Science Fiction's Greatest Monsters Collide...

Rating: 3/10 (21 September 2004)

What occurs isn't a merger or a union, but a true collision in the worst sense: an accident, a nasty guts-all-over-the-pavement car crash.
Earth, early 2000s. A corporate giant puts together a team for a secret mission to the Arctic, where an ancient pyramid has been detected under the ice. Turns out, it's a rite- of-passage hunting facility for Predators, the main game being the nasty xenomorphs from the Alien saga...
This film and its sorry sequel show that when you point to the moon, an idiot will stare at your finger. It would appear that the people in charge of this and its sorry sequel carefully studied the Aliens and Predator designs and balance-sheets, but failed to watch even a single film of either franchise. How else could you simultaneously undermine both mythologies to such an extent, while producing something so forgettable? It also blindly shrugs aside all the ideas that made its forbears great: it gives away its last survivor in the opening minutes, it forgets to create any real tension or memorable set-pieces and instead stumbles from one half-baked jump-scare to the next... And worst of all, it is ugly to behold.
The Alien saga was visually designed by some of the greatest talents in the industry: Scott, Cameron, Fincher, Jeunet... even the original Predator had at its helm a master of smart action, and its follow-up had worthy moments. AVP is a combination of bland and baffling, with most of the confrontations shown in hastily edited close-ups in near-total darkness, with no sense of composition, rhythm or geography.
The only piece of advice Anderson and his team have taken to heart is that "less isn't more: more is more", a maxim James Cameron put to smart use in Aliens. Here they just go for a "bigger is better" approach, aided by sometimes sub-par CGI. As a result, not only are proportions all over the map, but the alien queen is the size of a building, face- huggers the size of a small bathtub...
What even keeps this from being enjoyable in a perverse, mocking way, is the terrible sense of waste and missed opportunity. Even one of the obvious outcomes of an alien/predator duel, a hybrid creature, is squandered, and you're left with a big loud ugly lump of a film, with no ideas and certainly no balls, one that bodes ill for both franchises given the obvious lack of respect is has for either.
Do not waste your time or your money on this.