CORPORATE LINE: The iconic monsters from the two franchises battle each other on Earth for the first time on film, as they have in the comic-book world. The discovery of an ancient pyramid buried in Antarctica sends a team of scientists and adventurers to the frozen continent. There, they make an even more terrifying discovery: two alien races engaged in an ultimate battle.
THE GOOD: It is good for a laugh.
THE BAD: About an hour in you finally see the battle—Alien Vs. Predator. Can you say hoaky? Ridiculous? Stupid? Asinine? There are more words that would work here. There are scenes where the humans have to choose sides and it’s almost embarrassing to see them work as a team with fire and explosions blowing up all around them.
The Predator looks like a Rastafarian. Did he look like this originally? It really is comical. The grand finale isn’t a climax. It’s a joke. There is nothing scary about AVP, no gore, nothing but boredom. Most of the people watching in the theater—which was full—laughed when they should have been shrieking. The monsters weren’t trading comic one-liners ala Freddy Vs. Jason—but they might as well have. At least that might have made this an enjoyable movie. Imagine alien throwing out a “you remind me of a rasta on a bad day” with Predator quipping “oh yeah! Well you’re so ugly you give Freddy Kruegger nightmares.”
DVD FEATURES: A commentary by by director Paul W.S. Anderson, Lance Henriksen, and Sanaa Lathan. Another commentary by Alec Gillis (alien effects), Tom Woodruff Jr. (alien effects), and visual effects supervisor John Bruno.
The deleted scenes are very shortalthough one is quite funny. The making of featurette is very interesting. There is a lot of work on the robotics and miniatures and we get to see how it came to life.
FRANKLY: Alien Vs. Predator makes Freddy Vs. Jason look like a masterpiece. The advertisement for Alien Vs. Predator says “Whoever Wins, We Lose!”—now that is truth in advertising.
+ Charlie Craine
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