Film ultimately lets down it's fans

Rating: 4/10 (25 April 2005)

There is a question I would like to ask to the people that were fans of both franchises and it entails what exactly they were expecting from something like this. I personally had no idea and one would think that's a good idea but alas, it doesn't help matters because the makers of this never really thought out a good story. Story is set in the present where we see tycoon Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henriksen) who's satellite has picked up something that turns out to be a pyramid under the ice in the Antarctic. Weyland assembles a group of scientists, drillers, and archeologist's headed by Alexa Woods (Sanaa Lathan) who leads the expedition.
*****SPOILER ALERT***** While searching the pyramid the group finds a strange cache of equally strange weapons but they trigger something and they end up trapped which also awakens a mother Alien who starts laying eggs. Meanwhile, three Predators show up on top and they get a signal that something or someone is disturbing their weapons and they venture down under the ice and find Weyland's group trapped. Once they start killing everyone the Aliens start showing up as well and ruin their plans as they must now combat each other and things change drastically when Alexa teams up with a Predator to kill all the Aliens before they reach the surface.
This is directed by the ambitious but consistently disappointing Paul W.S. Anderson (Event Horizon, Soldier, Resident Evil) and while it's clear he's a fan of sci-fi his vision (if I can call it that) runs somewhere around the comic book or video game mentality. If I have to give him credit for something it would be the way he sprinkles in references from other films like the Antarctic setting that comes from "The Thing" or "Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman" which is being played on television. Anderson doesn't really waste the viewers time with character development and I had to laugh when one character pulled out his wallet and started showing pictures of his kids. You know he was going to get it! The action scenes offer nothing special and the script is basically your run of the mill Alien fare with the assortment of characters being picked off one by one and of course the film ends with a scene that suggests another sequel. Even I was intrigued (to some degree) by the basic premise but the story never lives up to it's potential and one has to wonder how different this would have been with a better director.