Anderson has taken a gigantic crap on two beloved franchises

Rating: 4/10 (24 April 2008)

Let me clear out a fact before I begin. I saw AvP:R first.
Now, after years of fans of the original crossover comics wanting an Alien vs. Predator film to come out, in 2004, Fox gave the task to Paul W. S. Anderson (of Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil fame) to handle the making of this film.
A research group, sent by Weyland Industries goes to Antartica, investigates a strange heat oscillation found underground. In there, they find a pyramid with architecture reminiscent to the Aztecs, Egyptians and Hinduans, all in one single structure. The group finds out that the pyramid kept a live Alien queen to produce eggs, and as a form of human sacrifice, humans would voluntarily be hosts for the aliens so their gods, the Predators, could hunt them down, as a form of sport or ritual.
First of all, Anderson claims he wanted to keep continuity with the original Alien series by casting Lance Henrikssen (Bishop in Aliens and Alien3) as Mr. Weyland, somehow explaining the robots from the future are based on his appearance. But that doesn't really explain why then Ash (Ian Holm), from the original Alien, has nothing similar in appearance to Bishop. That's just some of the big inconsistencies with the original series, the other major one being the fact that the Aliens seem to have already been on Earth all along, making the whole previous Alien films' attempts to stop them from heading here quite useless.
Good stuff, there was. Nice effects, watching the Aliens in full CGI motion and fighting off fully equipped Predators, as well as seeing the Queen bigger and meaner (although this time is made to look like a T-Rex). The music was OK. Not too spectacular. Just average.
The fact that, first, a pyramid is found under Antartica and, second, that all the civilizations have based their architecture in the Predators is quite laughable.
The script does respect the majority of the facts and rules set in both Alien and Predator, but most of the dialog is just terrible. The acting is plain average or below. None of the characters are original neither likable. While most of the clichés from this type of films were actually due to the original Alien, even there was some originality and realism in the characters. In AvP, the whole cast are either scientists or marines with the sole purpose of being killed.
As for the PG-13 rating, well, let's not go there.
The truth is Anderson screwed up. He was so eager in making this ghastly form of prequel, that he didn't take into consideration details from the previous movies, neither correct his ever so present flaws as a filmmaker, these being script, acting and everything else.