The pits...

Rating: 4/10 (14 August 2004)

Ah, what might have been. AvP has to be one of my personally most anticipated movies ever. And it's one of the most disappointing. The problems with this movie are legion:
SPOILERS
1) It's only 87 minutes long, and at least half that time is wasted on a boring setup that is neither believable nor entertaining. The pace increases once the title characters FINALLY meet up, but by then there's only about half an hour left in the film.
2) The rules of the two series are monkeyed with. Predators are only supposed to visit earth where it's very hot, as established in the first two Predator movies. So where is this one set? The South Pole, naturally. The time an alien takes to gestate in a human was at least a day or two in "Alien," but in AvP it only takes a few minutes. And the alien blood apparently burns through the Predator's wrist blades and armor, but not their spears.
3) Certain scenes have either no setup or no payoff. For example, when the Predators first kill humans, the scene starts with a human waving his green laser-sighted pistol around for no apparent reason. This scene comes out of nowhere. For a bit with no payoff, consider the creation of the "netted" alien character...it's seen twice, at least, and seems to be set up as identifiable for a reason...but nothing ever happens to that particular alien worth noting. It's as if that alien was set up to do something special and then had its payoff scene cut out. Another curious bit: Why did the lead African-American character and his buddies bring assault rifles? It seemed at first like they must have planned to capture/kill an alien, but nothing ever comes of that.
Positives:
1) There are some kick-ass Predator scenes. And the idea of Predators using alien blood to mark themselves is cool. The effects are OK. But that's about it.