Years of waiting nearly pay off

Rating: 5/10 (13 December 2005)

Ever since I was in grade school there were two "vs." movies my friends and I waited for, Freddy vs. Jason and Alien vs. Predator. I enjoyed both, but AVP left me a little short on joy.
AVP is the sort of film that causes you to suspend disbelief. I can accept this, but it gets to extremes. First, I don't believe for one second the best ice climber in the world is a girl from the south side of Chicago. Second, there aren't any spiders in the arctic, despite the proliferation of webs in the film. Third, I remember this from Earth Science, it doesn't generally snow that much in the arctic circle. Fourth, after spending more time telling us about how the cold would kill an poorly clothed individual in a matter of minutes, our unlikely heroine survives for quite some time in the final battle scene of the movie without warm clothing. There are other points, but these stuck out the most for me.
I would have to say that the lack of AVP action on the screen was a disappointment. I understand what was being done, but in reality, that's why I paid my $9. I want 90 minutes of nothing but on screen mayhem from my two favorite space monsters. Acid and screaming, clawing and biting, the two sticking random pieces of body armor into one another. The whole 9 yards. Instead I got about 8 minutes total of the two on screen together.
I did enjoy the spectacle of the time they had on screen together, and I really enjoyed the deepening of the Predator myth. I also enjoyed the physical presence of both the Alien and Predator on the screen. As I have said though, I wish I had gotten more of both.