Alien Versus Predator

Let's find out how avp rates on the angry vikings shall we?


First of all let me say that I am a huge fan of the alien franchise, and I love predator 1 as well. Therefore any movie in either franchise that shit all over the series won't be earning any brownie points...

The making of an Alien Versus Predator movie took surprisingly long, the comics have been around since the late 80s, and even in predator 2 there was a reference to the predators hunting aliens. Add to the fact that both franchises have a lot of dedicated fans(altough tons more alien fans around), it was only a matter of time before the film was made.

The cast of this picture is relativly unkown, Lance Henriksen beeing the most known name to most. Also starring in the movie are Sanaa Lathan and Raoul Bova.
Unlike the cast of the 4 first alien pictures, this one is rather bland, but then again this is more of an action film than the previous ones.

A lot of people loathe avp, but I am not one of them. You've got the predator fanboys who get pissed off that one alien kills 2 predators, and you've got the alien fanboys who get pissed off that one predator kills a whole bunch of aliens. Yeah yeah so there's some minor spoilers in this review, get used to it punk!
The point is, when you make a pic of 2 franchises together you're bound to piss of some fans.

The first part of the movie is the gathering of the characters, and the setting of the mood. Apart from a ridiculous ice climb and chopper incident regarding Sanaa, this is done ok. Next part of the movie is the best one, with some well directed action and suspense, and you get to see what you obviously are watching this movie for, Aliens fighting predators. The last part of the movie is fairly ludicrous though, the alien queen looks and acts more like something off jurassic park than an alien film.

None of the actors here deserve any oscars, but they did ok, certainly no worse than the acting in alien res-erection or predator 2. Paul Anderson(the director) is not a bad director, he does have his own visual style like the previous alien films directors. However the problem is that he also wrote this picture, and he really can't hack it as a writer. So you'll get some awful lines every now and then, and things that don't make sense. Such as the gestation time of the alien, and the number of aliens.

Another major gripe people have with this picture is that it is set on earth, hence making Ripley's struggle in the alien films less scary, since the aliens have already been here. However even the director of the film says that it isn't canon, and this was set in a remote place on earth too, so I don't have a big problem with that.
People also complain that the predators are too short, and too bulky. They used the tallest stuntmen they could find for it, so that's just silly. They do however look bulky with all their armor, but I don't mind that since it makes the heavy fight one of the predators has with one alien more plausible I guess.

The movie was a box office success with a modest budget, and got mixed reviews intially, but more and more fans of the franchises have poured their hate for this film all over the internet since. So for the sequal avp2, Paul Anderson was axed. I don't have a big problem with that, I don't think continueing on the story would be any fruitful.

Rating(out of ten):


Trailer