Overall, a good experience (some spoilers)

Rating: 8/10 (13 August 2004)

I've been waiting for this movie ever since I played AvP 2. While I've seen all the movies in the Alien and Predator series, I never really got into either series; they were fun movies to watch and little more. After playing the game, however, I found myself getting quite excited at the thought of this movie. I mean comon, Aliens and Preds duking it out while soft-skinned humans are caught in the crossfire. How cool is that?
Now before I talk about the movie, I must make it clear that I'm WAY more in favor of the Preds, and in their defense, the Preds aren't evil at all - they just hunt for fun, much like how we hunt deer and other game animal (You'll see why I make this argument after you watch the movie).
The plot in this movie is minimal but interesting and sufficient. There are definitely some discrepancies from the original movies, i.e. Preds are now hunting Aliens exclusively. Apparently soft-skinned humans are just too easy. The bottom line is, the story is good enough - nothing too memorable, but nothing you'd groan over, either.
Now with that out of the way, we can go on to the good part - the action. And boy it doesn't disappoint. Although few in number, the action scenes in this movie are absolutely awesome. The special effects are very well done, lighting is used very well, and the director pulls off some nice (but old) camera tricks to squeeze in that PG-13 rating without losing that gory feeling. Now some people complained that Preds died to Aliens too easily in this movie, and I have to say... what do you expect? The Preds that were killed did not have their Shoulder Cannons, and were completely caught off guard. I gotta admit though, after watching the Predator movies, one tends to have the notion that Predators are invincible killing machines, and they are - against humans. Aliens on the other hand, are the masters of melee/stealth combat, and they can also see Predators even if the Pred is cloaked. But don't worry - the last Pred does his species plenty of justice, not saying the other two went down easily.
With all that said, the movie itself is a good $10 spent, if you're watching it for the kick ass fights. If you go in expecting an Alien style movie, however, you'll be sorely disappointed.