Alien Vs. Predator Review

"This pyramid, it's like a prison. We took the guards' guns, and now the prisoners are running free. To restore order, the guards need their guns."

-Sanaa Lathan "Alien Vs. Predator"

Released in 2004 under the direction of Paul W.S. Anderson on a budget of $60 million and distributed by 20th Century Fox; "Alien Vs. Predator" was a crossover sci-fi film that combined the alien zenomorphs from Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi thriller "Alien" (a film that combined the realism of "2001: A Space Odyssey" and suspense elements of gothic horror) and the alien hunters from John McTiernan's 1987 sci-fi action film "Predator" (a film that was a message about Vietnam War; what, you don't see it?). The idea for this crossover labored in development hell since the early 90's, not being helped from the numerous comic books and video games and arcade shooters that came around to cash in on this idea. Eventually, Hollywood finally found the "right guy" to finally help them cash in on it: Paul W.S. Anderson.

 This guy, prior to AVP, was responsible for the film/video game adaptations "Mortal Kombat" and "Resident Evil," both of which, while finical successes, were critically scathed by fans of the games and critics alike. For this film in particular, W.S. convinced the studio to film the movie in the sound stages of Czechoslovakia, thereby keeping the costs under $100 million, and by making the film a PG-13, the teenaged boys who couldn't see the original R-rated sci-fi classics were now able to. But what about for us fans of either franchise? Does it hold up to those expectations as a crossover film or is it just game over, man?

Plot: On a particular blue day, some company named Weyland (oh, something referencing "Aliens," nice name dropping Anderson) who organizes in…industry? Aeronautics? Something, I don't know, it's not important; discovers this heat source in the Antarctica and they organize a team comprised of people I could care less about: some Sigourney Weaver wannabe (Sanaa Lathan from "The Cleveland Show"), an archeologist who needs money (Raoul Bova from "Under the Tuscan Sun"), a camera man (I forget his name and how plays him), a british guy who's more annoying than Fred (Ewen Bremner from "Trainspotting"), some girl with a gun (forgot her name too), some black guy with a gun (Colin Salmon from "Tomorrow Never Dies"), and Lance Henriksen (from "Aliens", "Alien3", "Terminator", "Dead Man", and Disney's "Tarzan"; why did I bother to mention all those films? Because they are a hell of a lot better than this f*ckfest) all get together to try and discover some tunnel that leads to an underground temple that houses zenomorphs so three predators can go and practice their hunting skills on them. But because our "characters" are idiots, they just cause more problems as they cause the temple pyramid to keep changing on itself when it's convenient to the "plot" and just to watch humans and aliens killed killed off without any real sense of tension.

I've ranted before on how much I hate Paul W.S. Anderson as a writer but given him a pass on directing, because when he's not really that bad a director. He handles his action scenes well (well enough…) and he at least manages to keep the bloody camera still instead of shaking it all over the f*cking place like a drunken idiot (*See Jonathan Liebesman) but what bothers me is the wooden and stilted dialogue: "You got any children?" "Got a son." "Yeah, I've got two." "That means we do not have the luxury of quitting. We're gonna make it out of here. We're surviving this if I have to carry you the whole way." 

Really, Anderson's weak point is in writing. His movies work by the formula of boring exposition, action scene, boring exposition, action scene, uninteresting character development, action scene. His action scenes are the reason he gets people to come to the theaters but this film in particular has the most suspense-less opening in a film. From the archeologist guy saying "Hunter's moon", finding a stone tablet with the alien and predator fighting each other and finding corpses with their chests burst open; that's not subtle, it's pretty much just delaying the inevitable and if the film is taking THAT long to give us what the title promises, then it might as well be called "Alien vs Predator vs Cardboard Cut-outs" or the more appropriate title "Dumbasses Lost in a Pyramid: Plus Some Aliens or Something Like That" (course marketing would never put that on all the posters). It's a film that tries to balance the dark shadows and tension of the "Alien" films and the stalker sense from the "Predator" films but the result comes out as uneven pacing, giving us less of the promised Alien vs. Predator and more of the human characters who aren't developed or interesting or memorable and Anderson just having to resort to recycling elements from the previous films just to fill in the space of time instead of doing anything different with it. Also, it's been established in the "Alien" franchise that when a facehugger impregnates you with it's seed, it takes several hours for it to grow inside the host and then burst out shorter than 10 minutes, all except for this ONE alien that pops out at the end from this one Predator (nice continuity there Anderson)

Characters: I'm not gonna even bother to list them off because they are all just as awful as the last. The human characters are so uninteresting and boring, they make the Jersey Shore cast look like Oscar-winners. What made the original Alien and Predator franchise compelling were the traits that made each character interesting. Take either "Aliens" or "Predator" and ask yourself who are the characters in the films and why we care when they get killed off. We care because the film actually gives them dialogue that makes them identifiable to us and we, as the audience, connect to them emotionally, hence when they killed off, we give a rat's ass. For this film, there is not one character I remember that I even liked, each one was just annoying, emotionless and really forgettable. The only guy I bothered to remember was Lance Henriksen because, hey, this guy was in "Aliens" and the widely underrated "Alien3" and the film at least establishes that he is sick and dying. There, is that so hard? A character trait that differs one person from a cast of people who are as underdeveloped as the cast from "Alien Resurrection," THAT is how you do it dammit.

Production: Why bother to describe it? Because, well; the "Alien" franchise has always been on sets. Ridley Scott managed to keep costs down by spray-painting an abandoned industrial factory and using old materials that were littered around the place as well as combining the biomechanics imagination of H.R. Giger to create sets as well as the alien; he created a haunting location that distilled the fear of being trapped in a large place that aliens could hide in. James Cameron continued with this but he took an action movie attitude towards it but still retained the elements that Ridley left behind, such as the aliens using the dark places to strike and the closed quarters feeling of not being able to escape form the threat. David Fincher largely did the same, but didn't capture the same threat unlike the previous films, but still had atmosphere to boast. The less said about Jean-Pierre Jeunet's take the better but he at least still carried over the familiar idea of isolation. As stated before, Anderson filmed this movie in the Czech sets to keep costs down and, to his credit, did at least manage to somewhat capture the imagination of H.R. Giger. It's not as surreal as Giger's works (see picture below for example).

Regardless, the production crew still managed to make the sets surreal and biomechanical enough to show where the budget went into creating them. The costuming on the predators are rather "meh" and the animatronics for them are not as epic and cool as previous films. The action scenes are shoddily edited and feels like I'm watching Pro Wrestling style of fighting, I practically expect them to grab microphones and shout out things like "You stole my girlfriend from me!!" or "Your mother is MY mother!!" and start hitting each other with folded chairs and doing body slams on each other. But I'm thinking aloud now.

Oh yeah, how could I forget about the biggest fault of this film: the PG-13 rating. What were the original films rated again?

"Alien" 1979 - R

"Aliens" 1986 - R

"Predator" 1987 - R

"Predator 2" 1990 - R 

"Alien3" 1992 - R

"Alien Resurrection" 1997 - R

and just to add on to this list:

"Predators" 2010 - R

Noticing a pattern here? Can you guess WHY these films are rated as they? That's right, because of their VIOLENCE. Would the MPAA show a teenager in the theater someone getting skinned alive and held upside down in a bloody mess? Nope, they have rules to abide to. Would they show an alien drilling a hole into the skull of a human to a teenager? I imagine the teen would find that cool, but nope, MPAA has rules; but of course it's okay to show a Predator's skull get a hole in it's head because Green blood does not equal human blood, so therefore, it's okay! Friggin' hacks. 

Bottom Line: This film doesn't even dare to stand alongside the success of Ridley Scott and James Cameron; guys who actually put hard work into the low budgets they had to turn out strong movies that have been major influences on science-fiction cinema. Hell, THIS movie has to stand in the shadow of "Alien3" because it's just so poorly written, so badly acted and paced terribly, forcing pointless action scenes JUST to appeal to the impatient fans who wanted Predator on Alien action (get your head out of the gutter…but that does happen. BURN!) The characters are more stilted and forgettable than "Alien Resurrection," the writing, even worse.

This film is embarrassing to both Alien and Predator fans because it portrays the Predators as being weak and unable to handle a few Aliens and it portrays Aliens being "insta-alien." It's ridiculous and it clearly a vehicle to just give the fanboys what they want and then, just like "Freddy vs. Jason," end it without an actual victor just to avoid angering them. I would say the ride is worth it for the action scenes, but if the ride has to give us cardboard cut-outs with a dilapidated story to carry it, then you might as well just watch the action scenes online since those are the only entertaining parts of the film that are so far and few in-between. If you want my advice, skip this movie and go read the comic books or play the video games, at least THOSE have a better presentation with a credible explanation for the aliens and predators to fight one another and you'll be more entertained from it.

Final Rating: 1.5 out of 5 

Until next time, I'll continue to stoke the fires for when we burn through celluloid again.