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51%
Overall Rating
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Ranked #786
...out of 14,053 movies
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When scientists discover something in the Arctic that appears to be a buried Pyramid, they send a research team out to investigate. Little do they know that they are about to step into a hunting ground where Aliens are grown as sport for the Predator race.
--TMDb
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Review by Chad
Added: November 14, 2004
Billionaire Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henriksen) has found out about a buried pyramid in Antarctica through the use of satellite imagery, and puts together a crack team of drillers, scientists, and archaeologists. Leading this team is enviro-nut Alexa Woods (Sanaa Lathan), a lady that is quite familiar with survival in Antarctica. As they make their way to the pyramid, they find that there's a hole that seemingly comes from the sky (the rim of it lines up with a burnt away portion of a station roof in front of it) and goes down through the ice, into where the pyramid lies. This doesn't make sense to our team, as this hole wasn't there just yesterday. Little do they know that this was the work of a Predators ship melting away the ice as a result of the Predators rites of passage; the Predators breed Aliens here in order to kill them and prove themselves as worthy to their species. Blissfully unaware, the humans make their way down the hole and into the pyramid and are caught between the two battling species.
Not much to our storyline, as after the introductions and setup are rushed through we're left with nothing but action sequence after action sequence. Considering the title, I wasn't expecting much more from the movie; however, the majority of the action sequences involve either the Aliens or the Predators mowing through the human fodder of a team. With the exception of the main lady and one other guy, every one of the humans is killed off shortly after the action starts. The guy lasts for a bit longer than his companions, but is soon killed off as well. Introducing a large number of people that really serve no purpose other than kills for the main monster(s) is really nothing new in horror films, but the amount of fodder found here is incredibly horrid. It would have reduced the amount of human kills and made-for-trailers scenes, but the storyline would have moved along much better that way.
<Spoilers>
While I realize that teaming the Predator up with a human is faithful to the original comic series, the level of teamwork that was shown here was just too much for me to handle. If a human managed to kill an alien in the comic world, then the Predator would mark them with the aliens blood, give a nod of approval, and that was that. They most certainly didn't equip the human with weapons and defense, protect them, fight with them, save their life, and then die while protecting them some more. This really killed the storyline, for me at least.
</Spoilers>
I also wasn't too keen on the changes made to the Predators, but thankfully, they weren't done as badly as I had anticipated. The Aliens found here are pretty faithful to the originals, though they did seem a lot weaker than when they were the stars of the movie. The Predators were the ones who really got the god-awful Anderson-reimagining. Unless I was seeing things wrong, the Predators start the movie at around nine feet tall, but by the end of the running time, they're back down to a normal human size. While this was extremely hilarious (and not in a good way for the movie's sake), it really killed any sort of mood that the movie was attempting to set. They were also given some new and modified weaponry, which made for a bit of sadness for those looking for the Predators of old... though, this was definitely the least of my gripes.
This is action sequence after action sequence, no more and no less. Storyline is almost non-existent in this world, and the actual Aliens vs. Predator scenes are a bit scarce. I wasn't expecting a whole lot going in, but this was still disappointing. Not really worth the rental money unless you're a huge fan of either character, but even then I'd be willing to bet that you'll regret picking this up. 3/10.
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#1:
spookychild
- added 09/12/2004, 12:29 AM
Better then i expected. i went into this wanting a
good flick to entertain me, i wasnt expecting it
to be better then Aliens or Predator, and it
wasn't. but still pretty good.
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#2:
Crispy
- added 09/12/2004, 04:26 AM
First off, I've been a fan of AVP for a good 10
years now. I remeber as a kid i used to take all
the action figures and wage wars lasting hours.
:-) The good old days. The movie wasn't bad. I was
hoping for more. I was expecting great fights and
an ok story line. Instead they opted for a good
storyline, which i liked but unfortuantely most of
the fighting, although extremely well done, is
condensed into the latter half of the film. I
think i would have enjoyed it more if i wasnt
expecting to have about a porn equivelent in the
way of plotline and loaded with fights from
beginning to end
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#3:
Twiztid22ditziwt
- added 10/27/2004, 06:44 PM
this movie was really good, except for the ending
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#4:
turn the radio off
- added 11/27/2004, 06:36 PM
much more entertaining then anticipated.
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#5:
MrDerp
- added 12/31/2004, 06:49 PM
Let's see...the Predator and Alien films all had
an R rating, and this could only pull off a PG-13.
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#6:
BuryMeAlive
- added 02/28/2005, 08:39 PM
It was filmed with a R rating, but the evil fucks
at Fox wanted it to be lower.
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#7:
Bluesummers
- added 03/07/2005, 04:00 AM
Actually, Paul Anderson has been quoted as saying
this was pretty much the movie he wanted to make.
This movie's sort of...eh? Yeah. Eh. That
describes it. The only thing I got off on were all
the little nods to both the Alien and Predator
series'. Lance Henriksen is the man, and he should
have more parts. (And while we're at it. WHY DID
MILLENIUM GET CANCELLED WHEN IT WAS TWELVE TIMES
BETTER THAN THE X-FILES?!). No characterization
besides "oh, look, he speaks Italian" or whatever.
The fights are okay, with some cool technological
upgrades for the Predators. A few nice money shots
(all about the facehuggers). And finally, thanks
to that damnable CG, the Queen gets to do her
thing. But all in all, again. Eh.
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#8:
Crispy
- added 07/13/2005, 07:08 AM
This would be the 3rd time Paul Anderson fucked up
something that was INSANELY looked forward to with
Resident Evil and Mortal Kombat being the other
two
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#9:
.
- added 09/13/2005, 08:29 PM
I thought this was going to be excellnt. What a
let down.
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#10:
Ginose
- added 09/15/2005, 04:19 PM
Let me put it like this: I wish there was a rating
lower than "crap" on this site.
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#11:
bluemeanie
- added 10/18/2005, 09:52 PM
Who wins? E.T. -- he kills them with kindness.
Not as great as "Freddy Vs. Jason", but not
terrible either. 6.5/10.
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#12:
ScarsRstarS
- added 01/10/2006, 08:53 AM
The fight scence at the end awsome.
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#13:
BuryMeAlive
- added 09/01/2006, 01:29 PM
I didn't think it was that bad at all.... Sure as
hell is alot better than Predator 2
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#14:
Kain
- added 06/04/2007, 02:53 PM
I enjoy movies. They can be major influences in
and on my life, thought processes, and emotions.
This...was.....abysmal. Outside of some eye
candy, which there certainly was, the movie was
essentially a pile of cash that would have been
better spent by the Bush administration. Crispy,
I truly have to agree with your sentiments, and
couldn't have summarized that statement better
myself. The story line was there, albeit a bit
weak, but not awful. It's evident, however, that
as soon as they all sat down in their big, plushy,
pretentious, rolling office chairs to discuss how
this film would be written/produced/filmed, that
the creativity gods fearlessly unloaded their
bowels all over every mind in that room. The
aliens were turned into a sort of locust moreso
than any form of legitimate threat, the predators
were effectively emasculated, and the humans were
regrettably displayed as what they truly are
(rather than how we'd often like to think of
them)...a weak, poorly equipped excuse for an
evolved animal species. I'm glad my amigo covered
the pay-per-view fee on this one, so I didn't have
to feel as though I was cheated out of anything
more than my precious time. Now was it truly THAT
bad?? Probably not, but anyone who has ever seen
and even slightly enjoyed one of the predecessors
to this film should justly be outraged. If
nothing else can be provided as solace to my
bruised sense of entertainment by any other
attendee of this site, please answer me this; at
the end of the film, how does that commiserable
little coo survive in the vast Antarctic Cocytus
with nothing more to guard her daintiness than a
damn longsleeve shirt and a frail pair of pants???
Ah, were I a lesser sport I might have had
trouble with this movie's level of
believability.............
-KAIN
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#15:
Rik
- added 09/22/2007, 01:48 AM
Bishop huh? Isn't he the android from Aliens? And
they used Lance Henrikssen too. So I suppose he's
like the template for the android? I thought this
movie sucked ass. The first 2 predators got wiped
out like they were extras in the battle scene of
300. That already ruined the entire movie for me.
Too little shoulder cannon action. And yeah, the
predators shrank alot... thanks for pointing that
out. It was entertaining, but I hated the way it
ran. 3/10.
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#16:
Lucid Dreams
- added 02/16/2010, 11:09 PM
This movie could have been so good, but instead it
was crap. 3/10
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