Alien vs. Predator

Technically, I guess you could say that I’ve been waiting for this movie since 1990, when the unmistakable shape of an Alien skull could be seen displayed as a trophy inside the Predator spaceship in Predator 2. Suddenly, the stage was set for a series of comics, playing cards, video games, internet chat room wars (“Picard vs. Kirk, Alien vs. Predator, Chewbacca vs. Bigfoot!”) and the inevitable talk of a movie. Hoping against hope, I desperately wanted this film to be awesome, but apparently, 14 years of scripts, planning and plot re-writes isn’t long enough to craft a decent amalgam of two of the most effective movie monsters of 20th Century pop culture. Boring, preposterous and ignorant of the finely crafted universe that it draws from, Alien vs. Predator is mildly entertaining for the average moviegoer, but a laughably bad and disappointing train wreck of a film for fans of either series.

The movie opens with the discovery of a huge pyramid under the ice of Antarctica by one of the satellites owned by Charles Weyland (Lance Henriksen). A team of characters is quickly assembled to race down to the site and find out the basics – who, why and most importantly, when. Once the team arrives at the marked co-ordinates, they find a massive hole drilled into the ice, perfectly circular and leading directly to the base of the pyramid. Apparently not deterred by the fact that it wasn’t there the day before and that “no drilling team on Earth could have done this,” they decide to descend into the passage and see what’s at the bottom. Up until this point, the movie had me. Well paced and dealing with an interesting mystery, the tension slowly built as the explorers tentatively entered the massive pyramid.

Finding it deserted and covered in strange Aztec writing that talked of ‘chosen ones’ and carvings of strange creatures, they find their way to a central chamber where they manage to open a locked compartment. This is where the movie is supposed to get interesting; instead, it’s where it begins to fall apart.

About this point, the Predators show up and head downstairs to meet and greet the puny humans, who have unfortunately decided to take some of the shoulder mounted cannons they found as mementos, which the Predators want back. Why does an intergalactic race of hunters keep their weapons in a cold storage safe in the dungeon of a freezing Aztec pyramid? Don’t know, it’s never explained. At any rate, this is where the Alien queen is awakened (from cold storage in a bath of liquid nitrogen, of all things), and starts to lay eggs.

From this point on, there really isn’t too much to talk about. Nearly every character is dead by the halfway point, which isn’t a big shame as none of them are even remotely interesting. There are a few requisite fight scenes but for the most part, they’re between humans and Aliens or humans and Predators. The one kind of good fight scene between the two title creatures is poorly shot and lasts about 30 seconds. After a while, all this tomfoolery leaves only the heroine Alexa (Sanaa Lathan), one surviving Predator and a pyramid full of Aliens. Now, I won’t be giving away a major plot point here, but what happens next is where I literally groaned out loud at how bad this movie had gotten.

After muttering the mantra “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” to herself, Alexa helps the lone Predator fight off and kill an Alien – for which she’s rewarded with a makeshift spear and shield, made from body parts of the now dead creature. The sight of a 9 foot tall Predator running in slow motion beside a 5 foot tall human clutching a shield and spear like a Roman warrior is just a preposterous sight to see, one which made most in the audience laugh out loud. Believe it or not, the two characters nearly develop a ‘relationship’ (which negates the entire marketing campaign of “Whoever wins… we lose”). I half expected them to kiss at some point; I would have been horrified, but not surprised.

At any rate, by this point you’ll most likely not care either way how things turn out. The obligatory ending pops up which won’t be at all a surprise even if you’ve only ever seen one or two monster movies your whole life.

In trying to think of what’s good about the movie, I can only come up with several points. The special effects are pretty good but really, what movie these days doesn’t have great effects? The designs of the Aliens and Predators stay mostly true to the original Stan Winston brilliance (the Aliens from a design by H.R Giger), which is nice, but didn’t take much effort by anyone; kind of like getting compliments for photocopying the Mona Lisa.

The bad points are nearly too numerous to mention; the script is hacked together and crammed full of terrible dialogue and just makes absolutely no sense, even when it’s painfully trying to give exposition. Rules from both the Alien and Predator series of films have been tossed aside – for instance, it’s been well established that both creatures thrive only in warm environments. Why they’d choose the coldest place on the planet to set up shop is beyond me. The chestburster alien that has traditionally taken about a day to gestate and ‘escape’ from its human hosts (thus, adding to the tension after they wake up), now apparently takes about 20 minutes. The acid blood that makes the Aliens so dangerous is supposed to neutralize after their dead – that’s out the window too. And on top of all that, Alexa spends the last 10 minutes of the movie outside in snow pants and a t-shirt – in Antarctica!

This movie is getting ripped apart by fans, and rightly so. Director Paul W.S Anderson (Mortal Kombat) has taken two of the most fantastic, scary, balls-to-the-wall bad-ass monster franchises in cinema history and glommed them together into a sloppy, un-scary, laughably bad PG film. If you’ve never seen any of the previous films in either series, you might think this is okay; otherwise, stay away at all costs and watch any of the forbearers to this mess.