They have forgotten what made the Aliens and Predator films great

Rating: 5/10 (15 December 2009)

It was only a matter of time after that Alien skull cameo in Predator 2 that someone made a movie pitting the ferocious Alien xenomorphs against the vicious Predators. Already that one scene spawned a number of video games, novels and a slew of comics, some good some terrible. It is quite disappointing that this movie would have to veer dangerously into the "terrible" range.
Alien Vs Predator starts off with the discovery of a pyramid deep under the antarctic ice. A team of explorers are sent in to investigate. Lo and Behold, they discover that the pyramid belongs to a space-faring species of hunters (the Predators) who use it to breed another type of Alien (the Aliens) as opponents/prey for their own hunting rituals. As usual, the humans screwed up what was to be a standard hunting trial for 3 young Predators by stealing their plasma weapons and unwittingly setting the Aliens free ahead of schedule. What follows is a frantic free for all as Humans, Aliens and Predators duke it out in one surprisingly bloodless fight after another.
Now of course coming to a movie with "versus" in the title would imply lots of fighting right? wrong. Alien Vs Predator is absolutely BORING for the first 45 minutes or so as we are introduced to one bland B movie stock character after another. Lots of talking, which no doubt the writers thought could pass off as "character development", happens but nothing else substantial aside from a little nod to Aliens fans in the form of Lance Henriksen playing the role of a character named "Bishop" again.
When the action finally does come, it is more bark than bite and ultimately not worth the 45 minute wait. There was only ONE actual bona-fide "Alien vs Predator" fight which is dressed to impress. An epic crescendo in the otherwise mediocre movie background music accompanies the very first big-screen face to face meeting of the two movie monsters. Fantastic fight choreography coupled with some clever use of slow motion makes that one fight very satisfying to watch and it is actually quite a nail-biter as you would never know who would turn out the victor until too late. However, any of the subsequent action sequences lack that level of intensity and actually seem a little "cartoon-y". Also some scenes involving the Aliens look to have been "sped up" in post production, possibly to make those scenes feel more frantic.
Sorry, but that one good fight just does not make up for the other disappointing ones. In fact, the creative team tended to be more partial toward the Aliens. The Predators are a far cry from the unstoppable killers in the previous movies. Here they are presented as big bulky bullies who pick on helpless humans with ease but are constantly being overpowered by their half-sized Alien opponents. It has been confirmed in behind-the-scenes interviews that director Paul WS Anderson is a bigger Alien fan than Predator fan, basically making the entire movie like a "fixed" fighting match with a biased referee.
Lots of action is a good thing, but action was NOT the only thing that made the Aliens and Predator movies the classics they are. Ridley Scott's "Alien" film managed to keep up its eerie atmosphere and genuinely scary feel while giving viewers some well written character drama, James Cameron's Aliens upped the action ante and threw in some very memorable and likable characters with an impressive production design. Alien Vs Predator had none of these. It was not scary, the characters were under-developed, the pacing was erratic. . . Even the 1987 Predator had better action, characters and some memorable movie dialog. The dialog in AVP is just too wooden to be memorable.
Failing to live up to the hype, Alien vs Predator is a big let-down for fans of the franchise. The entire premise, complete with hokey back-story about the Predators teaching ancient humans how to build pyramids, feels like a rejected video game. No doubt the set designs for the underground pyramid interior and the snowy antarctic scenes look awesome but that is where the praise usually ends.
There is an "unrated and extended" DVD edition that adds in some CGI blood and some longer scenes of fighting but a disappointing movie is still a disappointing movie no matter how you try to coat it and market it. The fact that the versus match was fixed from the start does NOT help matters. AVP is essentially a whole lot of "style" trying to mask the lack of substance.