Four letters: D - U - M - B

Rating: 2/10 (21 June 2005)

I went into this movie with a completely open mind, not knowing what to expect. I've liked, even loved most of the Alien and Predator films, and so I was moderately excited about this. In the first ten minutes, the die was cast; this is really not any better than any of those god-awful Sci-Fi Channel original productions. We start with out main character, a guide who takes various people through Antarctica. Everyone involved with this project is extremely concerned that she be the guide, because she's so good, and it's so important that they make it from the boat to the drilling site in complete safety. But the guide isn't satisfied that all possible safety precautions are being taken, so she threatens to quit. Everyone begs her to stay...oh, okay already. The movie is Alien vs. Predator, we're pretty darned aware that not all safety precautions are going to be taken. Give us credit for some intelligence already! Also, when they finally do need to get from the boat to the drilling site, they get in great big trucks and the trip takes about 30 seconds. And for this they needed a guide? Hello?!? And our marvelous guide even tells one woman that she shouldn't take a gun along. Oh yeah, this is the person we need leading us into the underground pyramid full of Aliens and Predators - little miss "In all my years in the Antarctic I've never once needed a gun". Sheesh!
And so now we get to the big underground pyramid and the Alien vs. Predator thing. I didn't know what to expect, but when the fights finally happened, I was appalled. These fights were just so incredibly childish and stupid, like crap that some 12 year old kid would think was really cool. I mean, they just swipe a scene from Robocop 2 and there you go, that's the big fight. Remember when Robocop 2 grabbed Robocop by the feet and swung him around, banging his head into various immovable objects? That's about it folks. Then there's a scene where an Alien sneaks up behind a Predator, but because he's the really cool Predator, he somehow senses the Alien's presence and swings around and decapitates him - the trouble being that you could see it coming a mile away. Soooooo predictable. At one point, a Predator takes a dead Alien's claw and uses the acid in it to etch a symbol into his helmet. Now, anybody with even half a brain in their head would figure out that this was some sort of rite of passage for the young Predator, but of course the movie assumes that everyone only has one-quarter of a brain, so they have a character explain this for the benefit of all us morons in the audience. Talk about pathetic. And don't even get me started on all the scenes where a face hugger flies through the air, but luckily the camera cuts to a slow-motion shot just in time for somebody to whip out a gun or a big spinning knife thing and cut it in half. This is the kind of trash that Charlie's Angels parodied.
And as if that's not enough, let's spend a moment on the characters. What has always set the Alien and Predator movies above all their imitators are the characters. Sigourney Weaver and Arnold Schwarzenegger were at the head of great casts in these things. Everyone vividly remembers the rest of the crew of the Nostromo and the Colonial Marines from Aliens. Everyone remembers Jesse Ventura and the rest of the guys from Arnold's commando squad in Predator. Heck, even most of the characters in Predator 2 were quite unique and interesting. Well, forget that. There really are no characters in this movie, just completely generic clichés without an ounce of personality between them. The main character is annoying, the rest are just walking dialog annunciators, though they do manage to annoy somewhat anyways. I can't even imagine ANYONE caring if every last one of these folks get killed off.
All in all, this thing was the most amazingly stupid, dumbed down movie I think I've ever seen. Even garbage like The Hulk at least gave the audience credit for being able to figure out the plot without having to have each event explained to them via expository dialog immediately after it happened. My god, what a complete and worthless failure of a movie. This one's for 12 year old geeks who spend their whole lives on the internet at various Star Trek and Star Wars sites, drooling over pictures of starships and junk like that.