Author: EVula
Date: 1/23/45
Rating: 9.1
Movie Rating: PG-13
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I've been waiting for this. This movie has been needed to be made for a very, very long time. As I said in my Spider-Man 2 review, this was the other movie that I was waiting to see this summer.
I went to a midnight showing with a couple of my friends. In the car there, we all agreed that we had some fairly low expectations for the movie. We all expected for the humans to have utterly cheesy lines, and for there to be either far too much human character development or a sloppily pathetic attempt at it.
We all agreed that the movie far exceeded our expectations.
That isn't to say it's perfect, of course. The plot is somewhat flimsy: a group of experts (all of various nationalities, of course!) in a wide range of fields have been brought together to investigate a mysterious heat signal in Antarctica. They have been brought together by Charles Bishop Weyland, the billionare who found the heat signal with one of his satellites (more on him later). So of course, they head down there, finding a mysterious path straight down to the pyramid. They muck around inside, accidently activating the pyramid for it's purpose: breeding Aliens to be hunted by Predators.
The movie does move slowly at the beginning. At first, I was afraid that it was going to suffer from far too much attention being paid to the humans (hey, it's Alien versus Predator; there's no "human" in the title). I was wrong, thankfully. They just had to justify bringing a ton of people into the pyramid to eventually breed a ton of Aliens. Perfectly acceptable reason, by my estimation. :)
The bulk of the movie is exactly what it should be: Aliens versus Predators. However, I'm not talking about crappy reminds-you-of-Jar-Jar CGI action. I'm talking about real solid Alien and Predator actors (guys in suits) duking it out. The fact that they don't rely on CGI for the action is a huge relief; Alien Resurrection relied heavily on CGI aliens in the movie, and it was obvious. As a result, AvP's battle scenes look real (well, as real as they're going to...).
Really, this movie is for the fans of the Alien and Predator franchises. It acts as a bridge between Predator 2 and Alien, and pretty much sets up the how and why of the Aliens series (well, Alien and Aliens, at least). Weyland is also a major throwback (throwforward?) to Aliens. First off, the actor playing Charles Bishop Weyland plays Bishop (an android) in Aliens and Alien 3. In AvP, you see a magazine cover proclaiming Weyland as the father of modern robotics. Kind of a nice way of paying tribute to your creator. There is also a very brief scene in AvP where Weyland does "the knife thing" from Aliens (if you've seen the movie, you know exactly what I'm talking about); people who either haven't seen Aliens or have horrible memory probably won't even notice the scene.
Weyland also acts as another key to the Alien storyline: the (fairly evil) corporation that is so damned interested in the aliens in the first movie is the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. In Alien, they order Ripley's ship to land and investigate the alien ship. In Aliens, they have started a colony there, and once it is overrun by aliens and the Marines get in there, a Weyland-Yutani rep tries to smuggle an alien off the planet. In the comics, they are constantly trying to use aliens as weapons; in the Alien vs. Predator video game(s), Weyland-Yutani is doing the same damn thing. In AvP, we get to see the roots of their interest.
There are some fairly stupid things about the movie, though. For one, it pretty much states that Predators used to be gods here on Earth, with humans worshipping them. Uh, sorry, but that's silly. Also, the pretty much "throw away" attitude towards the humans is a bit obnoxious; the problem, though, is that they simply couldn't concentrate too much on any of them, since they aren't especially interesting (sorry, but psychotic aliens are more interesting than humans any day of the week). The movie also has it's fair share of corny lines and minor bloopers (something that gets laid on the ground in one scene and left there is instantly back in someone's hands in the next), as well as some oddly crappy characters (one guy seemed to be a bit too upset that his leg was broken... whatever). Some of the characters (one in particular, who doesn't die in the inital burst of "let's make dead humans!") are a bit obnoxious; however, since they all die anyway, it doesn't matter! :)
Side rant: I really hate reading reviews of this movie by people who have no idea what the hell they are talking about. Constant statements that this sequel was inspired by the Freddy vs. Jason movie, or that they came up with the idea just to make the movie... it's all so very, very ignorant, and extremely obnoxious. For those that don't know, the entire Alien vs. Predator concept was formed at the end of Predator 2, where we see a Predator trophy room. In the background is an Alien skull. No real attention was paid to it; it was just there as a subtle "these two guys have fought" sort of note, and moved on. Predator 2 came out in 1990; the Alien vs. Predator idea is 14 years old. Please stop saying it's an "all of a sudden" Hollywood idea.
And for the love of <your preferred diety>, don't send movie reviewers to a movie genre that they don't like. The reviews I read also seemed to have been confused about what sort of movie it was going to be; you don't, I repeat, don't expect deep social commentary and complex characters from an action movie. This isn't Shawshank Redemption, this is Alien vs. Predator. One review actually complained about the fact that they didn't use CGI, stating that while the Alien and Predator movies were major advancements for special effects, AvP just stands on their shoulders. *sigh* Some people just won't be happy until a movie shits gold for them. Get over yourselves.
End decision: I absolutely loved this movie, but I absolutely loved the Predator and Alien movies. If you liked them, you'll like this movie; if you hated them, you'll hate this movie. I would think that something that simple would be fairly obvious, but you'd be surprised.