Great Buddy Cop Flick

Rating: Null/10 (15 August 2004)

Spoiler Alert Such a shame this movie stunk. Really bad. The characters, actors and director all made for a pedigreed movie. What we got instead was...crap!
First... the action was monotonous. Each human character (about him we care nothing due to the complete lack of character development, which would have been OK, had the movie spent more time on the main attractions - the A's and the P's - but it didn't)pretty much got it in the same way: trapped in a maze, then boom - snatched by an Alien, or walking along, then boom - speared by a Predator. Save for an intense first fight scene between an Alien and some Predators, the whole hunt aspect - whether being chased by an Alien or stalked by a Predator - which gave the other movies their suspense and terror, is absent.
Second... the gore was nil. I'm not saying that gore is essential to a sci-fi/horror film, but the namesake franchises had some, and, as such, so should have this film. The director used neat little camera angles, or simply cut to another scene, to avoid showing deaths. This would have been sort of OK, had their been some tense, nerve-racking chase/hunt just before. The lack of gore would have been compensated by lots of suspense, or vice-versa, but there was none of either. Even the chest-popping scene was watered down: they actually showed one breaking out of a woman's chest, but it was quick and the shirt just happened to be red (I can hear the conversation at fox..."I have to have a chest-popping scene." "No you don't." "Yes I do." "Too gory. "I'll make it quick." "Too much blood will get us an R." "Oooh - I know! We'll put her in a red shirt, that way we don't see any blood." "Perfect. The fans should be happy then."
Third... the plot was convenient. Weyland's satellites picked up the heat source, but no one else's - military or civilian. This allowed them to be the only ones there. A mining town just happened to be at the site 100 years earlier, despite the fact that it took a huge ice breaker to get this crew there. This allowed them to keep in line with the whole they-come-every-100-years-thing (and did I see a plastic letter board, much like you'd see on a modern restaurant's sign - you know, where you slide the plastic letters into the slots to say things like "Eggs Bacon Coffee 2.99" - did they have those in 1904?). The resident archeologist was able to decipher everything the hieroglyphics said, so the audience could have one of those this-is-where-everything-gets-explained scenes. The Queen Alien decided that this time was the time to have her soldiers free her from her shackles, so we could have the big her-comes-the Queen-and-boy-is-she-pissed scene (apparently, it took her a few thousand years to come up with the idea). The aliens popped out of the humans toot-sweet, yet it incubated inside the Predator for a really long time, so we could have the uh-oh-Predator-on-the-table-I-just-bet-it's-gonna-yup! scene at the end.
Lastly (and most importantly)... the Predator's were disappointing. They started out gung-ho, rough and tough, their hulking presence intensified by these slow motion scenes when their thunderous steps pulsate through out the theatre. Then...the last one left makes nice. What? The moment when he makes peace with the resident expedition leader is the moment when I knew I was watching a bad movie. The last quarter of the film stopped being a sci-fi/horror movie and started being a buddy-cop action flick. It even had the requisite big fiery escape scene, wherein the two buddies latch on to a cable cart and zip their way to the end of a tunnel as fire from an explosion chases after them. Right out of Die Hard or Bad Boys.
P.S. - I've always been partial to the Aliens as opposed to the Predators. The Aliens are sleek and slithery and devious and nasty and could care less about giving you a fair chance. The Predators are big and hulking and clodding and on some testosterone fueled high, like an overly aggressive high school jock with something to prove. The Aliens are the scary guy who sits in the back of the class and watches you and drools over you and wants you. Much creepier, the Aliens are. So I was a little upset that the Predators basically enslaved a Queen and forced her to breed just so they could hunt her offspring and then they were made to be the good guys. I'm glad the Queen got the last one at the end. If only she had been able to grab that woman and take her down to the depth of the ocean with her. Oh well.