Abomination

Rating: 2/10 (21 October 2004)

SPOILERS
People wonder how far particular franchises can go sometimes. With serial killers and monsters being the basis for countless different series, the obvious step appears to be to pit them against each other. In 2003, two of the greatest serial killers were pitted against each other when the immortal Jason Voorhees (varying different actors over the years) and the equally immortal Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) fought to the impossible death. That film was daft but it worked because it did exactly what we expected. "Freddy Vs Jason" was a gore fest with bodies everywhere and as a result it worked. The sequel will be awful, but that's a topic for a different time. Anyway, with the success of that crossover, and the success of a particular computer game, there was only going to be a certain amount of time before the Alien from the Alien Trilogy (beginning with Ridley Scott's "Alien" in 1979) and the Predator (from the films beginning in 1987) would fight to the death. Sadly unlike the first cross over, this new attempt is an awful film with very little going for it.
Set in the modern day, "AVP" tells of a mysterious pyramid discovered deep beneath the Antarctic by Weyland Industries (the same company as in the Alien films). Gathering up a crew of specialists, Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henrikson) travels to the pyramid to investigate. As events unfold however, the team discovers they are not alone as they become unwittingly involved with a war between two rival species.
With some nice tributes to the original films, it's not hard to see that Paul W.S. Anderson (director and one of the writers) has a thorough knowledge of the original films. What is confusing therefore is how Anderson manages to destroy so much of the original stories so quickly.
--------- MAJOR SPOILERS -------
The key problem with this film is just how badly the history books have been rewritten. Telling the story of ancient humans who's language and style reflected a combination of a few major ancient civilisations, the film suggests that the Predators were believed to be Gods, whilst the Aliens were their prey. Whilst slotting in nicely with the Alien Skull in the second Predator film, and also explaining partly the man and his ship in the original Alien film, the notion that both species were on Earth a long time before either featured in their respective stories is an absolute joke. Aside from the history though, Anderson also manages to screw up the different species themselves.
From the second the group of Predators first make their appearance in this film (definately too early on), they look refreshed and modern. This in itself is not a bad thing, but the way they move and act is abysmal. Killing humans with ease, they are useless infront of the aliens. Before the aliens are in the film for even very long, all but one of the Predators is killed off. From this point, if he was then to kill the humans and then the remaining aliens, that'd be tolerable. The problem though is that he makes friends with the human. The Predator goes from being a killing machine to being the Big Friendly Giant! This film gets a rock hard, monster and turns him into a soft big brother for the typical human heroine (who it is worth adding is also awful).
As well as the Predator, the aliens are ruined. Whilst the regular aliens and the facehuggers are up to their usual tricks and stick to their old style (even though the gestation period for an alien is reduced from hours to 30seconds), the Queen is awful. Buried deep beneath the ground in the pyramid the Queen is originally tied up. Eventually however she escapes and we have the enormous showdown. Personally though, I have no memory of her being able to run at great speeds across frozen terrain. Maybe it's just me.
------ END OF MAJOR SPOILERS -------
Aside for all the alterations to the characters, the main problem with this film is that whilst never expecting a decent script or human participation (it's all abysmal by the way), we did expect to be able to see some cool fighting between the two monsters. This felt rushed and badly done. In fact, like the rest of the film, it was awful.
There is little good to come from "AVP: Alien Vs Predator". With high hopes for a decent crossover, this film has ruined so many dreams. With a mild certificate the impression is that the film was designed more for children who never saw the originals more than for those die hard fans who would appreciate it most. This is sloppy work from Anderson and company and it should have been done so much better.