Alien vs. Predator Review
By Joe Lozito
Battle Fatigued
If nothing else "Alien vs. Predator" achieves the feat of being simultaneously a prequel to one movie and a sequel to another (that of 1979's "Alien" and 1987's "Predator", respectively), while incorporating elements of yet a different sequel (re: Lance Henriksen from 1986's "Aliens"). That's quite a pedigree (or is it a rap sheet?) from which to develop a film, and surely writer/director/video-game-adaptation-specialist Paul W.S. Anderson ("Mortal Kombat", "Resident Evil") had no shortage of material at his disposal. Aside from gaining momentum as a comic series and a video game, "Alien vs. Predator" movie ideas have peppered the Internet for years, each with more and more inventive ways of pairing the much-beloved horror franchises. The long-awaited film is neither as good nor as bad as it could have been. It should attract only those who are fans of the previous films, but it will not satisfy them.
Watching "Alien vs. Predator" is like seeing a favorite childhood star on "Hollywood Squares". All you can think is, "oh, has it come to this?" Like most sequels, everything that made the original so good is diminished by a factor of the Roman numeral following the title. So, this being the third cinematic outing for the Predators, they seem a bit slower, clumsier, and maybe a little soft around the middle. The Aliens, in their fifth appearance on film, fare slightly better but still seem a little long in the tooth. We've seen all their tricks before; they're just going through the motions.
The problem with the film was summed up by a franchise-newbie who whispered to me fifteen minutes into the film, "Where are all the Aliens and Predators?" Sure enough, in order to get the beasties on screen together, Mr. Anderson concocts a story involving the discovery of an Aztec/Egyptian/Cambodian-style pyramid beneath the surface of the Antarctic ice (shhh, don't think about it). A ragtag (of course) team is sent to investigate, headed by Charles Bishop Weyland (Mr. Henriksen), founder of the Weyland Corporation (already familiar in a variety of ways to "Alien" fans).
All this nonsense requires the introduction of characters (and I use the term loosely), none of which, thanks to Mr. Anderson's script, have a memorable trait or line of dialogue. So short-sighted and rushed is Mr. Anderson's script, that no one in the film even stops to note that they are observing not one but two alien species on Earth in 2004 (well, with the exception of one line: "what WERE those things?!"). Of course, the characters are all just lambs for the coming slaughter, but if we have to spend twenty minutes with them, they'd better be interesting. They're not. The only one with a chance is Alexa Woods, played with one of those I-somehow-know-this-is-a-bad idea attitudes by Sanaa Lathan.
Since audiences need someone to root for, and without a memorable character in the bunch, it becomes necessary to humanize one of the titular combatants. Between slime-dripping, acid-for-blood, hissing monsters and humanoid, Rasta-haired, steroid cases, guess which one the film chooses. Not that that's a bad thing - there is precedent for this in the comics. In the first "Alien vs. Predator" story, a lone Predator teams up with a human to fight Aliens. However, this is only after some extended sequences in which the human earns the Predator's respect. Like everything else in "AvP", the relationship between characters is glossed over to the point that any human/Predator bonding is strictly laughable and serves only to diminish the Predator's former menace.
When the film finally builds to a noisy, ludicrous climax at which point any semblance of sense has been thrown to the Antarctic winds, that same newbie remarked, "okay, now this is just too silly." For a movie about two Alien species fighting in an underground pyramid, that's really saying something.
At the very least, the film looks pretty good. It has sort of a slick, icy quality to it, which works for the setting. As soon as the gloves come off and the long-awaited smackdown begins, there are one or two moments that will keep the fanboys happy. That elation will fade, however, during the Predator's trademark mask-removal scene. Maybe Mr. Anderson's effects team ran out of money and had to substitute an old Halloween mask. That's the only acceptable explanation I can think of.
With all this working against it, the question remains if it would even be possible to make a good "Alien vs. Predator" movie. Well, to paraphrase a former president, that depends on what your definition of "good" is. Barring some miracle, it probably wouldn't be possible to make a sci-fi or horror classic out of this material; it's derivative and contrived by its very definition (even the comics aren't that entertaining). However, it would definitely have been possible, with some brains behind the project, to make an enjoyable sci-fi action film for both franchise fans and new converts. Without resorting to the winking cheesiness of "Freddy vs. Jason", there is a vast untapped mythology out there from which to pull interesting stories uniting these last memorable screen monsters. That's not likely to happen at this point. There's really nowhere to go from "Hollywood Squares".
