Good, solid action sci-fi.

Rating: 8/10 (4 February 2018)

It's so easy to jump on a bandwagon when your a sheep, and that's exactly what happened to this movie. AvP is a solid action sci-fi film, and there' just no getting away from that.
To start with, it looks great! Director Paul W.S. Anderson (the man who gave us the ONLY good video game film ever in Mortal Kombat) has a remarkable eye for visuals, and here is no exception. It's a pretty film with decent CGI and some really stunning set design.
The story is interesting as well, and to address the elephant in the room, yes the first third of this film is pretty much Identical to the start of Prometheus, only AvP got there first by nearly a decade. When things kick off the action is fantastic and it's just a well made and fun film all round, plus it's GREAT to see Lance Herikson back, and he does afar better job as a Weyland than Guy Pearce.
Is it perfect? No. It's not as good as any of the first three Alien films not is it as good as the first two Predator films. There's a real lack of character development and most people there are just meat sacks waiting to be killed. Some questionable representation of the gestation cycle of the Aliens is on show here and having the lead teaming up with a predator was just a bad idea. Another fault is that, even though the action is fantastic there's just not enough of it.
Still, these minor quibbles aside I found AvP to be a great and fun action sci-fi film, with plenty of thrills, spills and monster madness. Infinitely better than the atrocious sequel which followed.
Don't listen to the sheep. Something being "not as good as..." doesn't automatically = "Bad".