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by Willie Waffle

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 Alien Vs. Predator

I just returned from a midnight screening of the film since critics in DC (and elsewhere according to reports I have read) were not given a chance to see the movie before opening day. Now, I know why. Who is the big winner in Alien Vs. Predator? Everyone who avoids going to see the film. Not only do you save $9.50, you avoid a night of disappointment.

Sanaa Lathan stars as Alexa Woods - an expedition leader hired by a huge corporate magnate, Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henriksen), to lead a group of experts on an exploration in Antarctica. The Weyland Corporation has discovered a huge pyramid built 2000 feet below the ice, and Weyland wants to know what is inside (hopefully something historic, since the CEO wants to be remembered for more than his company). Once the crew gets there, they learn about another group of people in the same area who disappeared 100 years earlier. Then, they discover something shocking and frightening in the pyramid. It's full of man-eating aliens, who are fighting against hunters with other-worldly powers.

Why are they fighting? Who are the good guys? Who will win? Can they be stopped before they get to the surface and take over the earth?

Where are governors Arnold and Jesse when you need them? I guess they didn't have time to bleed.

Alien Vs. Predator elicits more laughs and chuckles than chills and thrills. Made much like a B-movie, the script is sparse, the special effects are cheap and the actors find themselves wrapped up in stereotypical characters who die in new and mundane ways, one at a time for dramatic effect. Alien Vs. Predator's biggest disappointments are the inevitable, and highly anticipated showdowns between the aliens and the predators.

Anyone familiar with science fiction movies, or movies in general since the late 1970's, knows the origins of the Alien and Predator characters. Each has spawned a successful movie franchise (Sigourney Weaver in Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Alien: Resurrection. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura in Predator). Then, they were combined into a very popular comic book series. However, if there was one thing that was true in all of the Alien movies, all of the Predator movies and the Alien Vs. Predator comic books, it was the toughness and amazing fighting abilities of the lead characters. Sadly, this movie doesn't show us much of the mind-blowing skills we saw in those films.

Writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson seems to be compensating for poor special effects by avoiding any long looks at the predators or aliens in action, and staging the action in a very dark setting, which makes it even harder to follow. We get plenty of close-ups on the aliens' drooling mouths baring sharp, nasty teeth, and we see the predators stalking around with their way-too-cool dreadlocks, but bulky, phony looking suits of armor. This is the most disappointing aspect of the movie.  The Predators, because we can get a very good look at them, are taken down a notch.  They don't seem as imposing.

When it comes time to see the big fights, which take almost an hour to come to fruition, Anderson doesn't focus the camera on the movements and resulting gore. The gore is non-existent to get a PG-13 rating, and Anderson gives us too-brief glances at each combatant instead of following the fluid motion of a well-choreographed battle spotlighted by effective lighting. A few times, we see a full body shot of the aliens, but not in a way that demonstrates their combination of power and flexibility, while the predators look weighed down by their shoulder pads and face masks.

The comic book stores may be empty, and your company's IT department may have taken the day off to see Alien Vs. Predator, but this is barely good enough for the overzealous fans, and dreadful for the rest of us.

½ Waffle (Out Of 4)

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