Alien vs. Predator
(2004) Review
If you think back to
the ending of Predator 2, when Danny
Glover goes up to that trophy case aboard the predator ship, you might have
noticed a familiar skull in there: the xenomorph. Yes, even as far back as the
late 80’s, the idea of an Alien-Predator crossover was entertained. It
existed as a comic book series first, but many fans wanted to see the two
creatures clash on the big screen, and finally, in 2004, it happened.
On paper, it sounds
like a match made in heaven. Aliens
was a war movie, Predator was
action-packed and horrific, and both franchises were owned by 20th
Century Fox, but the exact matching of two series set far apart in time and
space was tricky. What we ended up with was a sequel to Predator 2 and a prequel to Alien,
bringing both creatures into modern day, but it wasn’t exactly the battle fans
of either franchise (or fans of both) had hoped for.
I’m going to be
straight with you guys: the general consensus on this movie is, it’s bad. I
don’t disagree…if you compare it directly to the first two movies in both
franchises. How could you not, right? The thing is, I look at it as its own
thing: a film by a fan, for the fans, designed as a B-movie creature feature solely
to allow for maximum monster action. And guess what? As a monster movie, I
think it’s really fun.
I saw AVP first, before any Alien or Predator films, when I was just a kid, so I was fresh to all of
this. Of course, I was enthralled. Since that initial viewing, not only have I
seen all other films in both franchises numerous times (as well as re-watched AVP just as much), I have grown as a
person, as an artist, and recalibrated my thoughts. I still find AVP fun, and it will always hold a tiny special
place in my heart, but it’s not even close to being in the league of the first
two Alien or Predator films.
The film begins in an
Antarctic whaling station in 1904. The predator species uses xenomorphs as the
ultimate prey for young hunters to hunt and prove themselves worthy, and they
carry out this ritualistic hunt every hundred years. I guess the 1904 hunt goes
well, because a hundred years later, the predators return for a new
coming-of-age hunt, but the whaling station is since abandoned. Luckily, a
sudden heat bloom beneath the ice (caused by the predators) reveals to
billionaire Charles Bishop Weyland (played by Lance Henrikson, more on this
coming up) an ancient pyramid that’s been hidden beneath the ice for centuries,
so naturally, he assembles a team to go down there and explore, but the team
ends up in the middle of the predator-alien battle, and mayhem ensues. As the
tagline says, “whoever wins…we lose.”
I’m prepared to talk
about the crappier aspects of AVP.
First and foremost, the characters are not well-developed or interesting.
Though practical effects still remain the primary way of bringing the creatures
to life, there’s still a lot of cgi, and most of it hasn’t aged well. For all
the expansion on both the predator and alien lore, certain key pieces of the
plot aren’t very consistent with past films. For instance, having the predators
hunt in the coldest place on earth is the total opposite of what was
established before: they like the heat and conflict, hence why Dutch’s team was
targeted in Guatemala, as well as the gang war in L.A. during a heat wave. In
all previous Alien films, the
chestburster takes hours to grow before it bursts from its host, if not longer,
but here, it takes anywhere from a few hours to a few minutes. Though all of
these inconsistencies can be explained away with copouts like “Oh, the
predators are being ritualistic, they need to go back to the pyramid no matter
what!” and “the predators used steroids to increase the rate of growth for the
aliens so they can get on with the hunt sooner!” it still doesn’t make much
sense.
And then there’s the
actual story. When you really think about the logic of the story, it crumbles
pretty easily. Why would the predators go back to a pyramid buried in ice where
there are virtually no people, and hope to entice enough people to allow enough
aliens to be spawned so they can hunt? How convoluted can you get? And the
“scientists” say the pyramid was built thousands of years ago when Antarctica
was free of ice…but it hasn’t been free of ice in millions of years. Like, before humankind. So if the story is this dumb, why should we care?
Did you see that
title? This movie is called AVP: Alien
vs. Predator. Do you really expect a sci-fi-horror masterpiece, or do you
expect two extraterrestrial species to have a fight? The answer is, the latter,
and the answer to the question of “does it deliver on the ‘versus’ aspect?” is
YES. So you have to sit through a little tedious build-up and bad dialogue
scenes. It’s not like other B-movies lack tedious build-up, and usually it only
leads to mediocre monster scenes that are too short and not worth the wait.
Remember when we used to have to wait 20-30 minutes in an Alien or Predator movie to
catch any glimpse of the creatures, if not longer? That’s over. They are there
right from the beginning, but you don’t get a proper look at either of them for
some time. When you finally do, it isn’t disappointing, on either front.
The setup is all
there: you see the Queen alien being hauled up from her holding chamber,
frozen, then thawing out, waking, laying her eggs, the eggs get dispersed
throughout the pyramid, the predators arrive in their massive ship, they stalk
the humans who stay in the whaling camp, working their way into the underground
structure, and finally, they clash with the humans—right when the aliens show
up! Then we actually get what we came to see: an alien fighting a predator. And
it isn’t just a short clash like the T-rex and Spinosaurus in Jurassic Park III or Freddy fighting
Jason in Freddy vs. Jason. This is
the real deal. It’s pure action and effects and destruction, utilizing every attribute
that was already beloved about both creatures—there’s acid blood spraying and
wrist blades slicing appendages and inner jaws shooting out—ending with a
definitive winner. But we’re far from through yet.
Yes, most of the
greatest moments are to do with the creatures, but that’s what must be known
about this movie: it’s all about the
creatures! And thankfully, the practical effects are top notch. The aliens have
never been so dynamic and fast and powerful. They look great. And the
predators…well, they look ok, despite having way too much chunky armour, and
when the face reveal finally comes, they look a little…off. It’s hard to
describe, they just don’t look quite right.
But there are just so
many cool moments in this movie. Three of my favourites are when 1) the
predator known as “Scar” slices an alien’s head so fast, it seems like he
missed at first, then the front of its head falls off and it collapses on the
floor 2) an alien impales the “Chopper” predator through the abdomen with its
spear-like tail 3) “Scar” dissects an alien carcass and turns the head into a
shield and the tail into a spear for the main character to use so she can fight
alongside him. I could go on about even more, but this review is already too
long.
I guess I should at
least touch on the human characters. The main character is Alexa Woods, played by
Sanaa Lathan, who is supposed to be a Ripley-esque character (a strong female
lead) but she also bears some similarity to a main character from the AVP comics. She’s certainly no
Ripley/Sigourney Weaver, but at least she isn’t too annoying. The other human
character of note is Charles Bishop Weyland. The idea is, he’s the guy who the
Bishop android from Aliens was based
on, and a distant relative of the human Bishop seen at the end of Alien 3. I really liked this idea. It’s
an interesting way of bringing back an actor from the Alien franchise, even though Lance Henrikson is much older, and the
movie takes place hundreds of years earlier. Every other character, with the
exception of one or two who have some funny lines, are totally dispensable.
And then there are the
creatures themselves. They become more than just mere movie monsters; they,
too, are characters. The predators are distinct and even have some personality,
especially the lead one that becomes known as “Scar”. And as for the aliens,
the Queen is back, bigger and more pissed-off than ever, but even one of her
drones gets a distinction: “Grid” escapes the “Celtic” predator’s net gun and
becomes the leader of the other drones, bearing a distinct skull from which its
name comes. I always called it “Net Head” as a kid, but then again I also
called the Queen the “Mom Alien” and the Predalien the “Pre-Alien” so what did
I know?
Beyond some of the larger-scale
problems, AVP has its fair share of
smaller issues and continuity errors, too. The worst of all is when Grid shoots
its inner jaws into the Celtic predator’s head, smashing through his mask and
exploding his skull in a splatter of green blood, only to cut to another shot
where his head is shown fully intact. On top of it being out of continuity, why
wear the mask at all if the aliens can break right through it? Another flub
that bugs me is when a chestburster erupts from a person and Scar catches it,
but it has absolutely no blood on it. This is less a continuity error and more
to do with the PG-13 rating, which is certainly one of the most lamentable
aspects of the production.
Both franchises had
been purely R-rated until this movie, which I believe was initially pitched as
an R-rated story, but to allow for more people to see it, things were edited
and censored to achieve PG-13. And to be fair, it’s what I would call a very hard PG-13, because though little human
blood or carnage is shown, there is alien and predator blood sloshing around
all over, and the creature-on-creature violence is pretty intense. It’s just a
shame it had to be watered down in terms of human deaths and swearing: yet
another example of untapped potential. There’s an unrated version on the DVD
and blu ray, which reinstates a little bit more blood and gore, but that’s emphasis
on a little.
Say what you will
about the movie, but it handles the escalation of events pretty well and fan
service with surprising ease. How many times do we get annoyed with dumb,
obvious fan service in franchises like Star
Wars and Jurassic Park? I’m not
saying there isn’t any of that in AVP,
but for the most part, I like the call backs to previous movies and the
advancement of signature elements. For instance, the predators have upgraded
their technology, with longer blades, bigger plasma casters, sleeker
combi-sticks and disc blades, but it’s all still recognizable and awesome. The
newly invented parts of the lore are, for the most part, interesting, and fit
surprisingly well with what’s already been established.
When I first saw AVP, I was obsessed with it. I wrote a
speech on it in middle school. The first novel-length story I wrote was AVP fan fiction. I have the comics,
video games, posters, everything. And maybe I would have gotten into both the Alien and Predator franchises eventually even without seeing it, but I think
seeing AVP first is what made me love
all of the movies so much. AVP feels
like a celebration of both franchises, and even though I think writer-director
Paul W.S. Anderson is not a good filmmaker, he treated Alien and Predator with more
respect than some other filmmakers have with other franchises, and clearly
enjoyed making this monster mash.
This review was a long
time coming. I’ve wanted to talk about all of the Alien and Predator movies
for a long time, but AVP is the one I
really wanted to dig into. I wouldn’t say its initial dismissal by the majority
of fans/critics/audiences was unfair, but I would recommend giving it a watch
if you never have. It’s frustrating in a way, because it had the potential to
be so much more than it is, but there’s still plenty of fun to be had watching
it. 
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