Film 1 (8/21/2005)

Alien vs. Predator (2004)

Director: Paul W.S. Anderson

Has Fentablar seen this before?: No.

First, let me make something very clear: I had to get this film out of the way. Ever since I found out they were making Alien vs. Predator, I wanted to see it. I was worried that it might not live up to expectations, so I waited to hear the buzz on it. Of course, this means I avoided the film like the plague - at least until now, when I made the decision to finally see for myself.

Because I heard such horrible comments on AVP, I had very low expectations going in. As a result, it was better than I thought it would be. This does not mean that it was good, because it wasn't. It just wasn't so bad that I wanted to turn it off.

Simply put, Alien vs. Predator belongs in the Encyclopedia Cinema under the heading "Wasted Opportunity". While there were a couple moments where I caught myself saying, "oh, come on", I don't have much of an issue with the basis of the plot; it could have been done better, but I felt the concept was pretty good. The real problem with this film is that it didn't live up to its own hype. After seeing the original trailers, I expected to see some major combat between the Aliens and Predators and was SORELY disappointed. This is really where the film wasted its opportunity to give the fans what they wanted - which is really the whole reason this film was made in the first place.

Anderson could have kept practically the same plotline and extended the film to two hours instead of ninety minutes, and used the last half-hour or so to give us the big battle scene we were all hoping for. Instead, he chose to give us all the finger and reveal that the trailer clip of the huge battle scene (a shot of Predators on top of the pyramid which is swarming with Aliens) was nothing more than a few seconds of historical flashback. Very, very disappointing.

I won't even bother talking about the very last scene in the film. That was quite the load of BS, but at that point I was already disappointed.

Ultimately, this film paid more attention to the societal hierarchy of the Predators and their history with Humans than it did the combat between the Aliens and Predators.

This film was called Alien vs. Predator but should have been called All the Predator's Men.

Ratings (scale of 1 to 5):

Plot Effectiveness: 2/5. As I said, this would have been so much better if they had the battle scene that was all but promised us.

Cinematography/Shot Selection: 2/5. Perhaps sweeping views of the Antarctica landscape would have been too high-caliber for this film, but the structure-shifting sequences were done poorly and could have been so much better. In fact, I am not a skilled director but I think even I could have done a better job with that.

Overall Acting: 3/5. This film did not require any break-out performances. In fact, even were this film done really well, a break-out acting performance would have ruined it by distracting from what should have been the main focal points. So, the acting was about on par with where it should have been (but I can't give it a score higher than 3, regardless).

Score/Soundtrack: 4/5. By far the best thing in the film. Why, you ask? Because there pretty much wasn't a score at all, and this film didn't need one. Had it been done really well, it wouldn't have needed one - except for maybe a little something during the noticeably absent main battle sequence.

OVERALL RATING: 2.5/5

~Fentablar~