Celebrity Death Match

Rating: 4/10 (25 April 2005)

The knives were out for AvP before a single frame of film was shot. The news that Paul W. Anderson was going to follow in the footsteps of Scott, Cameron, Fincher and Jeunet was met with disbelief in some of the more rabid corners of fanboydom. They needn't have worried though, their beloved xenomorphs have such a minor presence in AvP that it barely registers as an official part of the Alien cycle at all. Things actually start rather promisingly, with the intriguing premise that the Predators may actually be responsible for the first sparks of human development and civilization. This was touched upon in the first Predator movie (and lifted, of course, from 2001) but is expanded on here. In a piece of casting that suggests some intriguing plot twists (Which, needless to say, never materialise) Lance Henriksen plays Bishop Weyland, a billionaire industrialist whose spy satellites discover an ancient temple under the Antarctic icecaps. In opening sequences blatantly reminiscent of Jurassic Park he assembles a group of 'experts' to join him on an expedition. This long-ish introduction sets up the predictable, but enjoyable, scenario. Unfortunately they're a rather colourless gang with only Henriksen and Ewan Bremnar's Geoff-Goldblum-Alike having any spark about them. Once they reach the site of the temple both logic and interest begin to wilt somewhat. Why has nobody previously mentioned the whaling station which by amazing coincidence was built slap bang on the top of the site? Of course, the whole thing is a cunning Predator trap to breed new Xenomorphs for an intergalactic game of Battle Royale. It's giving nothing away to say that Anderson kills off his best characters far too early and leaves us with a very poor Ripley clone. The films real problem however is that it is actually a premise in search of a plot. This is real video game material but the film's wafer-thin storyline simply can't stretch even to a meager 90 minute running time. The title, too, is more accurate than you might imagine - those expecting huge swathes of aliens and legions of predators in some kind of Helm's Deep style kick-ass showdown are going to be sorely disappointed. Rarely do we get more than one of each species on screen at a time, which is probably why the movie isn't titled Aliens vs Predators, but feels like a con nonetheless. Anderson appears to believe that his trump card is the big Alien Queen/Predator/Ripley Clone showdown but he then completely flubs it with the most unspectacular of anti-climaxes and an alien queen who seems to have borrowed her motion capture from Jurassic Park's T-rex. Ultimately AvP provides such a poor use of both franchise's that one can almost forgive the slow decline into mediocrity that has previously blighted the Alien cycle.