Alien vs. Predator Review

Whoever wins… We lose. But do we?

For many years I’ve had issues with Paul W. S. Anderson. His buggering of the Resident Evil film franchise has long felt like a personal attack on my love of the games. So for years I’ve been in possession of a strong amount of venom for him, which has skewed my perception of his overall output. 

So it was interesting to read his Wikipedia article, and give some thought to why he keeps getting work. Simply put, he brings films in on more modest budgets and they make decent profits. Away from Resident Evil, he directed Mortal Kombat, which we all know is great. Then there’s Event Horizon, which wasn’t for me though I can appreciate its status. Death Race was an alright piece of Statham nonsense too.

When viewed as a whole, Anderson’s filmography, or at least what I’ve seen of it, evens out into the lower end of alright. So I think it’s time to let most of the venom go. But should I reserve some for AvP: Alien vs. Predator?

It turns out I needn’t carry any. AvP is OK.

There are a fundamental problems with this “versus” type of film, in particular for these species. There’s no chance of a team up, which is actually not a bad thing. But their individual films are so strong that a combination is on a hiding to nothing. Once the cool factor wears off, what does it leave? Not memorable characters that’s for sure. Do we care when they start dying? We do not.

I do find some of the human/Predator interaction interesting, but it’s not really what we’re her for is it. AvP has one major draw as a concept. We want to see them fight!

And once they do things pick up. Predators are very capable and Xenomorphs are ferocious. They’re a great match in a fight, and AvP doesn’t muck around when it comes to them making a mess of each other. There is a sense of weight to the fights – due to most of it being performed in camera – and we get a good moment of them facing off. One shot of the inevitable big ending fight is cool too. Though I must question why Predators keep insisting on taking their helmets off!

The cast is forgettable, and the ending feels like a fanboys wet dream. But whilst the tag line has us Humans cast purely as the losers, AvP isn’t a bad film. In terms of delivering on the central want, it does the job.