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Alien Vs. Predator (2004)
By: Markus Zussner on June 7, 2006.
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| Fox Home Entertainment (Australia). Region 4, PAL. 2.35:1 (16:9 enhanced). English DD 5.1, English DTS 5.1. English (FHI) Subtitles. 96 minutes |
| The Movie |
| Cover Art |
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| Credits |
Director: Paul W.S.
Anderson
Starring: Sanaa Lathan,
Raoul Bova, Ewen Bremner, Colin Salmon, Lance
Henriksen
Screenplay: Paul W.S.
Anderson
Music: Harald Kloser
Tagline: Whoever wins...
We lose.
Country: USA |
Before I start, I would really like to say
that I like Paul Anderson Movies. Event
Horizon is my favourite Anderson movie.
I liked Soldier and also Resident
Evil and its sequel. Although his films
don't do so well at the box office, they
kick ass in DVD land and they nicely fill the
spaces in my DVD collection. However, I seem to
have a problem with Alien Vs. Predator.
Oh it does help fill the spaces on the DVD rack,
but I don't want it to. I was hoping for
something much more grand as is my expectation
of an Alien or Predator movie. A movie that stands its own ground and
makes a mark. A lot of fans had been waiting a
long time for AVP to be made.
When I heard that Anderson was going to helm AVP I was a little apprehensive. Anderson's films
have a certain look and feel to them, right down
to the way that his films are cast. Even though
I like his movies I felt that his style would
not suit AVP. I was hoping that
Anderson would prove me wrong.
An ancient pyramid is discovered in Antarctica
buried deep beneath the ice. The pyramid registers
as a heat signature picked up by a Low Earth Orbit
satellite owned by the Weyland Corporation. On
behalf of the Weyland Corporation a group of scientists
and adventurers are sent to investigate. Meanwhile
a large spaceship full of our Predator buddies
is on its way to the Pyramid to drop off a group
of young Predators, which are about to perform
their rite of passage as warriors. The Predators
you see, keep coming back to perform this ritual
every thousand years. It will be a fight to the
death with, you guessed it, those deadly silicon
Aliens that everyone fears being dribbled on.
The predator ship reaches Earths orbit and fires
a beam down to the surface that burns a tunnel
through the ice. An activation system is triggered
off within the pyramid, bringing the large Alien
queen out of hibernation and into egg laying mode.
Our lucky explorers including Mr Weyland himself
find that the location of the pyramid is under
an abandoned whaling station. They discover the
ice tunnel made by the predator ship. How fortunate
for Mr Weyland. Even if he has transported millions
of dollars of drilling equipment and a full compliment
of drilling experts for nothing. No not for nothing
though because we need some good old Predator
fodder to spice things up a little. The drilling
team stay on the surface as target practice. The
explorer team, essentially facehugger fodder headed
by Alexa Woods (Sanaa Lathan), Sebastian de Rosa
(Raoul Bova), Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henriksen),
Maxwell Stafford (Colin Salmon) and Dr Graeme
Miller (Ewan Bremner) go down the ice tunnel,
enter the pyramid and touch something that doesn't
belong to them. Naughty. A professional blunder.
One very important rule of archaeology, at first
instance; don't touch anything. It should
have been clear to them after all, these people
are a team of professionals and they all would've
seen Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Who hasn't? Unfortunately it's the
Predators job to do this because the objects in
question are heavy predator weapons that are to
be utilised at this point of their trial. Once
the weapons are removed from their storage department
(a large sarcophagus) the trigger that sets the
aliens in motion is set off. Doors seal, walls
move and rooms begin to change shape, separating
the explorer team into reluctant smaller groups.
Eggs start a poppin' and facehuggers start
a jumpin' and the Predators have only just
cleaned up the drilling team on the surface. Damn!
The predators would have been ready to kick ass
if it wasn't for those pesky meddling humans.
The human element in the pyramid is there mainly
as fodder for the facehuggers. It was either that
or have some hamsters on standby. With the facehuggers
now actively hugging, the Aliens are quickly bursting
from chests and growing to full size within minutes,
and the remainder of the cast not facehugged are
now caught in the battle between the Aliens and
the Predators. Soon only Alexa Woods is left to
carry the torch for the human entry and endure
the obligatory half hour solo survival run in
the last quarter of the movie. But which side
to pick? This should be a no-brainer. "We
come in peace" won't really go down
with the aliens very well, it's like a quarter
pounder with cheese begging me not to eat it when
I'm starving. But you can negotiate with
good old Mr Predator; you just need to know how
(tip: don't shoot at them). So the last
remaining Predator and Human team up to kick Alien
butt. Who will survive?
Well I almost didn't when I first watched AVP on DVD. I had already heard
a lot of bad things about AVP from people who watched the theatrical release.
I went straight into AVP with
an open mind. Alien is one of
my favourite movies of all time and Predator rates quite high with me as well. From a hardcore
fans point of view I thought the movie failed
miserably. The story had so much potential and
a lot could be explored but it decided to go for
the no brainer approach of Kill Kill Kill. The
cast and characters in the movie are great but
they are never fully explored and in some cases
totally overlooked. For example; there is a scene
with Dr Miller talking to another explorer in
the Pyramid after they are both separated from
the rest of the expedition. There is this moment
when the two bond and talk about their love for
their families and that being their driving force
to get out alive. What I thought was going be
a good subplot of interest and an increase of
dynamics to the story is quickly ground to a halt
as one character is dragged down a hole with Dr
Miller screaming that he would find him and get
him out of this place. No such luck because Dr
miller soon gets dragged away as well and that's
pretty much the end of both of them, defeating
the whole purpose of their dialogue scene. Later
on there is a small scene with Dr Miller warding
off impending facehuggers, which I though might
evolve into something more but it only establishes
his death scene. The Lead archaeologist Sebastian
de Rosa has his very own character introduction
at the start of the movie as if he is going to
play a pivotal role in the film. However, just
over an hour into the movie he is dragged away
like every other interesting character and facehugged
leaving our lead, Tara Woods to fend for herself.
I thought that maybe Tara would rescue Sebastian
later on, but no such deal, all the script could
come up with was a merciful bullet to the brain.
Rauol Bova is very famous in Italy and his presence
in the film would have helped the box office takings
in Europe. I'm sure his demise went down
a treat with the Italians. You don't build
up a character like that just to get snuffed out
at the most pivotal part of the story. I'm
not saying that he should have been a survivor
but he should have maintained a useful presence
until the very end at least. The Alexa Woods character
played by Sanaa Lathan is left to carry the torch
for the human entry for the duration of the film.
Alexa Woods is no Ripley nor does Anderson base
Woods on Ripley's Character, and this is
a good move, but I felt that the character of
Alexa Woods was flat and unbelievable. I believed
Ripley was a first officer onboard a freighter,
I just couldn't get my head round Alexa
Woods being the mountain guide search and rescue
type. Sanaa Lathan just didn't have me convinced. The Cave had me much more convinced
that the characters were professionals in their
field.
Now what about the last surviving Predator that
took his mask off so that he could put makeup
on? What a dick. I mean the young Predators would
have had prior knowledge on what those slimy Aliens
are capable of. Remember, the Predators come to
the pyramid every thousand years and it seems
that they have had a lot of interaction with the
Alien (final scene Predator 2),
so why would you want to risk being facehugged?
It was so predictable. No way that Predator would
have ever taken his mask off at that stage. Also
why did it take over a thousand years for the
Alien queen to hatch an escape plan? The Alien
Queen would have thought of spitting acid to melt
her metal bonds a long long time ago. If the excuse
is that the Alien queen is in her own isolated
chamber, then I still don't buy it. Rule
of thumb when trying to hide or barricade from
Aliens, "They always find a way in".
Another mistake in this story was how the Predators
love to scan. They scan and scan and then they
scan some more. Gee all that scanning looks like
fun. They scan you for weapons; they scan you
for xenomorphs growing in your chest cavity and
cancers eating your body. So why did the Elder
Predator, a veteran of many battles over possibly
a thousand years, standing beside a state of the
art spaceship, take the body of the young Predator
on board without scanning it first? It would have
been a prerequisite of the Predator especially
with the type of life form that they were hunting.
I mean the young Predators continually used their
scanning equipment throughout the hunt but the
Elder Predator at the most crucial moment, um
forgot? As a result we now have a half Predator
half Alien born onto the ship. This did not result
in a shock ending but rather a shocking ending.
It was predictable as it was stupid. The Extended
version has an alternate opening sequence showing
a Predator and an Alien about to have it out at
the Whaling station a hundred years before in
1904. Anderson says in the featurette that the
Predators come visit every thousand years. Well
it looks like these guys were about 900 years
too early for their party. I also can't
get my head around Charles Bishop Weyland being
in the story. Anderson and Henriksen talk about
his introduction in the featurette, but they don't
venture to explain the logistics in any detail.
The hints provided were, Lance saying he is not
a returning character, but rather "the beginning"
and Mr Anderson suggested that since Weyland corporation
are leaders in the field of Robotics; they merely
reinvented Charles Bishop Weyland 150 years later.
Does this mean that the living, breathing and
bleeding (blood not milk) Charles Bishop Weyland
of Alien 3 one hundred and fifty
years in the future is actually a clone with downloaded
memories? Does this mean he's CEO of the
Weyland Corporation or God? AVP is cast well and Lance Henriksen is always a welcome
face in this genre even if he may have been cast
as a draw card.
The Set and Costume Design are awesome. Anderson
always has great sets and costumes in his movies.
He has used miniatures for the sets, machinery
and vehicles. Anderson also opted for costume
design and animatronics for the creatures rather
than flagrant misuse of CGI. I must say that the
Aliens and the Predators have never looked better.
Anderson puts the creatures back onto the set
with the actors to good effect and this hasn't
really been done since the first two Alien movies.
If you are a die-hard Alien and or Predator fan, and except
nothing less than pure brilliance with no breaking
of the rules that apply to these movies, then AVP is bound to make you stop
breathing and explode. If you don't really
care about any of the franchise before or you've
been in a coma for 25 years and haven't
seen any of the previous outings, then AVP may just work for you. If it's just a fight
you want to see, AVP will not
disappoint. On the level of King Kong
vs. Godzilla it works best, but that's
about it. |
| Video |
| Crystal Clear Picture. The Cinematography is superb.
Most of AVP is set in the dark
or at night. With the exception of The Cave and Apocalypse Now REDUX, AVP has some of the best night shots I have seen in
a while and none of the picture quality is compromised
as a result. Vibrant neon type Colours are accentuated
in contrast to the darkly lit scenes giving the
film a slight comic book look. No complaints with
image quality here. |
| Audio |
| Can't complain about the sound either. It's
clear, constant and devoid of hiss or any other
unauthorised noises polluting the audio tracks.
Guns sound like big guns, lasers sound like big
lasers and shoulder harness missile launchers sound
real mean. Alien dribble and hisses have never sounded
nastier. Lots of rocks, rubble and shrapnel pouring
out of the speakers and if you have subs, be prepared
to rumble. Beautiful. |
| Extra Features |
| Audio Commentary - Paul W.S. Anderson, Lance
Henriksen and Sanaa Lathan.
Audio Commentary - By Alec Gillis, Tom Woodruff
and John Bruno.
Alternate Opening Version of the Film - Duration
30 seconds. A showdown between Alien, Predator
and Human in the year 1904 at a remote Antarctic
whaling station, which is where the whole story
is set.
Featurette: "Aliens Vs. Predator: making
Of" - Duration 23 minutes. Featurette contains
the usual behind the scenes footage from conception
to completion. Paul Anderson explains his vision.
There are interviews with Mike Richardson from
Dark Horse Comics explaining how the conception
for the AVP comic franchise came about. John Bruno
Visual Effects Supervisor (Titanic)
goes over all the cool set pieces and miniatures
(some of these miniatures dwarf me). Amalgamated
Dynamics INC discusses their artistic creature
work on the film. A few small chats with Lance.
There is also some impressive storyboard artwork
shown and it's a shame that the special
features don't include a storyboard gallery.
Three deleted scenes: The other Mexico, O Sole
Mio and Predator Humour. Not much cut out. There's
only 2.58 seconds of deleted footage that's
not going to be missed. The Deleted scenes weren't
actually deleted but rather trimmed just a little.
Stills Gallery – Standard issue
Extensive comic book cover art gallery from
Dark Horse Comics popular AVP franchise.
Additional Feature - There are two different Graphical
User Interfaces for the menu options. The first
GUI is the graphics of a Predator arm with the
wrist utility. The wrist utility cover pops open
and instead of a key pad for the Predator to type
in the detonation sequence when things go wrong,
it displays your menu options. The other GUI is
of the Sacrificial Chamber that appears in the
movie. Both GUI's are impressive. You may
have to stick your copy of AVP in the player a
few times before it will change graphics. |
| The Verdict |
The cover art is great but the general packaging
is standard no frills. No fancy special tin cover
or booklet or any free plastic facehuggers. I
reckon they should have given away a vile of sulphuric
acid with each copy of AVP so
you can feel the action while you watch or opt
to put yourself out of your misery.
During the "Making of AVP" featurette
Anderson claims he's the man to helm this
project because he's been a big fan and
has seen all the movies and has always wanted
to make one and now he has and don't worry
because he knows what makes these movies work
and what doesn't make them work and he won't
break the rules and won't let us down and…and…aaaargh!!!
Rub salt in the wound won't you Mr Anderson. |
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| User Comments |
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3 user comments have been posted so far |
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The unrated cut is better, but not by much. If you hated the PG-13 version reviewed here the extra gore won't change your mind.