CS Daily Archive > DVD of the Day > 01/14/05

Bring the Pain

by dennis sampson

Twentieth Century Fox's misguided missed opportunity for the ultimate battle of the big box-office creatures from outer space is nothing shy of a total monstrosity.

Alien vs. Predator

Paul W. S. Anderson
Screen story by Paul W. S. Anderson and Dan O'Bannon & Ronald Shusett
Based on Alien characters created by Dan O'Bannon & Ronald Shusett, and Predator characters created by Jim Thomas & John Thomas

Through a drearily slow exposition, we're introduced to billionaire industrialist Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henriksen) as he leads an archeological expedition (including Sanaa Lathan, Raoul Bova, Ewen Bremner, and Colin Salmon) into an ancient pyramid. The mission soon turns into mass hysteria as the scientists find themselves in a crossfire battle between Predators and Aliens. Turns out the Predators have been breeding Aliens in a sort of hunting rite-of-passage ritual. Run for your life.

Some movies are so bad, their elements unite in a combination of sub-par writing, acting, directing, and editing that manages to become, in a strange sense, enjoyable. Alien vs. Predator is a movie so bad it surpasses that guilty-pleasure level and keeps on plummeting into total nonsense. The first 40 minutes, lacking in either an Alien or a Predator, leaves us with a group of wholly uninteresting characters. The exception is Henriksen, but that may have more to do with the familiarity of the actor -- who appeared in both Aliens and Alien 3 -- than the character he plays.

It's really a shame, because the idea of a face-off between these two species of badasses could have been a slam-bang good time. Instead, the filmmakers, who put out a PG-13 film (didn't anyone notice that every Alien and Predator film was rated R?) (the same way they didn't notice the less-than-stellar track record of their writer/director - Ed.) seem more interested in… well, to be honest, I have no idea. One would guess the preceding sentence should have ended with "selling tickets." But it's a mystery exactly who this movie -- overloaded with banal dialogue and censorship-driven editing, all fueled by a weak concept -- was made for. It's hard to imagine the sentence, "That should have been more like Freddy vs. Jason" having any validity, but see this one and you'll understand.

Further, the script has a very strange take on the idea of the battle between good and evil. If, as the story posits, the Aliens were bred for the sole purpose of being stalked and killed by those mean, merciless Predators, shouldn't the Aliens be the ones we're rooting for? AVP doesn't think so, although a confused sense of morality is the least of its problems.

While clever, the last shot of the film -- meant to be something of a twist and a door to possible sequels (God help us all) -- would have worked so much more effectively as a turning point in the middle of the second act. It would have paved the way for more complex action scenes and, moreover, provided an interesting and much-needed plot twist (of which this film is completely devoid).

- Commentary by writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson and actors Lance Henriksen and Sanaa Lathan
- Commentary by visual effects supervisor John Bruno and creature effects designers/creators Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff, Jr.
- Deleted scenes
- Making-of featurette
- Alternate opening

The commentary by writer/director Anderson and actors Henriksen and Lathan is, for the most part, unenlightening in not only the script department, but in all aspects of production. Anderson touches fleetingly on the ideologies behind each creature that went into the making of the movie (he mentions a couple panels from the Alien vs. Predator comic book as inspiration), but he still leaves much unanswered (why he chose to tell this specific story surrounding the battle between Aliens and Predators, for one). The highlight of this extra is Henriksen answering a cell phone call from his daughter during the commentary. The alternate opening and deleted scenes only prolong the pain of the film.

The only thing the filmmakers got right with this humdrum showdown was the tagline, "Whoever wins. We lose." For the audience, how true.

Alien vs. Predator
20th Century Fox Home Video
Rated PG-13; 101 min.
$29.98

Buy it now for only $20.99 (save 30%)

Dennis Sampson is a commercial production coordinator and unproduced screenwriter. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his better half, Susan, and their dog Tripp.

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