Monster hash

Rating: 3/10 (5 October 2004)

If ever there was a film that was never going to add up to the sum of its parts, this is it. Everyone loves Alien and/or Aliens (with which the series should have ended); Predator was a winner and its sequel certainly passed muster. Given that it owns the rights to both, that 20th Century Fox would eventually pit the 20th century's most monstrous sci-fi species together in a face-off was a no-brainer.
Pity the result turned out to have no brains.
Living down to expectations, AvP tumbles into an imagination chasm as soon as it starts. Shamelessly ripping off other movies (Mission: Impossible 2, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, Close Encounters...), it staggers through a string of humdrum action sequences - the exchanges between the ET adversaries being remarkably dull and messy - and highlights what a lazy rip-off it really is by relying on in-jokes to maintain interest levels.
Plot holes are like fishes-in-barrels, but here are a few thoughts... Someone ominously pronounces "There's nothing in Sector 14!" - yes there is! There's a bloody great disused whaling station there, the population of which all mysteriously disappeared 100 years ago. But don't think to look into it. For that matter, why do Predators only play this xenomorph paintball game every 100 years, when it's obviously such fun? And when Aliens are wounded, why doesn't their concentrated-acid blood react with water? In Alien it takes the critter several hours to pop out of John Hurt; here they go from facehugger to fledgling in about 10 minutes. Evolution is a obviously great thing - except in movie franchises.