The special effects are great, the battles are big-time, and the dialogue isn't as awful as it sometimes gets in films like this.
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Any time you see a "versus" in a film title, you know you're in for an artificially created movie situation of the wildest sort. Throw in "AVP" (which sounds a bit like a new wrestling circuit), minimize the plot involving humans, have your star creatures throw each other around like some very ugly men in tights, and you've got a bout worthy of Madison Square Garden.
But you know what? This sci-fi monster flick isn't half-bad. It's certainly a lot better than the first "versus" films I was exposed to. I'm still traumatized by bombs like "Billy the Kid vs. Dracula" (1966) and "Dracula vs. Frankenstein" (1970). Kids were building monster models and wearing holsters back then, so of course we're all thinking, cool. But the mutant-combo films just turned out to be dumb. Happily, that's not the case here. I watched this one with my son (who thought it a much more brilliant film than I did, by the way), and it surprised me that we weren't dealing with a plot or acting on the order of "Anacondas: The Search for the Blood Orchid." Though the lines were almost as cardboard and the characters just as undernourished, they still came across as being not totally stupid in this situation . . . which, of course, is more than you can say for the situation itself.
More than a few times throughout the film my son and I turned to each other to share quizzical monosyllabic expressions such as "What?" or "Huh?" What raised our eyebrows and taxed our brains the most weren't the small things, like why is the female lead climbing a steep ice-cliff in Nepal all by herself before she's recruited to join an expedition as the guide/trainer who insists that nobody ever do anything alone? No, it was the core premise itself: that aliens were responsible for teaching humans how to build ancient pyramids long in what is now Antarctica, with the structures buried deep beneath the ice sheath. Oh, and that these aliens somehow brought other aliens there to hunt--though we're not absolutely sure what relationship all three of these groups (the Aliens, the Predators, and the Humans) really have to each other. We also exchanged un-knowing looks when, after being frozen for a gazillion years, the Mother of all Aliens was still able to pop out eggs faster than a Pez dispenser, and those eggs hatched quicker than a fast-food drive-through can get you your order, turned into octopussy creatures that clung to your face, then get absorbed into your body in order to incubate and finally emerge through your chest. And this all happens as quickly as Disney time-lapse nature photography. But all action and sci-fi films seem to have logical lapses. You just have to roll with it.
In "Alien vs. Predator," everything starts when the satellite of an billionaire industrialist who made his fortune in robotics picks up a heat sensor in the Antarctic. So Charles B. Weyland (Lance Henriksen) assembles a hand-picked team of the top experts, most of whom are so generic that we can't identify or remember any of them. The exceptions are Henriksen himself, whose inhaler and frail state make him easy to remember; guide/trainer Alexa Woods (Sanaa Lathan), who reluctantly assumes the position; Scottish mechanical wizard Miller (Ewen Bremner), whom we like because he keeps showing everybody pictures of his kids; and Italian archaeologist Sebastian de Rosa, whom we remember for getting all worked up over a "burial chamber" in Mexico only to find a Pepsi-Cola bottle cap inside. The actor we see the most of is Ian Whyte, who was the man inside all of the Predator costumes, and those guys are certainly the most memorable. Then again, how memorable was the original "Predator"? Were it not for the element of surprise, it was just a standard attrition film, with no more plot than this has.
You could argue that it actually works for the film that so few actors and characters seem distinguishable from one another. It helps screenwriter-director Paul W.S. Anderson avoid the attrition game in films like this. You know, the guessing game over which one gets it first? Second? Third? Here, a bunch of nameless and faceless people bite the snow very quickly, and we don't really care. Is that a flaw? In traditional filmmaking, certainly. But if the whole focus is on two franchise sci-fi monsters, you could argue that the quicker you get to these creatures, the better. And you have to credit Visual Effects Supervisor John Bruno and Creature Effects Designers/Creators Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff, Jr. for some excellent work. The creatures look great, the battles are furious and fun, and an unexpected alliance near the end is the one twist that saves this film from being nothing more than a pointless battle. Lathan is so engaging as the female lead that it's easy to cheer for her. But frankly, there's not enough storyline to make us want to choose sides in the big creature battle.
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