A missed opportunity (Alien vs Predator (DVD))

Member Name: Burning_Darkness

Product:	Alien vs Predator (DVD)
Date:	20/10/09 (26 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: a few fairly well-directed action scenes,

Disadvantages: paper thin plot, poor characters & dialogue, charmless CGI, unmemorable

Released 2004, 'Alien Versus Predator' had a lot to live up to, bringing together for the first time on the big screen as it did two of the greatest sci-fi horror franchises of modern cinema. Sadly it failed miserably, possessing none of the charm, atmosphere or intelligence of the original films from which it was spawned.

The plot concerns a group of archaologists and scientists, all working under billionaire Charles Weyland (Aka Lance Henricksen, Aka Bishop, the android from Aliens), who travel to the Antarctic to investigate a strange heat source emanating from kilometres below the ice. This turns out to be a huge, buried Temple made by unknown beings, harbouring hundreds of swiss artist H.R. Giger's sleek and deadly aliens and worse still, regularly used by Predators as a hunting/training ground, similar to the Columbian jungle in the original Predator film.

This is a pretty good premise, and in the right hands could have made for a great film, but sadly Director Paul W Anderson's direction is for the most part incredibly one-dimensional and unengaging. There are admittedly a few reasonably exciting action sequences on offer, but the plot is paper-thin, the dialogue vacuous and the acting amateurish and unconvincing, and the lack of any emotional investment or engagement with the story means that watching the action scenes feels more like distractedly viewing a music video than watching an actual film.

The dialogue is often so bad as to be laughable; at one point early on when billionare Weyland is giving his team a briefing on the temple and their mission, he stands in front of a series of screens all showing a 3d-wire grid depiction of a large, pyramidal shape, before helpfully informing the assembled crew of highly trained academics that "My experts tell me it's some kind of a pyramid".

The film has an over-polished visual feel to it, with an overabundance of charmless CGI effects, and worse still shows little respect to the filmic universes from which it borrows, deviating from canon and having facehuggers impregnating victims and chestbursters bursting forth within a matter of mere minutes in one scene, just because it happens to suit the plot. All in all it makes for a tired, brainless and unoriginal big-budget sci-fi flick with less-than-endearing cgi effects and instantly forgettable characters and plot. A real shame.

Summary: Nowhere near as good as it should have been