Death knell of two franchises?

Rating: 5/10 (23 August 2005)

One can only hope not. I held off on watching this one until I found it at the library, and for once was not overly distraught that it was a full-screen copy. Widescreen would have been a negligible improvement. Paul W. S. Anderson is not one of my favorite directors, though there were bits and pieces of films like "Soldier" and "Event Horizon" and even "Resident Evil" that I enjoyed. He has a good visual flair, if nothing else. However, he's not much of a screenwriter. "AVP" plods, to put it kindly. The characters are pretty much made of cardboard, and the plot, such as it is, is uninteresting and derivative. Anderson plays fast and loose with the "Alien" and "Predator" mythoi and fails to bring anything new to either one. The action was a rehash of previous "Alien" set pieces. Much whining has been heard over the PG-13 rating, but for the level of violence, I was surprised that it didn't get an R (and here I thought even one use of the F-word would guarantee that--guess I was wrong). I imagine AVP played better in theaters with speakers booming, but on the small screen it was remarkably unexciting and uninvolving; I put it on pause numerous times to go smoke a cigarette. Our doughty female lead played her part above and beyond the call to duty, but no Ripley was she. The rest of the cast was essentially faceless but tolerable (the little spiky-haired blonde was a cutie, I will confess; I'd like to see her in something with genuine substance). Lance Henrickson was obviously collecting a paycheck. Even the "surprise" ending was cliché (and highly illogical). Overall, it played like a fanboy comic book aimed at the pre-teen set. I gave it a 5 only for high production values and excellent FX.