"You're one ugly mother..."

Rating: Null/10 (26 September 2004)

~Spoiler~
Where's the rest of the line? Oh, I forgot the movie was rated PG-13. You weren't aiming to please, were you guys? Well, let's have a little backstory on the film's director: Paul WS Anderson. He upset a lot fans with his film version of Mortal Kombat but I didn't care because I didn't like Mortal Kombat. He upset a lot of fans with his film version of Resident Evil but I didn't care because I will take a theatrical zombie film any way I can get it. But, it would seem my time has come. It was time for Paul WS Anderson to upset me by screwing up classic science-fiction icons that I have grown up with. Let's start with the characters, what characters? This movie had NO character development whatsoever. What's so great about the Alien and Predator series' were that we always had characters that we cared about; Dutch and his commandos, Ripley and her crew, Hicks and his space marines. I had little to no interest in any character in "AVP." The only plus was the appearance by Lance Henriksen, and he was barely in the movie. The pen trick he did was a nice touch, but hardly makes me forgive anything else. Next we have the setting: the Arctic. Apparently it's not as cold as I was led to believe in the arctic. People are just walking around nonchalantly for long periods at a time (some without coats) and I don't even think you could see their breath. Way to go. Now, and this is the biggest no-no, the mythology. They messed with the mythology. The aliens gestate in mere minutes it would now seem whereas it used to take hours. Also, the aliens grow to full size in a matter of minutes now. Yay. And they made the Predators seem very weak to me. I was waiting for Busta Rhymes to jump out and start whipping them just like he did Michael Myers in Halloween Resurrection. Now let's examine that atrocious final shot, you know, the one with the "predalien." How could it be half predator and half alien? We've seen the alien gestate in humans, we've even seen it gestate in dogs, and it never burst out with a nose or whiskers or any other attribute that didn't belong to it. So why now? On that note I will stop (although I could go on). This is the worst theatrical horror or sci-fi film I've seen since Dreamcatcher. Needless to say, I was very disappointed. Oh, the wasted potential!