Cast:
Sanaa Lathan (Alexa "Lex" Woods), Raoul Bova (Professor Sebastian De Rosa), Lance Henriksen (Charles Bishop Weyland), Ewen Bremner (Dr. Graeme Miller), Colin Salmon (Maxwell Stafford), Tommy Flanagan (Mark Verheiden), Carsten Norgaard (Rusten Quinn), Joseph Rye (Joe Connors), Agathe de La Boulaye (Adele Rousseau), Sam Troughton (Thomas Parks), Petr Jákl (Stone), Liz May Brice (The Supervisor), Karima Adebibe (Sacrificial Maiden), with Tom Woodruff Jr (The Alien / "Grid") and Ian Whyte (The Predator / "Scar") Directed by Paul W. S. Anderson (#1670 - Mortal Kombat)
Review:
Well, we have now moved into the next phase for two separate film franchises, and it's interesting to consider how it affected the quality of each over the prevailing next few years. Alien (1979), if you recall, was a series of four films that had four distinct visions of people being terrorized in space (each starring Sigourney Weaver), whether involving a gradual build in terror like the first film, or a segue into action-horror with the sequel, or whatever the idea was supposed to be for the third and fourth movies. Predator (1987) is a different story (written by Jim and John Thomas). The first one was pure sci-fi action, one carried by Arnold Schwarzenegger and other folks generating bravado for a well-done experience. I honestly can't really remember the second film, which either might mean it is due for a re-consideration, or it just means that it was forgettable enough to have killed further attempts more sequels about the predator and its hunt. Both franchises would also see follow-ups come in the years that followed this (Alien went to the past while Predator had two films released eight years apart that had soldiers banding together to take down modified predators). To be technical, the inspiration for doing a crossover came first within comic books, because a series was done that crossed the two franchises that was released in 1989 by Dark Horse Comics; further stories would be released by the company over the next two decades that also involved video games (of course there was also a tease in the aforementioned Predator 2). Got all that? Good, because you get a crossover between the two franchises with people that are seemingly designed to just get gobbled up for fodder while involving temples hidden in Antarctica. Anderson was responsible for the screenplay while co-writing the story with Ronald Shusett and Dan O'Bannon (writers of the story for Alien).
Maybe the only ringing endorsement of the film that means anything is from James Cameron, who described it as the third best film of the Alien movies. Of course he initially thought the idea was akin to Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (which irked him enough to where he had stopped trying to do a script for a potential fifth film), so take that for what it is worth. Besides, Alien: Resurrection (1997) might actually be more interesting, comprised of goofy narrative decisions to go with hyper-extended acting/acting choices. There are two reasons to probably see the movie: seeing the fight sequences to override a thin plot, and Henriksen show up for nearly an hour. Of course I am talking about the unrated version when it comes to said violence, because why would you watch the original (PG-13 rated) version? The original lasted 101 minutes, while this version has an increased runtime of eight minutes, which adds little moments of story (like an opening in 1904 Antarctica) alongside shots of CGI blood added in to certain shots. In that sense, the action sequences are fairly decent, since one is mostly looking at performers at work and not too much CGI wrangling that makes for useful grimy moments. Lathan does okay here, in that everyone around her is a wax figure waiting to be melted down, which is very okay for the obvious final leftover. Bremner and his instantly-doomed presence (uh huh, take photos before you get started with the mission) is probably the only other presence to note, because face it, you are sort of chuckling when it comes to dinner time for the creatures in the dreary pyramid. Henriksen is cut and dry in what is needed in a spot designed for a familiar presence, one that you know exactly where it is going to go but enjoy because it is a reliable actor involved.
The comparison to the aforementioned Frankenstein crossover is interesting, but perhaps a more apt comparison would be Freddy vs. Jason (2003), which also took a number of years to finally do a monster mash that involved character you couldn't remember if they wore name tags before being vanquished (of course that movie also fudged with basic qualities such as geography, so there's that). Man is this a bleary movie to watch. Making a movie that lives to the title really isn't a high bar to clear, but you have to be kidding with this, right? The aforementioned Predator movie may be a macho extravaganza, but one always has the feeling of excitement when it comes to the actual action that just never hits with this feature; conversely, there are no moments that reach the level of Aliens (1986) when it comes to ripping tension in action with the creatures, probably because there isn't a single moment of shock when it comes to building camaraderie between its characters before the terror hits (i.e. there isn't a Hicks parallel one is curious to see again). I guess it really depends on what one is desiring for a movie about predators that gave humans pyramids to build while doing a hunt every century to take down Xenomorphs with human hosts - and they have the perfect solution if they end up as losers. At least the idea to have a focus on a predator for longer than a few minutes is interesting, but the cynic in me thinks a film that just features predators and Xenomorphs without much dialogue might be a better experience (in that I would endorse it driving other folks nuts). Overall, it is a movie that rides hard on how much one really wants to see monsters fight with the bare minimum involved that obviously found a favoring with the audience it wanted to warrant a sequel with Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem three years later. So yeah, it is incredibly average, but it might be good to doze off too before the creatures wake you up. Oh well...
Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.
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