I fear the dog days of the summer movie season are upon us.
Gone are the spectacle “event” movies and now we get
the leftovers, the movies that studios were not betting heavy
on to begin with. One would think that such a high concept movie
like “Alien vs. Predator” would be a sure-fire hit,
since fans have clamored to see installments in both series separately,
but after seeing this debacle, I doubt it. Instead of the intensity
and chills of the first two “Alien” movies or the first “Predator,” “Alien
vs. Predator” is more on par with “Leprechaun 5: Leprechaun
in the Hood.”
The plot, which is quite thin, is this: Charles Bishop Weyland,
played by Lance Henriksen, who played Bishop in “Aliens” and
Bishop II in “Aliens III,” is a rich man who has a
satellite floating over Antarctica. When a heat bloom lights
up a pyramid under the ice, Weyland assembles a crack team to
get down to the pyramid and explore it. The team gets down there
but doesn’t realize that it was a trap set by Predators.
What follows is basically a “haunted pyramid under the ice” movie,
where the walls shift and the aliens wake up and pick off what
seems like dozens of superfluous characters that no one could
possibly care about. Of course, what the aliens don’t kill,
the Predators do. The film is rated PG-13, so the gore is kept
to a minimum.
“Alien vs. Predator” was written and directed by Paul
W. S Anderson, who actually isn’t a hack. Anderson wrote
and directed the surprisingly effective “Resident Evil,” which
is another type of maze-like haunted house movie, and also sat
at the helm for “Event Horizon,” which was a creepy,
haunted spaceship movie. The problem with this film is that Anderson
forgot that good horror needs good people. Secondary characters
in horror movies are basically human chum, but for a movie to
be moderately interesting there has to be at least one or two
characters the audience cares about. “Alien vs. Predator” failed
because the audience could not connect or get behind Henriksen’s
dying billionaire looking for one last adventure, nor could they
rally behind the ice expert Lex, played by Sanaa Lathan (“Blade,” “Out
of Time”).
The premise was promising and the idea of a pyramid that becomes
a shape-shifting labyrinth is great, but I think that few people
care about who would win in a death match between aliens and
Predators. In 2003’s “Freddy vs. Jason,” each
monster brought considerable skills to the table and their stories
and motives for why they are the way they are, are well known
to horror aficionados. The question of who would win in a battle
was debated for years, much like the debate of Batman vs. Superman,
and though the movie was uneven and left much to be desired,
there were some great moments. This move had no such moments.
Aliens kill either by popping out of one’s chest or by piercing
one with either their tail or (and I hope you’re not reading
this during breakfast) a smaller alien that comes out of their
mouth. Predators use weapons and can camouflage themselves. Neither
of them talk and their reasons for hunting people down are unknown.
At least Freddy and Jason have a twisted take on revenge propelling
them through endless sequels. How this movie ties in with their
predecessors, I’ll never know and I don’t really care.
The tag line for “Alien vs. Predator” is “Who
ever wins, we lose,” yet it ends up choosing a side and
then hoping the audience goes along with it and roots for that
side as well. This was a poor choice by Anderson, who should
have known that nobody really cares what happens in Antarctica.
Had he shifted it to the North Pole and had the personality challenged
cast protect Santa and his elves, we might have had a movie here.
I like bad horror movies almost more than anyone else, but I
just couldn’t get behind this film. In fact, the biggest
disappointment is that this is the type of thing that Henriksen,
my boy from “Millennium” has been reduced to. Sure,
he gives a shout out to his Bishop character early in the film,
but this is the man who starred in such ‘B’ horror
movie classics as “Near Dark,” “Pumpkinhead,” and
the hilarious “Man’s Best Friend.” He deserves
better and so do you. Do yourself a favor and rent one of those
previously mentioned movies or rent Anderson’s much better “Resident
Evil.”
