Alien vs. Predator

Alien vs. Predator (2004) is a movie in my DVD collection that I recently watched on Amazon Prime. The storyline follows a research expedition that recently was discovered miles under the ice. The research team doesn't know the pyramid was setup as a hunting playground for Predators to test their hunting skills against the ultimate beings...and we aren't talking about humans.

This movie is directed by Paul W. S. Anderson (Event Horizon) and stars Sanaa Lathan (Love & Basketball), Lance Henriksen (Pumpkinhead), Ewen Bremner (Rundown), Tommy Flanagan (Gladiator), Raoul Bova (Under the Tuscan Sun).

The storyline for this picture was actually okay and was a good setup for this premise. I enjoyed the settings and the cast. I'd never complain about Lathan and Henriksen movies. The special effects were awesome and the kill and action scenes were very good, loved the depiction of both the Aliens and Predators. The alien vs predator fights were excellent, including how the face huggers were mixed in.

Overall is this a perfect movie? No, this premise had no chance of that. Is this worth viewing and entertaining? Absolutely. I'd score this a 6.5-7/10 and strongly recommend seeing this.

Just watched it again yesterday - it's striking how good the action is compared to the ridiculous dialogue. I completely understand why this movie got such terrible reviews; after all, it marked the first "let's make a quick buck" entry in the two beloved Alien and Predator franchises and was done by a director who many felt didn't treat the material with the respect it deserved. When I watched it yesterday I got angry at times because some of the dialogue - well, most of it, actually - is truly awful. It's hard to take characters or a story seriously when nearly every sentence spoken resembles lines from a parody of cheap science-fiction and horror movies from the fifties and sixties. But despite all those flaws I have to admit I enjoyed the movie from start to finish - because of the amazing set- and creature-design and the more than decent action sequences and special effects. Whoever designed those really scored and seems to have a great love for the art of Giger and the previous films. So if you can get past the silly characters and you're able to ignore the more obvious shortcomings (like the idiotic decision to make the film PG-13) you're in for a fun ride. My vote: 6.5 out of 10.

Favorite films: http://www.IMDb.com/list/mkjOKvqlSBs/

Lesser-known Masterpieces: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls070242495/

Favorite Low-Budget and B-Movies: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls054808375/

Favorite TV-Shows reviewed: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls075552387/

I first saw in in a theatre in 2004. Revisited the 109 mins unrated version recently.

This is the first film installment of the Alien vs. Predator franchise, bringing together the creatures of the Alien and Predator series. In this one, scientists are caught in the crossfire of an ancient battle between Aliens and Predators as they attempt to escape a bygone pyramid. The film is fast paced with tons of action, aided by top notch special effects n amazing set design. Thankfully it doesnt have any shaky cam stuff, no flickering lights n none if the scene is shot in dark light. We can make out what is going on. Compared to most films where too much darkness takes away the fun, this one doesn't have bad lighting. They have toned down the human body count n reduced the gory moments. Nonetheless, it is a good monster action flick. Gore wise, it is nowhere close to the original Predator.

The 'Aliens versus Predator' storyline has been with us ever since the 'Predator 2' when Danny Glover huffed and puffed his way across what looked like an alien's skull in the Predator's trophy cabinet. This brief image sparked a storm among fans, whose dreams and wishes were subsequently realised by volumes of comics and graphic novels regarding the subject matter. And they were actually pretty good! Having read a fair few of them, it seemed no end to the possibilities of pitting two of the big screen's most famous monsters against each other. With so many ideas as to what could be done, how could they possibly lose?

The answer: they gave it to Paul W S Anderson. Now, Paul W S Anderson is a very competent director who can stylishly bring action scenes to life. However, his films' major flaws all are that they're 'almost great.' They're not bad. They're watchable. And that is their major crime. They leave you thinking that if you were given $60 million to make a film (in this case one starring the aliens and the Predator) then you could do better than him. And there's a reason for this - you could. And so could I.

Aliens vs Predator sports the tagline 'Whoever wins - we lose.' Isn't that the truth? The film gets its rating taken down from an 18 to a watery 12A, removing all gore and much of the suspense with it. Instead of brutal tough Predators we have a trio of young, inexperienced ones who are - quite frankly - a bit rubbish at killing aliens. Instead of the gun-totting Colonial Marines from Aliens, we have a team of bland, disposable scientists who are there simply to increase the body count. At least the aliens perform on camera, but the battles you may expect between the two races are few and far between. Also, if you saw the trailer and witnessed a million aliens tearing towards some Predators on top of an weird and wonderful pyramid, that's only a flashback. That's about the best bit of the film.

It sort of tries to tie into both the 'Aliens' and 'Predator' mythology, but fans really don't want it to. Like I say, it's not bad. I know I'm making it sound terrible, but it really isn't. It has action, special effects and, um, that's about it. It's perfect for your average sci-fi monster-munching movie. However, when you have either an Aliens film or a Predator film, people expect a little more than something that's 'just okay.'

At least it was more understandable than Prometheus I suppose.

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I went into this expecting a horrible movie. From all the reviews that I read I thought it would be HORRIBLE! I've seen many, many worse movies than this.

A previous comment stated the movie went a bit too fast in explaining things and developing the characters. While I can certainly agree on the former, the latter, well, you just know most of the people are going to get wasted so character development isn't that necessary. We came to see Predators hunt and fight with Aliens.

One thing I didn't like was the movie showed the Aliens more powerful than the Predators. I believe the canon shows the Predators are much more powerful than the Aliens. Regardless, I liked this movie.

This movie surprised me because there were many things I didn't expect. Were some scenes over the top? Absolutely, but this is Hollywood and we're talking Aliens V Predator here :) IF you are a fan of these genres you really should give this movie a chance.