Alien Vs Predator (PG)
Opens 19 August
Running Time: 101min

Cast: Sanaa Lathan, Lance Henriksen
Director: Paul W. S. Anderson

It Doesn't Matter Who Won, Cos The Audience Lost

By Han Wei Chou • UrbanWire
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Alien Vs Predator (AvP) has a pretty simple premise: 2 races of extraterrestrials (ETs), the Aliens and the Predators, each immortalised in their own movie series, come together to kill each other. This basic concept along with some skilful storytelling made the original 1989 AvP comic book created by Dark Horse Comics a classic. The franchise has gone on to spawn a slew of cool video games, action figures and now, even a movie. Unfortunately, the movie lets the franchise down by going the way of Freddy Vs Jason - too much hype and too little substance.

The movie starts with the discovery of an ancient pyramid thousands of miles under the Antarctic ice by Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henriksen), the ultra-rich co-founder of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. To claim the find and leave his mark on history, he assembles a team of experts to explore the site.
The pyramid turns out to be where young Predators have to prove themselves by successfully hunting Aliens as a rite of passage to adulthood. Soon, Weyland's intrepid group of human explorers find themselves in the middle of a deadly conflict between the Aliens and Predators, one where only one race can emerge victorious.

In the course of the story, Alexa Woods (Sanaa Lathan), one of the experts hired by Weyland, befriends a Predator through her deeds and elementary hand gestures (Watch out for the scene where the predator gestures "boom" to her. Its hilarious!) and forms an outlandish alliance (pun intended) with it to kill the Aliens. This sort of relationship has occurred previously in the comic book series Alien vs Predators: Deadliest of the Species (1997) but the comic portrayed the relationship more seriously while the movie makes the whole thing look cheesy. The past 2 Predator films portrayed them as a proud warrior race that view humans as mere prey. Yet, the Predator in AvP had to rely on Alexa's help to survive. It even made weapons (a spear made from a sharp end of an Alien tail and a shield gauntlet made from a severed Alien head) for her - a truly laugh-inducing sight). This destroys the lean, mean image of the Predator built earlier. The clincher was when you see them running together in slow-motion a lá Baywatch to go kill some Aliens. It was ludicrous.

Besides the relationship problems, the film also falls flat when it comes to action sequences. The fight scenes between the Aliens and Predators were shaky and underexposed. You can't really make out what's going on, who's killing who, its like you're watching something on a pirated VCD. Furthermore, there isn't much fighting to begin with, and these are usually over within 3 minutes. Every fight scene tries to showcase each ET's unique abilities rather than give the audience a fight to remember. In one fight, a Predator gets speared by an Alien's razor tail before being eaten by the Alien. Duration: 2 minutes. In another bout, the Predator slices off an Alien's head with its sharp, claw-like wrist blades. Duration: 30 seconds. Fight? What fight?

Furthermore, the 2 races are supposed to be evenly matched in terms of strength, speed and skill. Yet, the Aliens seemed to be way tougher and deadlier than the Predators when placed head to head. Of the 3 Predators that appeared in the film, 2 were dispatched with ease within the first half of the film while the third spent most of its time trying to escape from the pyramid and the vicious Aliens; the hunters had become the hunted. Director Paul W. S. Anderson was probably trying to create the cliché scenario of 2 warriors banding together to survive seemingly insurmountable odds. Unfortunately, he does it in a slipshod manner that makes the Predators look wimpy and the fights, uninspiring.

Despite all its flaws, AvP remains a passable movie thanks to the great special effects employed. The Aliens look more life-like and believable than ever, a far cry from the original Alien (1979) where the "Alien" looks and acts too much like a guy in a rubber suit. All in all, if you're new to the whole Alien or Predator movie series, you will probably find the movie reasonably good. However, hardcore Alien or Predator fans (myself included) might return home more than a little disappointed.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

The Official Site
View the Trailer

Fans At The AvP Gala Premiere

Hardcore fans of the series appeared for the premier screening dressed up: We sighted a Predator (albeit shrunken one, blame it on the Asian weather), a man with an Alien facehugger and a man with an aptly named "Alien Chest Burster" exploding out of his chest.