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Alien Vs. Predator
Starring: Sanaa Lathan, Lance Henriksen
Written and Directed by: Paul W.S. Anderson

Rating: 1 (out of 5)

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Holy crap.

I knew this movie couldn't be good. I mean, how COULD it be?

Think about it…you're taking 2 of the most notorious horror/sci-fi franchises ever created, and putting them in the hands of the guy who was responsible for Resident Evil, Soldier, and Event Horizon. That's mistake number one.

But then, for the studio to demand a PG13 rating…that's just INSANITY. All SIX of the movies that came before this one were rated R. Because they were SCARY! To dumb it down to the point where Junior can come and see it after school is pretty much shitting on both franchises. And when you're shitting on a franchise like Predator - which wasn't all that good to begin with - that's SAYING something.

"Go ahead...try to slip me the tongue...I DARE you..."

I mean, come on…the only thing that Predator had going for it in the first place is the fact that somehow, the movie managed to spawn 2 governors (Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura). I've spent the last year or so waiting for Carl Weathers to declare himself as a presidential candidate.

But I was oh-so-cautiously optimistic about this one. I mean, the press notes went through unbelievable lengths to talk about what a fan Anderson was of both of these series. The following paragraph is taken directly from Fox's press notes:

According to Davis, it was essential to have a director who was plugged into the worlds of both the Aliens and Predators, and no one knew the films better than Anderson. "In addition to being a talented filmmaker, Paul is the ultimate Alien and Predator fan," says the producer. "He's seen the original 'Alien' and 'Predator' hundreds of times, and he can recite virtually every scene by memory.

One word…bull - fucking - shit.

"Wait! Hold on! Guys! you forgot your change!!!"

The movie starts off with Alexa Woods (Lathan) climbing an ice-falls in Nepal. She's the world's greatest authority on how to survive in the extreme cold in the middle of nowhere. We know this, because she's climbing a SHEER FACE OF ICE in the middle of fucking NEPAL by herself. I guess she got sick and tired of playing Russian Roulette with the Deer Hunter boys in Vietnam, and wanted more of a challenge.

In the middle of her climb, her goddamn CELL PHONE rings. Yes, she's in one of the most remote, desolate places on the PLANET, and yet she's still got a nice, strong signal on her cell phone. But that's not even the dumbest part…SHE ANSWERS IT ON HER HEADSET AND KEEPS CLIMBIMG. For someone who's supposed to be an expert, it seems like she's actually borderline retarded. I mean, impossible signal aside, WHAT CALL could possibly be important enough to answer when you're scaling an icy cliff thousands of feet in the air?

ALEXA: Hello
CALLER: Hello, Alexa, it's your mother.
ALEXA: Oh, uh, hi Mom…listen, this isn't the best time.
CALLER: Oh it's NEVER a good time for you, is it? I mean, I'm only your mother…
ALEXA: Mom, don't do this…
CALLER: Oh, poor Alexa. I only carried her in my womb for 9 months, and then went through 18 hours of agonizing labor…but she's too busy to talk to me…
ALEXA: Look, Ma, I love you, but this REALLY isn't the best time…
CALLER: It's NEVER the best time! At least your BROTHER calls. Do you remember him? Your brother?
ALEXA: Mom, I don't mean to be rude, and I love you, but right now, I'm hanging by an ice-pick over a bottomless chasm in Nepal. I REALLY can't do this right now.
CALLER: Oh, how you LIE, Alexa! How would your phone WORK if you were over a bottomless chasm in Nepal?
ALEXA: I've got to go.
CALLER: And why would you answer it? It's like you're pretending to be a character in a really bad movie or something…
<CLICK>

"Mmmm...hungry...scent of sexy lady making me drool..."

Of course, it's not actually her mom. It's someone who wants to hire her for some expedition in the Antarctic. Yet, she continues climbing (she's on hands-free, you see) and insulting this guy, saying she'd never come and work for his company. Then she reaches the top, and the smug bastard is sitting right there waiting for her. So, to sum up…he PHONED her, she almost DIES answering, she talks to him while climbing an ice face, cheating certain death…and the whole time he's just a couple of hundred feet away. It's not like he couldn't have just WAITED THERE for her to finish. The second piece of evidence that Alexa is borderline retarded is the fact that she doesn't toss him right off that fucking cliff.

Now, when the first five minutes of your movie are THAT STUPID, you'd think that there would be nowhere to go but up, right?

Oh wrong. Dead wrong. You couldn't be more wrong if you were on the OJ jury.

Alexa goes to meet with this "crew" in the Antarctic on a gi-normous (I can make up words if I want) ice-breaking vessel. There, she meets the head of this mysterious company, Charles Bishop Weyland (Henrisksen). Now, since this is set in modern times, and the Alien movies are set in the future, we also see a magazine that proclaims Weyland as the father of modern robotics. This is SUPPOSED to tell us that:

1) Since he's the father of robotics, and his name is "Bishop", THIS is why the "Bishop" android of the later Alien movies looks just like Henriksen.
2) He's a billionaire, and the name of the "company" in the Alien movies is the Weyland-Yutani Company. So that's another link.
3) When we see him playing with a letter-opener between his fingers, it's a nod to the famous knife-finger game that the Bishop plays in the "later" Alien movies.

However, all it REALLY tells us is that Lance Henriksen really needs work.

He's not a passenger on the cruise, folks...he's here to bring you your drinks

It seems like their satellites over Antarctica have discovered a heat signature about 2000 feet below the ice. From what they can tell, there's an enormous pyramid below the ice that has features from Egyptian, Cambodian, and Aztec architecture. By the way, these same satellites that can detect architectural structures thousands of feet below the surface are completely incapable of detecting the spaceships that are orbiting the planet and crashing to earth. Cheap pieces of shit.

So Weyland has assembled this big ol' team of scientists and mercenaries to go to the site, dig it up, and lay claim to what could be the Most Important Find In History. And Alexa has to lead them to it so they don't die. No pressure or anything, honey.

When they get there, they notice 2 very odd things. One is the fact that the pyramid is directly below a whaling station that has been abandoned for exactly 100 years. The other is a huge tunnel that has been drilled from the station to the pyramid below…one that wasn't there 24 hours before. Now, I could get really nitpicky and point out that this "drilled tunnel" is simply a big length of corrugated pipeline with "ice" glued to it, but that would rob you of one of the biggest laughs in the movie.

"Okay...here's our contracts. How do we get out of them?"

Ah, fuck it. Yes, they're trying to pass off a length of corrugated pipeline as a "drilled tunnel". And yes, everyone in the theatre laughed…just like they laughed at every other lame thing that had happened over the previous 15 minutes. Everyone in the theatre - man, woman, and child - was laughing about what a lame insult to the intelligence this movie was. And people say that the Olympics bring people together…(thanks to SP for that joke, by the way.)

Then they slowly, carefully lower themselves down this tunnel, which is drilled at a perfect 30-degree angle. IDIOTS. This thing is covered in ICE, and - as we soon find out - it's really easy to just SLIDE DOWN. It's the perfect waterslide…but no, these losers have to pick their way down. The movie is so bad that they're not even letting the CHARACTERS have any fun!

They finally get down to the cavern, and fire up some Klieg Lights and flares because it's dark as hell down there. I point this out because, later in the movie, characters are running around the INTERIOR of this pyramid, with NO light sources, and it simply seems a little dim. Dim like the mind of Anderson when he was making this turd.

When it finally gets illuminated, we see it for the first time. And it's about the size of a 3-story office building made of Lego. Big fucking deal. But then, in the VERY NEXT SCENE, we see our "heroes" climbing the stairs of this thing like ants trying to get to the top of the Empire State Building. This guy has NO sense of scale.

"Hey pal. there's another urinal over there. Use it or wait your turn..."

Once they get in there, they soon find themselves in a "sacrificial chamber". There's a bunch of human skeletons on stone beds with their chests broken open. Yet, this doesn't seem to bother anyone. Folks, if I'm ANYWHERE where there are human remains that seem to be the result of brutal internal violence, I'm not going to raise an eyebrow and say "That's peculiar"…I'm fucking OUT OF THERE. Call me a pussy if you want…I don't care. We'll see whose chest is intact later, pal.

Meanwhile, one of these future corpses steps on the classic "panel in the floor". You've seen it in Scooby Doo…Fred or Velma walks through the haunted castle, steps on a loose stone, and then all of a sudden poor Scooby and Shaggy have to run for their lives because something's been triggered. Usually the bad guy is old Mr. McGillicuddy, the amusement park owner. THIS time, it raises an Alien Queen out of some sort of deep-freeze suspended-animation chamber. She doesn't seem to be all that happy, either. If you think about it, she's probably been hanging out down there with Ted Williams for a while…you'd think the change of pace would be nice.

But no…she just complains a lot and gets to birthin' babies…or, in this case, laying eggs. Considering that there's nobody around to knock Her Majesty up, you might think that's it's odd that she just starts squeezing offspring out. That's because it's horseshit. Either that, or down in the deep freeze, Williams has been treating Her Majesty to his "Splendid Splinter".

Jimmy thought he had won the Church's annual easter egg hunt. He was wrong.

They find some other chamber, which is apparently some mystical Aztec something or other…it doesn't matter. But it appears to have some sort of time-telling device on it. One of the eggheads who can read Aztec thinks it would be a great idea to set this thing to 10-10-2004, which is "today's date". This comes as bizarre news for any of us with a high-school education. Who knew that the Aztecs followed the Gregorian calendar? That's just CRAZY!!!

When he does it, this big ol' sarcophagus-type thing opens up in front of them. Inside are three things that look like guns. Being unable to resist the allure of picking up ancient firearms, they pick them up. And that's when all hell breaks loose.

Okay, in a nutshell, this pyramid is the "training ground" for Predators. They would get human sacrifices to act as hosts for the Alien facehuggers. Then, the Predators have to hunt and kill them. And these poor saps have stumbled into the middle of it. This means a bunch of them are the "human sacrifices," although they don't really know it. They will soon enough. Once a big crab-like thing attaches itself to your face and rams it's ovapositor down your chest, you HAVE to know something's up. That almost NEVER happens.

Of course, this being a horrible abomination of a "prequel", everything you know about Aliens means nothing. Remember back when it was John Hurt being used as a host? Remember how he had that thing on his face for a couple of days, he got better, and then a few days later the thing came out of him? And then, as it slowly picked off the crew, it got bigger and bigger? Not this time. In ANDERSON'S movie, these things go from egg - to face hugger - to chest-bursting baby - to full grown Alien in less than 20 FUCKING MINUTES of movie-time.

"It appears that we're looking at the remains of the last person who tried to make this a decent movie..."

Oh, and one other thing…the walls in this pyramid shift every 10 minutes. One egghead explains that it MUST be every 10 minutes because the Aztecs used a metric-style system of time, so it would HAVE to be in multiples of 10. Now, it's never explained how the Aztecs (or Predators) managed to decide that it would be 10 units of 60 FUCKING EARTH-SECONDS. I guess it goes back to them using the Gregorian calendar that hadn't been invented yet.

Oh, one other thing…the Predators are there too, and they want their guns back. Happy hunting!

There are so many god-awful things wrong with this movie that I don't know where to start. For a guy who claims he knows every Alien and Predator movie, he really seems to have taken liberty with them. Then again, he takes an awful lot of liberty with things like historical fact, science, and logic as well, so I'm not all that surprised.

I'm already way over my word-count here, so I'm going to keep this brief. This is a horrible movie. If I were to point out every flaw in this movie, I'd be here until Christmas. If you want a FULL list of the problems, email me.

"Well you can tell by the way I use my walk I'm a wanted man...no time to talk."

But I think I've done enough for now. Let me just add one more thing…it seems like the Predators and Aliens actually founded the WWE. Because when they go at it, they're not fighting…they're RASSLIN'! Except every once in a while, when the Predators bust out those big, spiky blade wheels from Krull. It's just painful to watch. The performances are lousy, the writing is pathetic, and the direction is ham-handed. There are a couple of fight scenes that are actually somewhat entertaining (hence the 1 instead of the 0), but even those few scenes can't make up for the image of a Predator swinging an Alien around like a lasso, slamming it into walls. The only thing missing was the Predator giving the Alien the People's Elbow.

I'm not going to tell you not to see this movie. Then again, I'm not going to tell you not to stick your hand in a toaster either. You should pretty much just know better.