Alien vs. Predator (2004) - By Matt Singer

Film Reviews: Alien vs. Predator (2004) - By Matt Singer
Posted on Wednesday, September 01, 2004 @ 00:30:30 Mountain Daylight Time by Duane

For a movie based on a video game and a comic book, Alien Versus Predator is shockingly talkative. Once the action finally comes, it’s plentiful, but in a brief ninety minute movie, the first third is all wasteful yapping. This is Alien Versus Predator, we know the characters are victims-in-waiting, why the hell are we wasting so much time watching them on mountainsides and archaeological digs? Bluntly, who gives a crap? Each cast member has an easily recognizable physical characteristic (a black guy, a skinny guy, a short-haired blond girl), and most have thick foreign accents (British, Scottish, Italian amongst others), and no one’s name remains fixed in your memory more than ten minutes after the credits. The amount of effort expended on pointless exposition is mind-boggling.

Though it takes us an eternity to get there, the two horror franchises are brought together by a mysterious pyramid, discovered two thousand feet below the ice of Antarctica. Its presence is investigated by the team of forgettable humans, brought together by billionaire industrialist Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Hendrickson). Eventually, one of the humans, Scruffy Italian Guy (Raoul Bova) discerns its origin: thousands of years ago, the alien race known to movielovers as the Predators came to earth, convinced the primative earthlings of their godliness, and had them build giant pyramids. Then they stuck aliens (the aliens as far as we’re concerned) inside the pyramids, and returned every hundred years to test their mettle against the acid-blooded, big-headed beasts. In October of 2004, when the human explorers discover the pyramid, it is yet another one hunded year cycle and they are smack dab in the middle of a extra-terrestrial grudge match. Even without seeing the movie, the summary might give you some pause. Why would the Predators measure the time interval in earth years and why one hundred of them? Scruffy Italian Guy says the pyramid operates on the metric system - the Predators invented that too?

Look no one wants Shakespeare from Alien Versus Predator. But the script, by director Paul W. S. Anderson, needs a pacemaker. The introduction is protracted and then the initial confrontations with the Aliens and Predators are tame and abbreviated. After making me care about Scruffy Italian Guy and Skinny Scottish Guy (Ewen Brenner), Anderson doesn’t even provide the pleasure of pondering the order of each kill. Seconds after the Aliens appear and the Predators touch down all but six of the humans are dead, and after another scene, there are only three left. More exasperatingly, Alien Versus Predator is rated PG-13, and excuses about the lowered rating coming as a result of the excessive alien goop replacing blood and gore is an obvious cover; the violence is largely kept off-screen and hidden by editing. The huge DVD market combined with the current vogue for massive, teen-fueled opening weekends is the true motivation; by getting younger kids in the door the guaranteed high first week returns (over $38 million). Any hardcore fans who protest the weaker cut will be easily enticed by the inevitable R-rated after market cut.

Attentive viewers might spot Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man playing on a television screen early in Alien Versus Predator. At least AVP admits to its pedigree: a low-on-creativity sequel made in the mold of FMtWM and other disappointing grudge matches like King Kong Versus Godzilla. Such quirky meetings sound like fun, but always come at the end or creative nadir of any series, the entries with the lowest budgets and least inspired creators.