THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM.
READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
Crossovers are a rare medium for audiences to enjoy when seeing two franchises intertwine. The 2000s was the biggest gamble to do this because it provided ideas many didn’t think would be possible. New Line Cinema made Freddy vs Jason an reality and a year later, 20th Century (Fox) Studios topped the concept with Alien vs Predator.
PLOT
The 2004 film follows Weyland Corporation CEO Charles Bishop Weyland detect a pyramid underneath the island Buovetoya, off the coast of Antarctica. Due to being terminally ill, he vows to claim the discovery in his name and assembles a group of experts to investigate. His group includes: His assistant Maxwell Stafford who is a former Special Forces officer, Alexa Woods who acts as experienced guide, archaeologists Sebastian De Rosa & Thomas Parks (Sam Troughton), chemical engineer Graeme Miller (Ewen Bremmer), Rusten Quinn (Carsten Norgaard) who leads a drilling team, and a group of armed escorts (Mark Verheiden [Tommy Flanagan], Joe Connors [Joseph Rye], Adele Rousseau [Agathe de La Boulaye] and Stone [Petr Jaki]). When arriving at a whaling station nearby, they find a newly made tunnel that directs them to the pyramid. And when they descend to explore, they quickly discover there was in fact an ancient civilization and one room leads to a sacrificial chamber. Their activity not only awakens a Xenomorph queen that's been dormant for decades and starts laying face hugger eggs, but also attracts the attention of three Predators - Scar, Celtic & Chopper - who melted the hole in the first place to begin their new hunting game. When the hunting trio reaches the whaling station, they kill Rusten and his drill team before entering the pyramid. As the humans further explore, they find plasma blasters left for the Predators, which only triggers the insights to shift to the point where most of them get separated. Adele & Thomas get stuck with other mercenaries in the sacrificial chamber and get attacked by face-huggers, causing them to give birth to new xenomorphs. When said aliens quickly become fully grown, they take Thomas & Verheiden to the same chamber where they become extra victims to the nest. Lex tries to lead the others out of the pyramid, but they targeted by the Predator trio who are able to kill Stone before another shift. When Joe gets separated too, he also gets killed by a xenomorph. Celtic quickly kills Max with his advanced spear, but he and Chopper get quickly killed by one xenomorph. During the combat between both species, the remaining survivors of Lex, Sebastian & Weyland are able to make a break for it. Scar catches up and prepares to finish them off, but only targets Weyland. He considered sparing him when discovering his illness, but when the human chooses to challenge in order to give Lex & Sebastian time to keep running, he finishes him off. At the same time. Scar is also able to kill another face-hugger and xenomorph. When taking a breather, Sebastian is able to read hieroglyphics to understand the pyramid's purpose: Predators have seemingly been visiting Earth for millennia and were originally looked at by previous humans as gods due to teaching them how to build pyramids. Earth was also used as a rite of passage for Predators to hunt the ultimate prey that were xenomorphs and humans would ritually sacrifice themselves as hosts. If overwhelmed, they would use a self destruct to wipe out all the aliens. Upon reading this, Sebastian accepts they were bait for a new rite of passage. When deciding to keep moving, he gets taken by a xenomorph to a nest. On her own, Lex gets cornered by Scar but she makes peace with him when returning the plasma blaster to him. He accepts her as an ally when killing nearby xenomorphs together and gives her fashion weapons made out of the slain aliens to better their odds. As they move forward together, they find the nest and Lex mercy kills Sebastian when finding him trapped as a host. After Scar kills his chest burster, they retreat from the remaining horde and when they evacuate through the same tunnel he made, he sets off his own self destruct that destroys the pyramid and prevents the aliens from ever reaching the surface. Scar continues to show respect to Lex by giving her a mark of a hunter symbol. Shortly after, the alien queen emerges to hunt them both. The dynamic duo is able to drown it by hooking it to a water tank and push her over a cliff, but the queen gets the last laugh by fatally stabbing Scar before falling. An elder Predator then appears to retrieve Scar's body and rewards Lex a spear out of respect to fighting by his side before departing. As she leaves, the film ends in a cliffhanger where a hybrid alien bursts from Scar's chest.
THOUGHTS
Like Freddy vs Jason introduced to two iconic slashers, this crossover introduced me to both monster franchises when I was a kid and although I had a good time watching it at that period of my life, I can't say it's aged well. It feels a given to point out since this was helmed by Paul WS Anderson who directed six Resident Evil films. The technical aspects are without a doubt the biggest strength of the movie due to making both species credible threats like they've always been. The costumes designed for the Predators have aged well as does the production design for the first pyramid that creates the intentional claustrophobic atmosphere. The VFX was indeed the most effective when making the xenomorphs. Seeing either the standard aliens or the giant queen lunge/sprint towards its prey were intense moments and seeing have their long awaited fights generally delivered. Since this story doesn't straight up follow the accuracy from the original Dark Horse produced comics, I just knew it wasn't gonna completely satisfying for anyone. There were many times that the pace picks up but slows down when we focus on the human characters and the editing is sloppy during said focus. This is one of the biggest problems because in the preceding films at this point, they do a better job in making most of them interesting. Lance Henriksen's return as Bishop was a surprise because it breaks the Alien canon big time, saying he is the real deal when he was in Alien 3. Besides that, it's much further from canon when saying the xenomorphs have already existed for millennia. Since this came out before Ridley Scott's directed prequels, it gets harder to defend any kind of timeline. Putting aside said lore, Henriksen does do a solid take on a guy who wants to make one last milestone to give meaning to his impactful life which is relatable in multiple standpoints. Surprisingly, you do respect the guy in sacrificing himself to help the others try to survive. I didn't enjoy Sebastian because Raoul Bova sadly makes him the exposition machine which is the whole point of him being an archaeologist. So I had no sympathy at all when he and the others. The only human character that I genuinely got an interest in was the final girl Lex. Sanaa Lathan was able to make it work because she made her arguably the smartest one in the room who knew the trip would've been easier when being cautious which no one else really was. I mean whenever you saw Colin Salmon as Maxwell, he was greedy as hell to the point he didn't really care of possible danger once he took the plasma blaster. She continued thinking smart by surrendering the one thing the Predators wanted which were returning said blaster and once she did that, she was set for life for the remainder of the movie. She is the only human to officially team up with a human which is pretty damn cool. And the fact she accepted Scar's culture rather than reject it, she definitely seemed the most humane protagonist to come across in the perspective of the Predator franchise, since most act out of fear however they learn their way of thinking. And with a snow plough nearby after the elder left, it's safe to assume she'll deservingly head back home safe and sound. Even with all the pros I can think of, there were way too many cons to cope with if were to make it a passable movie. Like there's so much shit that don't make sense such as Lex not hearing Max's chopper when he is about to recruit her on behalf of Bishop or even noticing it nearby. Plus, Max could've waited until she made it to the top to get her attention better than a phone call because that's already dangerous before the aliens get involved. It's even a surprise she was convinced to come to Antarctica when knowing little to nothing of the job. Since she proves to be smart in her line of work, she should've been asking a lot of questions to Max before ever getting there. Also, the Predator's ship was so close that no satellite with a camera noticed it? It wasn't camouflaging so someone should've reported that shit before the sequel became possible. If there weren't gonna be any consequences on this, the ship should've not been shown and just the laser. The same can be said on how no one saw the laser being shot from space. And what's the point of adding a stepping stone in the center of the pyramid? The Predators know it's a test so they should've put a button on the walls so that way they can get things going when they want. And Sebastian was way too lucky to get to the other room before the door closed since those things were moving way too fast for him to catch up. And how should it be possible for there hundreds of xenomorphs for the Predators to take on? If seven humans are sacrificed, that shouldn't even be possible especially there are more rooms to make up the numbers. On top of that, how the hell did the Predators even capture the queen to make the ritual even possible? The fact they pulled it off without killing it is insane and should be explored. It gets more confusing when the Predators also could've used the drill team to be sacrifices than legit prey. Also, how the hell did the queen escape the pyramid unscathed? If there really was an alternative path to escape the pyramid in time before Scar's bomb went off, we should've seen that shit. It would've been more believable than figuring out who impregnated Scar with an embryo between the queen or a facehugger. That even leaves me wondering why didn't Scar scan himself after facing the latter if is the one that did it? He could've saved his kind by killing himself and we would've spared a shitty sequel. All of this shit is worse than the PG13 violence being held back, which is insufferable due to how both franchises are known to have been previously R rated. To wrap up, Alien vs Predator is a guilty pleasure crossover for having cool action but not a better fleshed out story to enjoy. Whichever kind of fan you are, good luck with this.
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