AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004)
|
Sign up to add this to your collection
|
Sign up to add this to your favorites
|
|
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
|
|
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.
|
|
#1:
spookychild
- added September 12, 2004 at 12:29am
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.
|
|
#2:
Crispy
- added September 12, 2004 at 4:26am
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
|
|
#3:
Twiztid22ditziwt
- added October 27, 2004 at 6:44pm
this movie was really good, except for the ending
|
|
#4:
turn the radio off
- added November 27, 2004 at 6:36pm
much more entertaining then anticipated.
|
|
#5:
MrDerp
- added December 31, 2004 at 6:49pm
Let's see...the Predator and Alien films all
had an R rating, and this could only pull off a
PG-13.
|
|
#6:
BuryMeAlive
- added February 28, 2005 at 8:39pm
It was filmed with a R rating, but the evil fucks
at Fox wanted it to be lower.
|
|
#7:
Bluesummers
- added March 7, 2005 at 4:00am
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.
|
|
#8:
Crispy
- added July 13, 2005 at 7:08am
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
|
|
#9:
.
- added September 13, 2005 at 8:29pm
I thought this was going to be excellnt. What a
let down.
|
|
#10:
Ginose
- added September 15, 2005 at 4:19pm
Let me put it like this: I wish there was a rating
lower than "crap" on this site.
|
|
#11:
bluemeanie
- added October 18, 2005 at 9:52pm
Who wins? E.T. -- he kills them with kindness.
Not as great as "Freddy Vs. Jason", but
not terrible either. 6.5/10.
|
|
#12:
ScarsRstarS
- added January 10, 2006 at 8:53am
The fight scence at the end awsome.
|
|
#13:
BuryMeAlive
- added September 1, 2006 at 1:29pm
I didn't think it was that bad at all....
Sure as hell is alot better than Predator 2
|
|
#14:
Kain
- added June 4, 2007 at 2:53pm
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
|
|
#15:
Rik
- added September 22, 2007 at 1:48am
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.
|
|
#16:
Lucid Dreams
- added February 16, 2010 at 11:09pm
This movie could have been so good, but instead it
was crap. 3/10
|
|