AVP is set in the present day and uses earth as the setting for this showdown of space creatures. Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henricksen) heads a mega-corporation at the forefront of robotics. (Trivia note: Henricksen played the android Bishop in Aliens, and this film suggests that the robot was designed and named after Weyland.) Weyland is sick and his vast wealth cant change the fact hes going to die. But he decides that if he is going to die soon, he wants to be remembered for something. So he uses his fortune to finance an expedition to Antarctica where his satellites have taken note of a huge underground temple shaped like a pyramid. He gets Alexa Woods (Sanaa Lathan) to lead the expedition and then hires a crew of specialists to tag along and document the find. But what they find when they arrive is a nest of aliens, including a massive queen, and a group of predators who may be hunting them or the aliens.
Its not hard to figure out the course the plot will take, or even who wins (remember: Think sequel!). At the San Diego Comic-Con last month, a panel on the film took an impromptu poll of the 6500 fans in the room regarding who theyd like to see win. The vote seemed to come down to a generational thing: older fans, who saw Alien first wanted alien to win but the majoritybeing younger fanswanted the more humanoid Predator to come out on top.
There are no surprises in AVP. Nor is there much of a script. The only thing the film really serves up are Predators and Aliens fighting to the death. But in essence, thats really all the film promises, and on that point it does deliver. Like The Chronicles of Riddick, AVP succeeds best in the realm of production design and effects while falling flat on story and character. Here the creatures look great, fight frequently and have more personality than the humans. Although Alien still doesnt capture the creepy beauty of Gigers original, its been reincarnated here with vigor. Special effects artists Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr. deserve credit for whatever fun and entertainment this film delivers. Taking their cue from Japans Godzilla, they realize that you really can get more personality in your creatures when you have a person playing them rather than having them completely computer generated. Woodruff actually wears the alien costume and Gillis directs the team of puppeteers helping flesh out the predators that are played by costumed actors. The two effects wizards also employ state of the art technology to round out their vision but its a successful blend of elements. This approach to creating the creatures makes the fights feel more immediate and engage the audience more.
Director Paul W.S. Anderson keeps the pace up and doesnt waste much time bothering with plot set up. He makes a nice reference to the pairing up of these two franchises by having a clip of the old Universal monsters Frankenstein and Wolfman pairing up for a film. Anderson shoots the action effectively if rather unimaginatively. Theres a nice Matrix moment given to one of the alien face huggers as it flies through the air toward a victim. Anderson doesnt display much attention to detail, however, and youll notice that despite the freezing temperatures, no ones breath is ever visibleprobably because they are on a nice warm sound stage and not the frozen tundra.
The actors, although talented, are essentially props to be thrown around by the creatures and run through the obstacle course of the underground temple.
AVP (rated PG-13 for violence and language) looks better than the video games but essentially delivers no more than a simple showdown of iconic monsters with no concern for the death and destruction that surrounds them. It is ironic, though, that these two hard-R rated franchises have toned down the violence to nab a PG-13. It seems that the filmmakers and/or the studio were unwilling to deliver the kind of product that the fans of Alien and Predator would truly like to see.
-----
