Not as bad as I was led to believe

Rating: 5/10 (3 April 2006)

Having seen this movie trashed for the last couple of years I never made an effort to watch it. I finally stumbled across it last night. And it's nowhere near as bad as I expected.
I agree the humans were the weakest link. The Alien franchise gave us Sigourny Weaver. Predator 1&2 had Arnold, Jesse, etc.. plus Danny Glover. AVP presents us with 5ft Sanaa Lathan as our 'hero', whose two biggest battles include holding a pointy stick and cowering under a water tower. Note to Fox: heroes should be heroic.
While there were too few battles between the title characters when we did have them they were satisfying. I especially enjoyed how the 'lead' Predator took out a face hugger and an adult with a 'just a day at the office' demeanor. Of course that begs the question, if he was so slick with those too how did the second face hugger get to him from that distance? But I guess it was required for a possible sequel.
I think one major chance missed was the flashback battle royal. If only someone would have realized that it would have been much better to start the movie with a team already on site and translating the tablets and tell the entire story as a flashback like Titanic did. It would have saved the need to blow up canon to get to the action. And would have provided a smoother sequel preview by having the team discussing the 'legend' while the camera then tracks down several layers to a face hugger hatchery with Predator technology coming online for the ending.
Overall, sure it could have been better. But it could have been a historical suck-fest, ala Alien3, too.