As far as this movie goes I was waiting for it. I was anxiously awaiting for it to arrive in theaters and I had high hopes, and then I discovered Paul Anderson was directing it, but despite that I was pretty optimistic. My general afterthought with this movie was "Meh". I know, you're saying, what the hell does that mean? Well, that's my general
reaction to mediocre movies that don't leave me with anything, and that's basically what this was. It was in no way reflective of the previous talents that worked on the movie, was not a good entry to both franchises, and would not win any awards, but... it wasn't the awful movie like "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" I was expecting. I couldn't put my finger on what exactly won me, but I had a lot of fun watching this.

I noticed that by the half hour mark this just wasn't a movie to be taken seriously in spite of the fact it does that itself. I've been waiting for the chance to watch these two bad asses go head to head, and I voted for the predators, so it was just a fun movie to sit back and chomp on popcorn with a group of friends. It's never slow, doesn't waste its time, and just gets to action that guys will like. Hardcore fans like me will take issue with a lot of the inconsistencies and flaws, but casual movie goers will just like it for what it is. Anderson does is okay here with some rather cool images. There are some scenes that impressed me such as the unveiling of the face huggers in the sacrificial chamber, the predators fighting the aliens in the stadiums, and the climax which was pretty good to look at, not to mention, my favorite scene where the battle room in the Egyptian artifact is being activated and the stealth predators are hopping from pillar to pillar. Great scene. Besides, here the predators look bad-ass with amazing gear, and weapons to take on the aliens with. Plus, this adds well to the mythology giving them a pretty sensible origin. I liked the whole set up of the Predators being hailed as gods and using the aliens as training dogs for their young warriors as rites of passage. As far as characters go, the only one I really liked was Lathan's character. I like Sanaa Lathan, she's underrated and really good looking and she's a good successor to Ripley.

This is it, folks, the two bad asses of science fiction cinema finally clash. Fans have been waiting years for the chance where we'd see them finally go head to head, and we get... this. In the right hands, with the right people, "Alien vs. Predator" had the potential to be a balls to the wall action packed epic, and that's what's sad. Throughout the whole movie, I spent a good portion of the time thinking about what could have been, what potential it had. Paul Anderson is one of those people that would make a great politician. He tells movie fans one thing and then does the other. He said this movie would be an all out balls to the wall movie and it gets a PG-13 rating, he promised an uncut R rated DVD
release for this and we never got it.

Paul Anderson said from the beginning that this was going to be based on the Aliens vs. Predator franchise, yet when filming came around, he said he'd name it Alien (singular) vs. Predator so it won't be associated with the franchise. So far fans have wised up to the fact that Anderson can not be trusted, and it's pretentious to think he can stray away from the franchise when the title basically connects to the franchise originally made regardless of what he's done. Along with Uwe Boll, Paul Anderson is one of the people ruining horror today. Yeah, I'm sure Anderson is a great guy, I've heard he's really nice and a good guy to know, but as a director I despise him. Since he botched the beloved franchises like "Resident Evil", ruined whatever possibilities "Van Helsing" had, and this, no one is certain which franchise will come into his path of destruction next. I wanted to hate this movie, and in the end I was indifferent, but this had one point already against it.

It was directed by Paul Anderson, need I say more? I ultimately realized that I couldn't take this all too seriously, and just took it for what it was, a basically very flawed and mediocre
science fiction film. It's ruined two of the best movie franchises of all time, that's for sure, but whose to blame? Fox for entrusting Anderson, or Anderson for making this lame movie? Well, I blame both, because if these people had any respect for the fans, this would have been a violent, tense, and creepy film with enough action to make us satisfied, but
no they went for the safe route... or maybe it's Fox' plan. Release the PG-13 movie and double dip on DVD giving us the R version with gore and guts. Bastards. First, Anderson is not a good writer, decent director, but no good as a screenwriter. There's not a lot of set up until we get to the actual plot at hand. Anderson surely wastes no time in taking us to what is the actual point of the movie. But it wouldn't have hurt to spend time with the characters before we got into the action, which would have made us care more for these people who were basically trade offs.

I didn't really care who died or who lived because there's nothing for us to care about in this movie. Even the main character Lex isn't much of a heroine because she's a basic rip-off of Ripley, and we don't get to know her very well. Secondly, Anderson is getting to that point where he's run out of ideas so he's now borrowing from the concepts of his own movies. This basically has the exact same mood as "Resident Evil" did. A bunch of hired men go exploring down beneath and discover a secret lair overrun by creatures and now have to find a way out, but then Anderson stole that concept from "Aliens". Anyway, there's even a three-dimensional computer map of the inside of the lair at one point that just brought me back to "Resident Evil". Thirdly, Anderson never pays up when it comes to the truly good stuff.

The dialogue is often very terrible where most of it is resorted to cheesy one-liners, and stupid plot devices (Hunter's Moon?! Are you kidding me with this?) and the only time the aliens and predators do clash, it's pretty hokey. It's often times too fast for anyone to get into, especially the climax which was pretty disappointing and rushed, and the editing is really choppy so it's hard for us to get what exactly is going on, and Anderson betrays the actual continuity and themes of the original movies and subjects us to clean off-screen kills that never really follow what the original movies paved the way for. What happened to the predators collecting the humans heads? And Anderson takes the Aliens and cuts them down for his convenience. They take a very short time to progress into adult aliens, where as in the original films, they took a long time, and what's worse Anderson has no flair for originality.

There isn't anything shown on-screen that we haven't already seen before; guys stuck in small tunnels being hunted by Aliens (Alien), aliens hunting humans, aliens immersed in the shadows, one-liners, ragtag group of humans (Aliens), the inevitable Vasquez knock-off (Aliens), a rubiks cube like dungeon (Cube), and much more. Along with that, there's the inevitability that comes with every one of Anderson's movies. The plot hole. And there's plenty of them. Has Anderson ever seen any of these movies? If by some chance the aliens trace back to the Egyptian era, then how did they get to space? And would they still be aliens if they originated from Earth? Since when can the aliens turn invisible? Why can they see the predators if humans can't? If the aliens and predators have been rumbling for centuries, how come the entire base isn't damaged from the previous battles? If the previous Egyptian base was destroyed, why is it in perfect condition?

How can the aliens' acidic blood damage the predators armor? It makes no sense. Wouldn't that be what the armor was for? Protection from the aliens' blood? It disputes the other very sloppily. And these aliens have been being bred and bred again and again for centuries to be hunted for sport, yet they think of releasing their queen *now* near the climax? It contradicts the intelligence we've seen from them in the past movies, what happened to the predators skinning humans alive and taking their heads for trophies? And worst of all, the ending, though predictable and meant to be a surprise makes no sense whatsoever. The aliens are asexual, so they can not breed sexually. When the predator bonds with the alien and is attacked by the face hugger, the alien inevitably bursts from the chest in the end. So, why did it become a hybrid? Humans would technically be another species of alien, so why has it never bonded with another human into a hybrid? It makes no sense. But then, we must remember, this is Paul Anderson, a man who has no desire to be logical in the purest sense.

I say, if you want some really good action, go out and buy Alien, Aliens, Predator, Predator 2, and call me in the morning, because this is nonetheless a pale imitation of the previous films. Despite the hokey elements, choppy editing and gaping plot holes, I had a lot of fun watching this. Don't take it too seriously, though, and you'll be entertained by what goes on on the screen, and you'll know that in the end it's nothing more than a guilty pleasure.

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