A mysterious heat signal is coming from the Antarctic;
Weyland Corporation wants to discover this heat signal for themselves.
Gathering a team of professionals they head to an abandoned whaling station and
descend down a shaft (that they assume is manmade) and into the ice.
Discovering what seems to be a temple that predates written history, the group
continues to explore. Meanwhile an alien species called Predators have landed
and have started killing the men above the ice. Unaware of what is happening up
above them, and what the temple really is the team unknowingly powers up the
temple awakening the queen alien from a cryogenic sleep, causing many new Facehuggers to be born and creating more aliens. This causes a war that the
humans can only hope to survive.
(Lance Henriksen as Weyland and
Bishop)
“AVP” is not the greatest film in the world, but nor is it
the worst. The concept behind the film was based off of an older comic book
that combined two of science fictions greatest creations the Predator series,
and the Alien series. Now though this brought only one cast member from any of
these series (Lance Henriksen) who plays Charles Bishop Weyland, which is funny
because in the Alien series he played Bishop, I believe this was a play on
words from the writers. Now though he is the only one that has acted in an
Alien or Predator series the rest of the cast does a decent job, but will not
blow you away with their performance. Not all the blame can be put on them
though the script was not very strong.
(now that’s a face only a mother could
love)
Now to the plot, what can I say it is not that strong and
really can’t hold its own and the only reason you will find yourself going back
and watching this film again is because you love both series and just cannot help
it. The action is ok, the writing is subpar, and you will find yourself yelling
at the screen saying “NO YOU IDIOT DON’T TOUCH THAT” and then subsequently
saying “told ya so” when someone dies from touching something you told them not
to. The story is ok in the fact that they drew the two sci-fi stories together
well with the predators having to kill aliens as a rite of passage and the
reason the temple was underground was to protect the rest of the civilizations
from an alien attack.
All in all, “Alien VS Predator” is a sci-fi first combining
two historical franchises together, but fails to do it well. With that said if
you love both series and have not seen it, if it is on TV make some popcorn and
watch it if nothing else it will kill time.
Good:
-Lance Henriksen being involved in the film
-OK action
-Ties the two franchise together well
Bad:
-Plot is weak
-Cast is only OK not superb
-Writing is not the greatest
-Moments when you say why did you do that are often
Scully Rating: 5 out
of 10