*** Official ALIEN VS. PREDATOR Review Thread (1 Viewer)

Just returned from the midnight premiere. Alien vs. Predator is a difficult film to review. For me, films like this are hard to rate because I find I need to be reminded that this film is not trying to be Schindler's List.

I loved the original Predator from 1987 with Ahnuld. It's become a sci-fi action classic for me. One of Ahnuld's best. I also loved Alien & Aliens. Those films were well made and scared the crap out of me too. For the most part those films had good dialogue and good enough characters to make you believe in the craziness going on screen. They also had top-notch effects even for 1979, 1986, & 1987.

AvP is not nearly as good as the above mentioned films. But it's not bad either. I went in with hopes of liking it since I was a fan but deep inside wasn't expecting much.

The best moments are when the Predators are fighting the Aliens. There are some really cool moments when they are both on screen.

There are also some moments that were fairly cheezy too...When the Predator and female lead (can't remember her name) become partners there was some moments of serious cheez & groans.


I kept thinking I would have gone in a different direction than that. But like I said, I enjoyed AvP more than I thought I would.

At times, some bad dialogue and predictable moments. Other times though there are great scenes involving the creatures that are just cool.

I haven't liked any of Anderson's films to date either.

This is still hard to rate, but I give it a generous
:star: :star: :star: out of :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:

As expected, the sound mix was excellent.

0/5, Horrible movie. Almost dozed off a few times, laughed my ass off at the lame factor, and overall made me want to forget how to think.

I previewed this down at the cinema I work at and this is clearly a case of what should have been. The backstory is there, the cool as hell premise, but nothing works out. The whole thing just didn't live up to the name of Alien vs. Predator.

There wasn't even that many fights between the characters


I also found the camera work to be shoddy. Some shots looked too zoomed in (super 35 probably) and the fight scenes were too mishandled to clearly tell what was going on.

:star: :star: 1/2 out of :star: :star: :star: :star:

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Edited by Gruson - 8/6/2009 at 07:50 pm GMT

I was not disappointed; it was as bad as I had expected. Having said that, it was also vapid and silly. But to avoid sounding too harsh, it was a total waste of my time. Fortunately, however, it was unable to diminish at all my absolute love for the first two films in the Alien series, nor my respect for the Predator.

0/5

Thanks for the review Gruson. Looks like your assessment is pretty close to mine. I was beginning to think I was the only one who kind of liked this film, and was starting to doubt myself.

Certainly not the best sci-fi/action film I've ever seen and indeed has some real flaws, but it was kind of fun and cool at times.

There are no secrets to this film. The only point is seeing an Alien fight a Predator.

Imagine this. A director thinks it's a very cool idea to see people repel through a window and come crashing in with guns blazing. Then you notice the window is three feet off the ground. It's obvious it's three feet off the ground but the director/movie makers don't care (better yet, doesn't even occur to them) because they actually believe the audience will disregard the obvious stupidity because they are overwhelmed by the coolness of the whole scene.

That sums it up. But I like some well known turkeys out there, so enjoy.

Whew, a cash grab of non-monumental proportions.

Didn't care who lived or died, didn't care for the back history of predators, aliens, and humans tied together. For most of the last 2/3 of the film, folks are just running and gunning for their lives. Ho-hum.

I give it 1 star, or a grade of D.

Yeah, this is somewhere right above "Mortal Kombat: II" and slightly below "Mortal Kombat: I" as far as movie making. D-

Yes, lame attempt at a cash cow. Did like the bit with Weyland doing Bishop's knife trick, most everyone in the theater laughed at it. The only other cool moment was seeing the queen standing tall and running full steam, unlike being contained as in Aliens.

:star:

This movie was horrible. Need I say any more...


the part that really made it lame for me was the lead female character. HORRIBLE and the fact they have her team up with the predator....good freaking lord.......





From the slow motion fight scenes and the slow motion flying alien spider creatures.......horrible....

R~

I didn't think this movie was as bad as some make it out to be. The actions scenes were very good and the movie kept my attention.

However, when are film makers going to learn that when you have interesting characters with a good story, you increase your chances of having a great movie, and you'll sell more tickets.

Also, why not learn from the first two Alien movies, Predator, and Predator 2 (it had Danny Glover) and hire top notch actors. They don't have to be stars, but jeez, look at the lineup in Alien.

I felt the female lead was bland and not interesting. They would have been better off giving that role to the blonde.

All of these movies I've named gave the characters a bigger back story. You got to know them. In this movie, the actors were just fodder for the monsters.

Not quite as bad as I thought it would be. I give it

B-

It started off interesting, but once they were in the temple it went down hill from there. To many cliche characters, choppy uninteresting fight scenes, lame cliffhanger moments.

Though the hybrid alien that sprung from the predator's chest was pretty funny.

I really liked the Character Alexa Woods, played by Sanaa Lathan. She was the only human that I cared for and could get behind. The rest of the characters didn’t due much for me; I started to like the woman with the gun but her screen time was short.

Visually I think this movie was great. It had the look of a top notch Sci-Fi flick with great lighting and nice sets. I don’t know who is uglier the alien or the predator without its helmet. I thought both were visually fine and their movements didn’t seem too ridiculous as in Van Helsing.

This movie has great sound dynamics with soft passages that lead to crescendos that make those of us with separate amps drool. This should be a great demo DVD when it’s released.

The predators are really cool utilizing multiple hunting weapons of various powers to dispatch the alien foes. I really could just watch a movie about them hunting various creatures throughout an entire film. The main predator is sort of Bruce Lee like with a confident cockiness about him; he almost dares the aliens to attack him from the rear. The aliens are no pushovers and have plenty of time to show their never-ending amounts of will.

The PG-13 rating is the real downer on this one. It seems like the ratings board just butchered it for TV. The quick camera cuts from any decent amount of violence is sickening. When a person gets killed it happens so fast I didn’t even remember who it was in the dark that died. I am ok with removing non-essentials from a movie but give them a grisly death for god’s sake. Also the camera is zoomed in so close to the violent scenes that it’s hard to tell what's happening.

The story is rushed, and is in too much of a hurry to get to the final battle. Because of this the crew never had screen time to become anything but live bait. I would have liked to spend more time with them in different situations before the final act.

I think with the addition of gruesome well-shot deaths, a better-written middle act and a more confident pace this could have been a real winner.

C

If you go in expecting this to be on the same level as a James Cameron or Ridley Scott (or even John McTiernan) film, you are going to be disappointed. It's not. But if you go in expecting a fun B-movie, you might find yourself enjoying it.

I went in hoping at best for it not to suck, and actually found myself clapping and hooting & hollering several times. Imagine my surprise--a fun flick!

:star::star::star: out of :star::star::star::star:

I knew this wasn't gonna' be a complete waste by the movie playing on a TV early in the film: Frankenstein meets the Wolfman! A nod to a past film of which AVP is the modern equivalent.

TERRIBLE! 0/5 stars.

Complete WASTE of what was once a classic pair of movie monsters.

Don't waste your time!!

"found myself clapping and hooting & hollering several times. Imagine my surprise--a fun flick!"
---Don't get out much do ya...

OK I saw this this after noon and I kinda Liked it. Now C'mon I went to see a movie called Alien Vs. Predator. I was'nt expecting Macbeth. It certainly was no worse than Predator 2 and I kind of liked that film. Do I think they could've come up with a more Grand Plot, sure but the characters of both the Aliens and the Predator was true to the previous films. I bought the Predator would respect the Heroin at the end just as the other predators respected Danny Glover in the second by presenting him with a "Trophy" It was a fun little 90 min diversion and I can't understand the massive Vitriol being spilled here. But hey IMHO.

On the rating I did'nt think the PG-13 detracted from the film, they can really get away with that rating now aday. If anything Predator Ramped up the violence (Mostly Human) and the language a bit gratuitously

Those of you who are saying this movie deserves 0 of 5 stars and is a complete waste of time must be some of the biggest cynics of all time. This movie actually turned out to be pretty good.

The story was actually well thought out so that it wouldn't interfere with the other alien or predator movies and the premise made sense. Also, they didn't let one species dominate the other like I was expecting they would.

The special effects were pretty good, at least on par with any other alien or predator movie. My only gripe is that during the fight scenes it was very dark, and, combined with some quick view changes, made it hard to really enjoy the fighting.

A lot of people have made some ridiculous complaints about this movie. One that comes to mind are that the predators are overly big and look like bodybuilders as opposed to the more agile one in Predator. In this movie, they are wearing much more armor, in fact they are just about completely covered in it. In Predator, you can see a lot of the predator's skin, which makes it look leaner, whereas in this movie they are covered in armor - it makes sense too because of the aliens' acidic blood. Another complaint is that there isn't enough character development - I think you get enough considering that the main focus is on the battle that is going on between the species and not the humans. Yet another is that the female shouldn't have teamed up with the predator - in the comic books humans would occasionally team up with predators, so Anderson was staying true to this film's lineage.

I could go on and on and rebuke a lot of the complaints, but to me it just seems like people were expecting a religious experience. I don't know if it is hatred for Anderson, if people were expecting another Alien sequel, or if these people aren't even fans and didn't know what to expect, but these evaluations are unwaranted in my opinion. If you have followed alien vs predator comics, or just like the Alien or Predator series, you owe it to yourself to see this movie.