Entertained and content

Rating: 10/10 (28 August 2004)

I have been a fan of the movie Predator since it first came out and I've been a fan of the Alien movies for the last ten years or so...I have been anticipating this film for quite some time. Having read the novels and comic books like most other fans of the two genres, I admit that my expectations were a bit higher than your average viewer, but that does not mean that I expected the film to meet my expectations. This film took small portions of both movie franchises and combined them very well into a new and entertaining film franchise. The key here is "film" franchise. While the story was a bit weak from the human perspective it added a history to the running story-line from the other films and provided a key element to bring them all together for the average viewer. Not everyone has read AvP comic books or played the video games...most people think of them separately and look at this film from a more conventional point of view. All in all, the visual effects were awesome and the creatures lived up to their preset movie standards. The PG-13 rating ensured that there was not too much gratuitous violence...at least as far as the humans were concerned. I know who I think won but I do not want to spoil the movie for anyone. The film did not match the AvP comic book story-lines but it did nothing to detract from those story-lines as far as I can tell. Even if it did, I became a fan of the Aliens and Predators based on the movies and not on the comic books and novels. In that respect I am content with the movie, extremely entertained and waiting anxiously for the film's DVD release.