One ugly mother of a movie

Rating: Null/10 (15 August 2004)

*Spoilers*
In short: AVP takes two decent movie franchises, strips away any tension or humanity from the plot, and produces an end result strangely similar to Jurassic Park (starting with the recruitment of the scientists at the beginning and continuing on down to the T-Rex style Queen at the end).
The story and the dialogue are inane ("the first glyph is Egyptian, the second Aztec, the third Cambodian"...at least TRY to insult my intelligence, for goodness' sake). Unlike its predecessors (especially "Alien"), AVP doesn't bother trying to develop its characters; the heroine does not fill Ms. Weaver's alien-fighting boots and only provoked laughter from the audience that I watched the film with (particularly the silly scene where she is given a spear and a shield made out of an alien carcase). There is none of the horror or spookiness of "Alien" or "Predator".
This was more like a video game, which may be intentional marketing - there were certainly plenty of basement-dwelling geeks hyperventilating in the audience after the extended alien-pred brawl scene.