AVP: Alien vs. Predator

Monstrous - but not a total monstrosity.

Antartica, and an expedition is about to uncover a battleground for Aliens and Predators.

Whoever wins, we lose! So ran the tag line for Paul W. S. Anderson's prequel (?) to two fanatically worshipped franchises. Little was Anderson to know that it was the majority of cinema goers who would feel that they had "lost" their cash on coming out after watching this miss-matched effort. Though in truth nobody could seriously have expected a film to rival the best of both serials (Alien, Aliens & Predator), it's still right that us fans should expect the formula to be respectfully adhered too. We want character build up, we expect a group dynamic to function, and we definitely want the baddies to stay...

I can honestly say, that this is one of the most under-rated films of 2004.

Not because it was good, just because it was panned so fucking hard by critics! I think this is mostly due to the fact that it was being compared to both the Alien and Predator series, which is fair enough, but it was never going to be what either of those films was.

Ultimately it's downfall came from some poor dialogue, and trying to reach a larger audience. Where Predators was a film that you didn't need to have watched all the others in order to follow, it was still fundamentally a Predator film, aimed at the Predator-loving market. AVP on the other hand used references to the older films, but then completely threw the canon out the window and went for a la...

If Paul WS Anderson had just taken a moment longer to look at the casting here, he might have had a decent property. A solid conflict between the ultimate ninja "Predator" and the ultimate killing machine from "Alien". Why didn't he? Instead, we find a truly C-list bunch of acting fodder exploring a temple wherein, aeons ago, these two titans of terror battled it out. On arrival in the sacrifice room, they inadvertently release some eggs, and some "Predator" creatures, and soon some of them are on the menu for both as a battle royal looms. The special effects are good, and the action elements work fine too. I even found myself taking sides - just not with the humans, who deserved every tortuous chewing, stabbing and nasty involuntary caesar...

Did they actually make this!? Wait, did I actually buy this!?

Finally got around to watching this crossover between the two titular characters. It's pretty good!

I'm not someone who has a keen interest in either franchise, though. I'm kinda surprised both have as many flicks made as they do and as many still on the way. I admittedly I do like all of the 'Alien' films, whereas I found 'Predator' to be rather uninteresting - until 'Prey' anyway, that's the only one from that series that I'd say I like.

With all that, I wasn't too sure what to expect from 'AVP: Alien vs. Predator' - a movie that I've actually heard of since I was a kid, I remember people at my school referring to it quite often; I probably knew of this before I knew that they were a crossover from separate releases. Pleasingly, i d...