ALIEN VS PREDATOR review

ALIEN VS PREDATOR is Paul W.S. Anderson’s very best movie.

Now is that a good thing? Absolutely, I love that he’s made a film that I almost really liked. I mean, it’s fantastic that I’m sitting down at the ol computer not pissing blood stained urine over his latest cinematic atrocity. Rather – he’s moved up the ladder a couple of rungs to making an entertaining piece of shit, rather than just plain ol shit. This one is a turd that resembles something you know, and as a result… you get amused, you smile… Hell, depending how crass you are, you might even keep it around a bit to show various friends, or take pictures and post em to the internet. It’s that sort of bad.

Now, I enjoyed the film… so why pick on it? Well… it’s pretty simple, to just kinda like an ALIEN VS PREDATOR movie well… it’s nice, but I wanted to come out of a film with this title screaming, “HOLY FUCK, THAT KICKED MY ASS!” Ya know? I mean, let’s face it… There are certain “vs” flicks that we’ve been dying to see forever. Godzilla Vs Gamera, Stallone Vs Schwarzenegger, Ash vs Everybody, Derek vs The Bastard Planet, Bruce Lee vs Jet Li, Ghostbusters Vs Casper, Cheech & Chong Vs The Blues Brothers in a Battle of the Band spectacular, Barbarella Vs Alfie… the list goes on and on. But at the top of that geek list… has to be ALIEN VS PREDATOR.

The dream is a film that marries the sheer horror action of James Cameron’s ALIENS and John McTiernan’s PREDATOR. Both films featured outstanding military units that were ready for every ‘known’ thing running into the nightmare of nightmares. In both cases we had creatures that progressively fucked our shit up big time. Not only that, but they didn’t feel like they were going through the paces, they felt organic and new. In the case of PREDATOR it was, we’d never seen anything like that before. In ALIENS – Cameron took what we knew… that one Alien against a weaponless helpless crew was truly terrifying… that it’s specialty was camouflaging itself within a technological environment and being simple, organic perfection… and pitting it against a military crew that was prepared for a bug hunt enemy, but not expecting its keen intelligence and overwhelming ZULU-esque numbers.

Now – the biggest problem with making an ALIEN VS PREDATOR is bringing something new to the table. P.w.s.A. seems to be subscribing to the theory that Bigger is Better. Cuz, the Predators and Aliens are all physically bigger than they ever were. The Alien Queen must be 25, 30ft tall at least. The Predators come across as being about 8-9ft tall and they really seem to all be suffering some sort of inadequacy via their steroid abuse and all their weapons are like “UBER-SIZED.” Now – that isn’t all bad… the oversized Predator claws and glaves and spears… they’re all kinda cool. The gigantic weapon tail that now, every Alien has is also kinda cool. The hero Alien with the net scars upon it is cool. The hero predator with the markings is cool.

The Chinese Box Aztec/Egyptian/Angkor-ian pyramid and it’s mechanized rats-in-maze thing is kinda fun. Now – Quint in his review said I had a problem with the time frame aspect of the film… actually – that’s not true. A friend of ours named Kraken (in the chatroom) had issues with how quickly a human went from Facehuggered to Chestbusted to Full Grown Aliens. It seemed to be quite accelerated. In the original Alien, I don’t believe that Ridley ever really handled the time frame of the incubation. How long was the Facehugger on Kane? Once he was awake… how long till ‘Pop goes the Weasel’? Was that an hour, 3 hours, 24 hours? What? Now in the film, it seems due to this “every ten minutes the pyramid changes” that in about 30 minutes the humans go from having a face hugger to there being full grown Aliens running around. Personally – I forgave this without so much as a problem… Sure, a better filmmaker would have made this changing prison maddening. Kinda like how they dealt with the keep everyone moving nature in BATTLE ROYALE. At no point is there a sense of exhaustion, exasperation or even desperation. Then – Paul didn’t really write any of that for these characters.

The part of this that’ll drive you batty, is imagining what a really great filmmaker might have done with Paul W.S. Anderson’s story. To me, creating a rites of manhood Predator test involving humans and aliens… well, it’s a pretty great premise. Tying Predators into the early cultures of Earth like the Aztecs… well, I’ve spent so much time around the Mayan and Aztec temples that while it very much is the cheesiest version of fusing that culture to this story… It still tickled me the right way.

Now are there ludicrously stupid moments? Um, yeah… The whole “hunter’s moon” bit was groan-worthy. Nearly every moment of the chemist fella is excruciatingly bad. The lead actress just doesn’t have “it”. She just feels lame here. Ya know… I think it is fascinating to watch her non-evolution. I mean, Paul W.S. claims to have studied ALIEN inside and out, but the great thing about Ripley is she usually EMERGES as the story is told, she doesn’t take center stage completely till later in the story. There is never a doubt who is gonna come through in this thing. And we don’t really care. I really wish there had been more to all of this. I mean take a look at the casts of ALIEN, ALIENS and PREDATOR. Look at those personalities, those actors. They rule. These actors, don’t. Lance is kind of a distraction in the film, and I get what he was trying to do, but really… having the Alien and the Predator is enough to tie them to those franchises without a labored nod that didn’t work in ALIEN 3 at all when he came in at the end.

The whole…. JURASSIC PARK make-up of the team being various scientists and experts just doesn’t work. And the military guys that are on the team? They’re LAME. There isn’t an ounce of testosterone in any of them. Of course, the Predator is supposed to be just a pure badass enough for everyone, but frankly… They’re just not given enough to do. Oddly, the thing I thought I would hate most was my favorite thing of all… The action team up of the Predator and the human survivor. All I could think is… How completely badass this would be, if that was Stallone or Arnie. As it was, it works, just not at the level that it should have. Having it be a female creates a weird romantic thing that just DOES NOT WORK with large audiences. There will be an asshole to scream out “KISS” “KISS” “KISS” at your screening, and it’s just something that can’t be helped. Whereas, had this been Sam Jackson at the end… The quiet moments would be two badasses sizing each other up. As it comes across, it feels like… foreplay.

No matter what – with all the faults – the fact that I feel had there been any number of other filmmakers involved, better casting, better storytelling, better action… no matter all of that, I still enjoyed the film. It could have been so much better, but with this director, it also could have been A LOT WORSE. Like I said, that I don’t hate it is amazing. Perhaps there is hope for Mr Paul W.S. Anderson. Perhaps stoning him would be premature, he could actually maybe, one day make a movie that I like without having dozens of problems with, and like without any conditions. Then again, maybe this will be his crowning achievement, in which case… hey, at least we got an ok movie out of the guy, something that kinda works as a vague drive-in kinda film!