam Elliot called "The Rasps"---is Charles Bishop Weyland. You might remember Bishop was the heroic android in 'Aliens'. Weyland is co-owner of the company that wanted to use the alien as a military weapon in the original series. [But isn't the 'Alien' story set in the the distant future while the predator is a bad guy in our modern times? Head hurts...]. Anderson blows this juicy opportunity to let us into Henriksen's head. Casual fans won't even recognize the Weyland name anyway. This non-issue is one of the biggest disappointments in the entire movie. When I heard ol' Bishop was in the cast, I expected some back-story detail about Weyland's role in this entire alien invasion. Instead, he's a rich guy hiking in the snow to be just another target in the alien/predator grudge match. What a waste.
Anderson knows nothing about pacing. You have to wait a while for things to happen in Ridley Scott's 'Alien' too, of course, but the characters are interesting and you don't really know where the story is going in the first place. There are no secrets worth waiting for in 'AvP', so the opening sequences with nary a baddie in sight are just going to put you to sleep. Forty-five minutes of dull-ass boredom doesn't offset about 45 minutes of moderately entertaining action. Anderson's script takes the highlights of the previous films and brings nothing new to this combo of 2 classic creatures. As in 2003's horror crossover, 'Freddy vs. Jason', the climactic battle IS nifty. If 'FvJ' was a dead teenager movie with too much teenager and not enough dead, 'AvP' is the same thing...with adults.
The title characters themselves haven't changed much since their debuts in 1979 and 1987, respectively. The alien was made for the computer F/X age. We get plenty of chances to see the warrior aliens (and, eventually, the enormous queen) skitter around in full view. However, brief glimpses of the shark in 'Jaws', Freddy Krueger, and the alien were always far more terrifying than the extended look you got in the sequels. Your imagination can fill in the scary blanks that no filmmaker can...certainly not the below-average director at the helm of this sinking ship. At least Anderson can't be accused of racism or sexism. His movie is very politically correct. The white guys are quickly killed while the black chick gets to try on the hero hat.
The first two 'Alien' movies were better than the only two 'Predator' movies, but I always thought the predator was a cooler beast. He (well, there's more than one of him...and maybe none of them are even a "him") is the most sympathetic character in the picture. I doubt that you'll have much sympathy for the people, though. Most audiences will wind up rooting for BOTH bad guys, not for the human bait. While I can understand why mankind would side with the dreadlocked preds over the slimy duct-lovers, the predator's tweener role is too convenient.
Have I explained the plot sufficiently here? Probably not, but cut me some slack. I was distracted by thoughts such as, "When will Darth Vader, John McClane, Wolverine, and other 20th Century Fox icons show up?" Oh, cripes, I just gave movie executives an idea. [NOTE: Movie execs + idea = never.] 'AvP's big box office take on opening weekend ensures they're already planning 'AvP2', no matter what any wise-ass critic has to say. Hollywood doesn't seem to care that they're ruining what we loved about the original thrillers with these "versus" movies. One good perversion deserves another.
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