Left some to be desired, but long from horrible. SPOILERS

Rating: Null/10 (14 August 2004)

Okay, so, there's going to be a few spoilers in here, and I'm not going to work to hard at filtering them out, so, deal.
First, lets start with some of the things everybody's bitching about, eh?
1) A Girl and her Predator. I've read lots of so called "fans of the franchise" pan this idea, but as one person I noticed pointed out, this was actually a feature from the original Dark Horse AVP comic book, so if you ARE a real "fan of the franchise" you'd know this, and understand why it was included. Could she have been a more developed, and interesting character? Yes, but that leads to bad thing #2
2) The humans were all "cardboard, flat" characters. Well, duh. It's ALIENS vs PREDATORS. Granted, Fox could have tried finding a script that had characters we cared about, lets not forget that essentially, and this is commented on in the big "centuries old flashback" sequence that in this conflict, and this temple specifically designed for this conflict, humans are the cannon fodder. They're meat for the grinder, and they're given as much sympathy as a cow in the slaughterhouse in this film, and perhaps that's fitting, eh?
3) 2 of the 3 Predators get trashed too soon. Well, hrm, lets think, they're basically the equivalent of a 16 year old taking their driver's examination, they're not all going to pass. Duh. It's safe to presume that the Predators in the Predator films were full blown adults, hunting solo, who had proven their mettle. The Predators in this movie however, are not proven. It shouldn't surprise anybody that they get killed. They just weren't good enough to survive. Duh. It is a test.
4) The alien gestation rate seemed WAY off. Why, yes, yes it did. It only took minutes. As the films progressed however, the gestation rate of the aliens went from days, to hours, to minutes, so, in a sense it kind of follows a trend there. Secondly, a little creativity, god forbid, on the part of the audience and the idea that the freshness of the eggs may be a factor in the gestation rate "solves" this problem. Alien's eggs were decades, or centuries, old. Aliens, I don't recall clearly if we even see a chest buster in that film. Alien 3 had NO egg, just a surviving face hugger and a baby in Ripley. Alien:Resurrection only took hours based on the "survivor" they found, but there really is no way of accurately gauging the gestation rate as the lab had all the time it wanted to breed its aliens. So, yea, it takes a leap of faith, but this one offense can be tolerated. Besides, a gestation period of minutes was the only real way that the "hunt" could be executed practically in the film, so lets all agree to look the other way, or not, but still, one sin isn't so bad.
5) The Predators don't even get their guns at the start. Well, yea, that makes sense. When one of the Predators DID get his gun he wasted 4 aliens in about 40 seconds, so, it's a darn good thing the humans prevented the Predators from getting the guns or this movie would have been over in 40 minutes, when it was already too short.
6) The movie was too short. Clocking in at about an hour and a half, I was left with the feeling that if it had been allowed to get the R rating, it would have run longer, and been more satisfying. Maybe an unrated DVD will come out and my hunch can be confirmed or denied. For now, one must merely speculate. Que sera sera.
7) Why'd they bring those machine guns on a dig like this? I'm guessing to kill other salvagers, maybe? I don't have a clue. Aside from the one explanation for a .45 handgun, which was fair, we don't really know, and it is a mildly annoying plot hole, but, ya know, crap happens. On a similar note, why didn't home boy take a sample and date the pyramid before they entered it? Why didn't anybody stop and ask what those giant Predator statues on the stairs were? I dunno. Some things got sacrificed just to get the plot going, so it goes. It could be worse.
8) Why did she have the alien head on her arm, what good does that do? The Predator demonstrates that the alien exo-skeleton is, surprise surprise, immune to alien acid blood, hence, it was a SHIELD. If one pays attention and trys to figure out non-verbal communication, especially when one of two characters worth paying attention to can only speak with roars and bizarre mandible gestures, this isn't even a question.
9) What's with Bishop? Well, yes, obviously, he's a throwback to Aliens. It seemed pretty clear. He ran Weyland Industries. No, Ripley did NOT work for Weyland Industries. She worked for Weyland-Yutani. Obviously there was a pretty big corporate merger between AVP and Alien, but it doesn't seem to put any holes in the Alien timeline like some claim. Why did the android Bishop look 18 years younger than the living one? Perhaps the builder was trying to capture his "Glory Days." Seems like a rational, reasonable, act of hubris to me. This also helps explain how Weyland Yutani gained data on the Aliens to send Ripley and the Nostromo crew to that deserted ship to find that fateful specimen in Scott's horror masterpiece. (For the record, if you want to say anybody "killed" this franchise, stick it on James Cameron. He's the one who bled all the horror out of the series and replaced it with automatic weapons and cardboard soldier characters. A3 pathetically attempted to bring the horror back, and A:R, well, that was a bad comic book/novel rip off with a HORRIBLE ending.)
10) How did the Queen Alien get to the surface? She climbed. Obviously somebody blinked, or was in the bathroom, or perhaps at the snack bar and missed the tell tale slime on the lift-sled that the heroine found as she and the surviving Predator ran desperately away from the monster explosion coming right behind them.
11) Aliens aren't smart. Uhhh, yea they are. There's a well documented history of Alien tactical intelligence in the franchise. The lone aliens in Alien and Alien 3 do a splendid job of staying obscure and meeting their prey one on one in order to insure an advantage. In Aliens and Alien:Resurrection, the aliens are quite capable of arranging ambushes, escaping imprisonment, and surreptitiously finding holes in perimeter defenses. (This is actually a GOOD thing about this movie, I'm surprised I read this silly idea somewhere.)
Okay, I think that's MOST of the whiney so called "Franchise Fan" complaints that seemed to stem from people who obviously don't realize there's TONS of material about these characters BEYOND the films that this movie is VERY faithful too. Now, on to the good things.
First, production values were great. Creature effects, visual effects, and set design were fabulous. The subtle hints of the alien life cycle amongst the cyclopean predator statues was a nice touch. The temple was impressive looking, and the monsters were probably the best portrayals on film for either of them yet, with the Predator a massive hulking beast, and the alien staying incredibly similar to Giger's original, with all the benefits of advancements in SFX technology to make it menacing. Oh the things Ridley could have done with the creature effects of today... alas...
The best news in this film is probably for alien fans. Why? Because this movie finally shows the alien prowess. It only makes sense. It isn't until now, when the aliens fight the Predators that we see why the Predators consider them the most dangerous, and worthy, prey in the galaxy. They're strength, speed, and instinctive will to win is portrayed fabulously (the intentional use of the acid blood as a projectile weapon after injury was a real nice touch, of which there were a few).
The Queen Alien, while spending most of the film chained, exhibits her usual shrewd cognitive abilities by summoning her brood to free her (Plot hole here, why didn't she do this LAST time, 100 years ago? Maybe cuz the Predators got their guns and blasted all the Aliens in 10 minutes? Who knows.) But most importantly, we finally see the awesome and terrible power of a pissed off Queen as she rampages through the temple and then tumbles with the temple survivors on the surface. Super strong, and lightening fast, this Queen kicks about 1000 times more behind than the Queen in Aliens, and the Queen in Resurrection never even got off her egg sack, so, its about time we see a Queen rock some unlucky carbon based life-form(or Predator, are they carbon based, does anybody know?) or another.
So, after debunking MOST (not all) of the complaints mentioned, and pointing out that the true lethal efficiency (That's what the Aliens were ALWAYS about, EFFECIENCY, they live to breed, and don't hesitate to do anything it takes to expand the hive. THey're not evil, they're not mindless, they're simply like an very, very, very highly evolved, very dangerous, ant, which is the heart of their beauty) of the Aliens portrayed in this movie, I find myself feeling this film certainly could have been better, but was a long, long way, from being bad. I suppose on a scale of 1-10, I'd toss this one a 7.5, an 8 if you don't like fractions.