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Alien Vs Predator PDF Print E-mail
Written by Joe Bodia   
Wednesday, 31 December 2008 07:41

Tags: Colin Salmon | Ewen Bremner | Lance Henriksen | Paul W.S. Anderson | Raoul Bova | Sanaa Lathan

After years of development hell and a production that purportedly lasted right up until days before the actual prints were shipped off to theatres, Alien Vs Predator has finally made it to the silver screen.

Alien VS PredatorThe Alien and the Predator are two of filmdom's most beloved and feared creations, and fans have been clamoring for a matchup between the two species for years.

For some time now, you could only see this match-up on the video game screen. But thanks to some really excellent computer cinematography and the fact that Twentieth Century Fox owns the rights to both movies, now you can find yourself in the middle of it.

It's not like we really need a story for this, but here it is: A billionaire industrialist named Charles Bishop Weyland hires a team of archaeologist, scientists and security to investigate a "heat bloom" in Antarctica. Leading the group is an expert adventurer named Alexa Woods (Sanaa Lathan).

She is at first reluctant, feeling that the group is not properly ready for the mission. They discover a pyramid that looks to be the work of an ancient race, but further investigation reveals that the technology inside is many years ahead of the human race.

The group soon finds that they are in the middle of a hunt, a sort of war for sport, between two highly advanced and highly dangerous races.

AVP - Alien Vs. Predator (check out the Widescreen Edition) is directed and written by Paul W.S. Anderson, who is arguably best known for his hit Resident Evil as well as Event Horizon and Universal Soldier. Like most of Anderson's work, AVP loses focus quickly.

The basic premise of a monster battle movie really need not be terribly complicated. It would seem that, so long as you can find a competent way to set up their fight, and you do the fighting right, you're all set. AVP succeeds only partially.

The initial set-up is nothing especially interesting, but it works enough to move the story along. It takes a little longer than necessary to get to the good stuff, but this can all be overlooked as a way of building up the anticipation. That's all fine. When we do get to the Predators and Aliens, the film starts to look pretty promising.

The Aliens look great, the Predators look great and, at first, their battles are fun to watch. Unfortunately, over-stylized herky jerky camerawork makes the action very hard to follow. It gives one the feeling of watching a fight with a crowd of large people in front of you. It's like you're always trying to jump up to see over someone's head or look around someone, but you keep missing the action. But in spite of that, you'll still want to see this flick, the battle rocks!


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Last Updated on Wednesday, 07 January 2009 18:44
 

Our valuable member Joe Bodia has been with us since Wednesday, 24 December 2008.

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