From the Archive – MOVIE REVIEW – Alien vs. Predator

Originally published August 12, 2004

Alien vs. Predator
Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
Writer: Screen story by Paul W.S. Anderson and Dan O’Bannon & Ronald Shusett, Screenplay by Paul W.S. Anderson, based on the “Alien” characters created by Dan O’Bannon & Ronald Shusett and the “Predator” characters created by Jim Thomas & John Thomas
Producers: Gordon Carroll, David Giler, Walter Hill, John Davis
Stars: Sanaa Lathan, Raoul Bova, Lance Henriksen, Ewen Bremner

In a perverse way it’s refreshing to see a slasher movie where the characters are soberly instructed “nobody go anywhere alone”, then the filmmakers don’t even bother contriving the usual dumb excuses before they start doing just that. The moment they leave the boat they’re wandering to and fro, disdaining the buddy system and inviting a brutal comeuppance for it. I guess it saves time.

It is with a heavy heart that I dub Alien vs. Predator a slasher movie, but in spite of its science fiction trappings it’s little more than a machine for sticking characters in the dark then pitilessly offing them. It is such a shame, because the movie franchises it marries up, both of which have seen better days, were at their best when they took their time and showed us people we cared about.

Remember Bill Paxton in Aliens, shouting “game over, man, GAME OVER!? Jessie “The Body” Ventura, bragging about how his chewing tobacco would make you a “god-damned sexual Tyrannosaurus!” in Predator? Hell, remember Ripley?

Here we get the guy with the accent (Raoul Bova). And the woman (Sanaa Lathan) they hire because she’s an expert at, I forget but it has to do with being in the cold, but is really there to issue stern common sense that everyone ignores. And who can forget Blonde-Woman-With-Gun (Agathe De La Boulaye)? Or Guy-With-Camera-and-Different-Accent (Ewen Bremner)?

Owning a digital camera is the most character development anyone gets, and there are so many unnecessary accents that I began to suspect some actors were being cast for their ability to trigger foreign financing incentives. A look at all the K’s, V’s and accent marks in the end credits clues us in that the movie was shot in Prague. Clearly this is because it doubles Antarctica and subterranean pyramids so authentically and has nothing to do with making movies on the cheap.

There is an increased tendency in movies pitched at the geek demo, and that’s if you’re going to be over 35 and less than extremely good-looking, you had better be some kind of eccentric tycoon and/or scientist who’s the cause of all this trouble. Welcome to Prague, Lance Henriksen. That he played the android Bishop so memorably in Aliens is something they feel happy to reference, but in ways that create as many questions as they answer.

Anyway, one of his Eccentric Tycoon and/or Scientist Satellites picks up a bizarre heat signature that suggests a massive pyramid sunk deep below the ice in Antarctica. And so, either because someone else might get there first, or because he’s terminally ill, I can’t remember which was more important, he throws together a motley expedition to look around. That when they arrive they find a perfect, freshly-dug tunnel leading straight to the pyramid causes them no alarm or suspicion.

It is true that many slasher movies are built around the idea that the people we’re watching more or less deserve their fate, but it struck me as particularly cold-hearted the way these people get introduced then dispatched. One character rallies another by telling him that, as fathers, they have a responsibility to get out alive. No more than two minutes later both their dooms are sealed. So why bother? The movie makes no more than token efforts to be any more than people wandering down corridors, then getting attacked by one of two different species.

You see, the Predators like hunting Aliens – they’re a capable foe, after all, and Predators are all about that. But Aliens need a host, a species to gestate in. And that is where we come into the picture. The pyramid is a sort of contained hunting maze, complete with crumbling bridges, shifting passageways, and an assembly line for putting Alien eggs in places where people are.

Director Paul W.S. Anderson (Event Horizon, Soldier) last made an adaptation of the video game Resident Evil. It also involved sending a bunch of characters we barely know into a labyrinth designed for the sole purpose of instigating movie action sequences, then sacrificing people en masse to provide monsters. I wish I could say there’s something Jungian about all this, but I suspect it’s simply that he’s a loud hack who keeps getting work and is out of original ideas.

Here is your litmus test for this movie: We first meet our competent cold-expert woman (whom, the Internet Movie Database helpfully reminds me, is named “Alexa Woods”) climbing an ice wall in Nepal. Her cell phone rings, surprising her and nearly causing her to fall to her death. It’s another guy with an accent, who works for our Eccentric Tycoon and/or Scientist, and he wants her to join the expedition. She talks about how far she is from being able to meet anyone, and then it’s revealed – surprise! – that he’s atop the ice wall with a helicopter waiting.

To understand a) why Alexa Woods would leave her dangerously loud cell phone on while climbing an ice wall, b) how it could get a signal deep in Nepal (there are parts of LA where my bars disappear), and c) why the hell this guy would call her, potentially making her fall to her death, when he could wait two minutes and talk to her face to face – is to understand the cool-before-logic filmmaking of Paul W.S. Anderson. If you still enjoy this movie, it is because you’re willing to accept this.

I won’t say these two franchises had pure reputations – the Predator lost a lot of his mojo when Danny Glover beat him in a fistfight – but did they really need this? There is a sort of Smackdown appeal to watching the two guys in suits finally clear the decks and wail on each other, but when you consider how great directors used these franchises to elevate people’s perception of the genres of science fiction, horror, and action, it’s a disappointment to see today’s filmmakers so cavalierly kicking them back into the basement.