AvP: Alien vs Predator [2004]
Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
Actor: Sanaa Lathan
It’s been a while since I’ve offered a movie review – in fact, it’s been a while since I posted here, period – and that’s partly because I’ve been busy, but also because I just haven’t seen that many noteworthy movies. If a movie doesn’t appeal to me, I usually won’t write a derecommendation, unless it’s really really bad. With AvP I’m not entirely sure what it’ll be yet. Having sat next to two archaeologists, I had a really good time with this film, but mostly because it’s so incredibly riddled with ridiculous shit that it becomes funny. In fact, the movie is a pretty terrible, run-of-the-mill, get-a-bunch-of-pretty-people-in-a-difficult-situation-and-watch-them-squirm, film, much like Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid is guaranteed to be terrible for the same reason.
However,…
…it is Aliens vs Predators; two of the coolest alien adversaries created on the silver screen since…forever. As everyone knows by now, the AvP is a film based on computer game. When that computer game came out around the turn of the century I was incredibly sceptical. These two, seemingly disconnected alien entities in the same game/film? Like Sigourney Weaver said; that sounds awful. But then I spoke to Veed, and he told me about the comic book. Comic book? Yeah, comic book. There’s a comic book. And the background of this comic book isn’t even half that bad. Predators use aliens for the hunt, and them as prey for their rights of passage. Kill one of these things and you’re no longer a youth; you’re an adult. Okay, interesting.
The film tells a story of a polar expedition going to excavate and research a pyramid found on the antarctic, one that’s shown up on sattelites as having a strange, unnatural heatsource. In go the researches who stumble upon what is essentially an Egyptian pyramid on steroids. Complete with sliding walls, pit-traps and rolling boulders the likes of which will make Indiana Jones salivate in glee. Essentially, the pyramid is made for the hunt; a complex labyrinth that changes every ten minutes. All meant for an exciting and challenging hunt. In the bowels of the place there’s a hostage; an Alien queen, whose soul purpose is to squeeze out pods from which facehuggers come. Facehuggers create chestbursters in almost anything they can find, and hey presto the boys can become men provided they kick the shit out of these aliens.
The film is kind of campy, but it has awoken an apetite in me to learn more about the background of this war between Aliens and Predators, so I guess it’s not all bad.
