AVP is a waste of my time

Rating: 3/10 (16 March 2005)

Simply awful. I felt both hurt and offended by this lightweight, soulless attempt to re-invigorate a once great franchise. For the first time in many years I felt compelled to turn the film off before getting to the end. Not one character had anything other than two dimensions, shallow cartoony motives and a bare grasp on the leaden, unoriginal script.
Only its familiar and favourite movie aliens save it from being an all out failure, an early clash between the monsters does provide a burst of excitement. Yet these also suffer badly with repetitive shots that have simply been re-cycled from the earlier originals, and with much less effect; the Predator removing his faceplate, a close up of an Alien, all goo and teeth. And the clumsy-looking, over-sized rubber Predator suit, that nostalgia will forgive in the original, here simply looks dated and lazy.
Nothing here innovates in the way that the earlier films did, it is simply safe, by the numbers film making that could, and should, have delivered on the great potential it promised.