Movie Review: Alien vs. Predator

Alien vs. Predator

The Alien and Predator franchises have both proved valuable commodities. I'm far from the only one who was scared breathless by Alien.(Remember, the movie catch phrase was, "in space, no one can hear you scream.") When Alien was released back in 1979, it was a virtually perfect marriage of science fiction and horror. The movie's success generated three sequels: Aliens, Alien3, and Alien Resurrection. I've seen and loved them all, although I freely admit that the first of the movies may still be the best. Predator, too, was unique when it was released in 1987 (and not just because it starred two future governors). The follow-up film, Predator 2, was so different from its predecessor that it almost stood alone, and it did so fairly well. Needless to say, there's been talk for years of marrying the two somehow, some way. It took the studio that owns both properties and a man who considers himself a major fan of both franchises to do the job.

Alien vs. Predator takes place in the present day - after the two Predator movies, but about 150 years before the first of the Alien movies. Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henriksen) is a very wealthy man whose curiosity and desire to have some impact on history are both piqued when a satellite suddenly notes a "hot spot" in Antarctica. Further study shows what appears to be a pyramid. Weyland uses his money and influence to very quickly put together a top notch investigative team, led by environmentalist and ice expert Alexa "Lex" Woods (Sanaa Lathan) and archeologist Sebastian DeRosa (Raoul Bova). The assembled group travels to Antarctica where they find themselves at a long abandoned whaling station which, according to their calculations, is directly above the pyramid.

When the team discovers a tunnel in the thick Antarctic ice leading directly to the pyramind beneath, there's some surprise that such a technological feat could have been managed at all let alone virtually overnight, but with a storm coming on, the team doesn't hesitate to take advantage of the lucky find. Once below the ice, Weyland's dreams of making history are realized when the pyramid turns out to be real. Exhibiting similiarties to Aztec, Egyptian, and Cambodian structures and designs, the pyramid is something all together different than anything any of them have seen before. When they begin to investigate, however, they find the pyramid is far from an artifact and that both its mechanical functions - and its denizens - are in fine working order.

Director and writer Paul WS Anderson is, as I mentioned, a serious fan of the Alien and Predator films. In fact, he claims to have seen them quite literally hundreds of times. Some of the subtleties of the script - and some of the not-so-subtleties as well - are a direct result of Anderson's formidible knowledge. For example, Lance Henriksen, who is cast as Charles Bishop Weyland in Alien vs. Predator, plays an android named Bishop in Aliens and Alien3. Bishop the android was, of course, manufactured by the same company that sent the original ship out in the movie Alien. The company? Weyland-Yutani Corporation. In Predator 2, we see briefly some of the trophies aboard the predator ship, and one of them is obviously an alien - thus we know the two species have met before. Anderson the writer gets story help from Dan O'Bannon (a name most sci fi fans will recognize from his many efforts in the movies and on television) who, as it happens, wrote Alien. Anderson's status as a genuine fan - albeit one who might be just a little obsessed - serves to ensure that Alien vs. Predator enriches the mythology of the creatures we already know rather than contradicts anything we may recall from the past movies (contradictions of established mythologies annoy the heck out of me, and I can't imagine I'm the only one for whom that's true).

Lance Henriksen is a terrific character actor. I loved him in Aliens and Alien3, and thought he was just wonderful in the television series, Millennium. Although his efforts as Weyland are a little subdued, at the same time he's all too apparently fixated on making this discovery for himself. There are reasons for both attitudes, and Henriksen makes it all believable. Sanaa Lathan is, without question, an action star. She can do all the tricks, and she can act well enough to make us believe she's scared while she pulls them off. Raoul Bova may have been the weakest performer of the three leads, but he's still okay. The backdrop for all of the action is amazing. Though the sets are dark and very, very cold, they're ominous as all get-out and richly detailed in those areas we're "allowed" to see clearly.

Obviously, despite the fact it takes awhile to see an alien or a predator onscreen, the real stars of the show are the creatures. Created mostly using animatronics rather than CGI, the effect is to make the monsters utterly real in appearance because they are real. And improvements over the years in the mechanization of movement renders them completely alive. CGI steps in for certain action scenes, but the creature monsters are largely just as real as you see them. Amalgamated Dynamics, Inc.did much of the work (and in what is obviously yet another love affair with such things, the men who formed ADI worked on the original Alien movies on the aliens there). Overall, animatronics and CGI both, the special effects are wonderful. Live action sequences include the predator referred to in the movie production notes only as "Scar." That particular predator is brought to life using the tried-and-true "man in a suit" technique. But the 7'1" athlete who wears the suit combines with the quality of the suit itself to blend seamlessly into the "reality" brought forth onscreen.

The only real fault (forget the science, such as it is - this is entertainment, not a classroom) I can find with Alien vs. Predator is that it should have been scarier. It's entertaining, to be sure, and the story holds together fairly well (though a few scene resolutions are just to obvious to be bought). And I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. But I never jumped. Not even a little, and not even once. The movie still might have been all right if it had been some other movie. But it comes from such rich stock that it seems a crying shame that it didn't do what the first Alien and Predator did, and that was scare the living daylights out of me.

POLITICAL NOTES: Alien vs. Predator is refreshingly free of evidence of government intervention, with one very notable exception. As the investigatory team is making its way closer to Antarctica, Lex comments that the frozen continent is the last place on earth where no one owns anything and that, as a result, it's truly free. I might amend that just a little to note that people can still be perfectly free when land is privately owned, but the point was still made and it's a good one.

FAMILY SUITABILITY: Alien vs. Predator is rated PG-13 for "violence, language, horror immages, slime and gore." Drawing the usual comparison between such movies and the average video game today, the movie once again comes out on the "light" side of things. There's nothing in Alien vs. Predator that the average 10 year-old kid who plays video games hasn't seen a dozen times. And, as I said, it's not really very scary. If the kids can handle some green-blooded death, a bloody alien birth or two, and alien acid, they'll be find with the movie.