Review of AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004) by Tristan M — 23 Mar 2015

Two great franchises combined, for no reason, and without success. Why someone thought it would be a good idea to do this, I don't know. I personally love both the Alien and Predator franchises, and seeing the too on them fight may have been something fans would love to see.

But in the grand sceem of film, it simply doesn't work. It turned out to be dumb on many levels: the whole plot, a pyramid under Antarctica, how the predators used humans as bait for the aliens they hunted.

Mostly it is well thought out, but doesn't really work out. It seems like they cut a lot of corners so they wouldn't have to explain or spend more time on stuff; like how predator weapons won't dissolved when they we stabbed into a alien, and how none of the humans seemed to be curious on how the very first pyramid ever made could move and change positions of walls, how the ice forms a bubble over the pyramid instead of covering it right up and flooding it with water, and how the 'emergency release' on the elavator thing pulled it up faster than a explosion.

One positive thing is the aliens are far improved in their ability to move and fight, and watching these fights are kinda amusing. The predators still look the same and look good, as do all the aliens, but in many distance shots the aliens were very fake and unconvincing.

The acting was dull and I wasn't a fan on the amount of characters with broken english, and how the characters were very under developed. The first half of the film I thought wasn't even bad considering, bringing back the scares from the original alien movies, but then watching the hectic and confusing fight scenes, poor CGI and queen alien attacking was a put-down.

Adding in Bishop again from Aliens is cool, but doesn't really make sense to why he is alive all these years earlier, and still be alive in Alien 3. But also in terms of Bishop having him do the knife thing with his hand was a cool reference to the original franchise.

The ending was stupid, how Alexa joins the predator to fight, the water tower dragging down the queen, and the baby alien/predator mix makes no sense. Overall it simply makes no sense and was an extremely unesasary movie to spend money on.

I don't really have much to say about this film, other than the fights between the predators and aliens are hard to follow, and kinda ridiculous. Only reason it gets this rating is the fact that it brings back the predators and the aliens, and has some scattered references to the originals films.