Could stand on its own but doesn't live up to originals

Rating: Null/10 (19 September 2004)

As an action movie, this film isn't bad. Sure, it may not have that much character development, but that is hardly an unforgivable problem when the main point is to see a bunch of humans, Predators, and Aliens battling it out. This movie delivers no shortage of good fight scenes, explosions, and all the good stuff an action movie needs. They did a good job of explaining just why the Aliens and Predators were slugging it out, too. And it had several amusing references to the originals.
The movie does suffer from two things, though. The first is that I believe Hollywood needs to be banned from writing any more scripts where the major plot points are pyramids and space aliens. Sorry, but that one's overused and often doesn't even work. Just for once I'd like to see space aliens building the Great Wall of China instead.
But the worst thing about the movie is that it is an average action movie following after several great ones. The originals often displayed a mastery of suspense, where directors realized that you could generate more terror with a dozen blue dots closing in on a scanning screen than with a dozen monsters you can see. This one is just your basic fight after fight slugfest, with less ability to build tensions. It doesn't offer any really memorable visual effects such as Ripley driving the loader.
AVP is not a bad movie for an evening of mindless entertainment, but it isn't in the same league as the movies that inspired it.