A Review by Phil Calabro
2004, 20th Century Fox, Dir. Paul W.S. Anderson - Starring Sanaa Lathan, Raoul Bova, Lance Henriksen, Ewen Bremner, Colin Salmon, Tommy Flanagan, Joseph Rye, Agathe De La Boulaye, Carsten Norgaard
The versus genre has been dorment for many years, and was finally awoken when Freddy vs. Jason, which turned out to be last year's biggest surprise, churned out 82 million dollars at the box office. Now, the distributors are going hogwild and turning all of their dead franchises into big-budget showdowns - and Alien vs. Predator, originally a video game, is the newest level. However, FOX has realized that the movie need not actually be good, but at least have one of two fights just to suffice the title, and fill the rest with stupid boring characters.
Big corporation Weyland, run by Charles Weyland (Henriksen) is doing an expedition under the ice shelfs of Antarctica to find a hidden pyramid that is a gigantic discovery in science. These boring and uninteresting scientists (Lathan, Bova, Bremner, yadda yadda) all go underneath the ice and find themselves in the middle of a war between - gasp SURPRISE! Aliens and predators! Slime, acid for blood, and chaos insues. People are killed off very quickly. Fin.
These actors, except for Henriksen, are unknown to Hollywood, and show it through their inability to act. They are boring, stereotypical diversities of scientists who make bad jokes and can't act. Usually I'd be a bit more specific, but I can't be any more than that. They aren't interesting, the majority of them can not connect with either the aliens or predators. Lance Henriksen is up to his old B-list mood with this role, and he's the only character I feel who actually bothered to show some talent. He's an interesting small role, and is one of the better parts of the movie.
The fights between Alien and Predator are simply awesome. Loud blaring hard rock music, lots of slime and ooze, and lots of ass-kicking - prime time stuff. It's what the audience waits for, and what makes the entire movie worth waiting. It's what makes the versus movies so good, but sadly the director can't create a movie of just that, and Anderson uses filler with the characters - and ruins it. He also creates an unnecessary union between the human (Lanthan) and the Predator, making the audience like one side better - a bad move on Anderson's part. the whole point is that both creatures are equally despicable - and that we shouldn't be rooting on either side.
Alien vs. Predator is your typical summer flick - a pure unadulterated example of one. It's bad in most parts, but audiences will still waste money just to engulf on some fight scenes and loud music. I enjoyed it as much as I could, but I still could not get past the stupidity of some of the humanoid figures. Anderson, stick to Resident Evil movies next time - your time is running out.
2/4 stars
