Potential wasted

Rating: 4/10 (25 April 2008)

This idea had so much potential, anybody who's read the comics would attest to that, and yet it is unbelievable that the film was so mediocre. A question one might ask is whether or not Anderson (and no I can't be bothered to look for his full name), did actually see the films prior to this disaster. Anybody knows that both franchises are built around suspense. The first alien film for example has barely a dozen scenes which contain the alien and yet it delivers so well. Indeed Anderson does seem to attempt to employ this technique as the first 40 minutes or so are completely devoid of action trying to build to the confrontation between the Alien and Predator. Thus around half the film is spent leading up to a moment which itself is poorly conceived, not convincingly suspenseful overall. This was mainly because of the weak editing as well as the lack of decent dialogue, just one liner clichés.
Secondly there is a chronic lack of fighting within the film, indeed there is more confrontation between the humans and the aliens when compared to the two alien groups fighting each other. There is one fairly action packed scene around half way through but the camera angles are so obscured and the scene cuts from one angle to another so much that in the end little is actually visible. The film does seem to focus around the humans which allows the director to focus on the emotions of the situation, however this is not done well, as none of the characters (with exception of the Scot) do not appeal. This is most especially evident with the main character Lex who appears to spend one half of the film telling people that something bad will happen, and the other half snivelling and crying, somehow surviving death or worse while her colleagues are brutally stabbed, maimed, skinned, impregnated by face huggers or skewered.
However the main problem of the film is that it builds no suspense, creates no drama and is a measly 90 minutes long, not to mention the lack of gore (which was usually a convention in the other films). No skinning is actually shown (as the humans are merely hung up) and the chest bursting scenes are usually implied or cut away at the goriest moment. Secondly the pacing of the film is very bad. This attributes to not only the short length of the film but also the lack of suspense. Aliens are born and mature in a matter of minutes when in the previous films they take hours if not days to become adult. This completely loses the suspense and terror of the previous films.
Like all mediocre action movies these days (because this was an action film not a thriller that the Alien films were or the action/suspense genre of the Predator films) is that the graphics are decent. Unsurprisingly it seems that the animation have taken priority and that the actual work on set (which is rumoured to have only been in production for 2 1/2 months) shows. Interestingly the computer graphics are in stark contrast to the mechanic puppets and predator suits used. Usually I'm a huge advocate for the use of puppetry in such films but in this case it was poorly done and thus juxtaposed badly with the animation becoming tacky and dated. So even on the graphic front the film fails to impress.
Thus an idea which has had so much speculation and is seen to have so much potential was poorly directed, edited and executed. Very disappointing.