AVP: Alien vs Predator, the movie

talk random
1

So I got to see this this weekend. To be honest, I didn’t knwo what to expect. It could be kinda cool, it coold be lame, it could be… well whats left? average. When I first heard about it being made, I was scared, but during production it seemed to be a promising flic. I still hadn’t had much high hopes for the movie but I saw it anyway :wink:

The good news is, it doesn’t suck. Its not great - it won’t be a block-buster, but I walked away fairly pleased. The pace is quick and theres enough action/suspense throughout pretty much the whole movie that there’s never a point where you feel bored or fear that things are getting slow.

The fighting between the aliens and predators (what fighting there was) was definitely made up the highlights of the movie. There were a few good, limited uses of slow motion (one which made you think matrix!) that really worked well and added to the scene. Admittedly, during one my arm shot up in the air to cheer… a little. It was a good one.

In terms of the Aliens and Predators, you really don’t learn too much about the former but get a little peak into some of the history of Predators. They make enough real-world relationships to make you go “oh… uh huh; I see,” too. Its nothing spectacular, but enough to set forth a little purpose or meaning for the species (and what they mean to us). The Aliens are just as objects - with a bad attitude, but they show their stuff too.

Overall I think it was a decent show. Nothing corny but I still laughed once or twice so it doesnt try to take itself seriously yet remains to be “cool” for either Aliens or Predator fans. I think fans of either series will get a kick out of this movie but I don’t know if it will make any favorites lists or not.

I give it a [size=4]7/10[/size]

=============== SPOILERS ===============

[includes possible spoilers]
Ok, so I have a couple of complaints.

  1. Has the temple been used before? If so, why is there no apparent damage from before? Would it be something they rebuild? If so, when? Not a big deal. Just one of those things that make you think, hey!

  2. the queen seemed like she was laying eggs exactly where she was supposed to. How did she know to do that? Kind of convenient :sleep:

  3. When the one alien got his face chopped off, why didn’t any acid come out? It seems to be shooting out anytime anything else happens. Why not then? Could it not be in the head? - no because the net-cut-head alien got his lines from acid, right?

  4. the one dude said that the mayan (I think) calendar was metric, based on tens. So he had this idea that the temple would change layout every ten minutes. Ok, but what are minutes? They divide hours in 60, not 10 or 100… and what are hours? They make up 24 divisions in the day, also not a multiple of 10. So what makes 10 minutes so valid there?

  5. they were on an island right? with land? So why was there a big cliff right next to the location of the temple that apparently went straight down into some insanely deep level of water? Shouldnt there be… more land? And if not, wouldnt the drop-off from land to water be more gradual? I dont recal the map exactly and whether or not the site was that close to water, but it seemed a little off to me.

  6. Are we to assume the queen died at the end? She just sunk in some water - and only due to a small chain. If they can survive space, being frozen for 100 years, I don’t know if the water and that chain will hold her… besides, she wont go that deep hitting LAND and all, right? :wink:

Again, these really didn’t distract from the movie but were questionable.

Observations.

  1. notice Bishop doing the knife thing between his fingers on his desk while looking at the computer? :wink:

  2. I mentioned this before, but AVP really shows it. What Im refering to is how Aliens inherit from their hosts. In Alien 3, the Alien used a dog as a host. Ripley mentioned that she thought it moved different than what she knew, and when you saw it, it was mostly always on all fours moving much like a dog would (well, if they were aliens :P) In AVP you got to see the Alien at the end with the mouth that looked like the predator. This reinforced that idea and might have revealed it to others who havent caught it before.

=============== END SPOILERS ===============

2

oooo! I nearly read the spoilers there…I don’t think it’s even out in Australia…Can’t wait! :smiley:

3

Great little review Sen… I haven’t seen the movie yet so I didn’t read the spoilers (thanks for marking them off btw).

Is it a special effects extravaganza or is there some actual story? I relize that they will need a lot of SFX because of all the aliens and predators but is it over done and not fun?

4

The effects aren’t over done at all. And there is kindof a story - its not a rish story, but it puts a method behind the madness. There’s probably just as much story if not more than any of the predator movies though maybe not as much as what you get in the Alien movies.

5

I was sorta dragged to see this last night. I wanted to see colatoral or the manchurian candidate, but the other two guys wanted to see AVP. Then I lost my ticket and almost couldn’t get in, but the ticket guy was cool and let me go.
The movie was jsut as Sen described it - it was better than I guess I expected, I didn’t get bored, and it had lots of action.

-------spoilers-------------------------------------------

I thought it was super dumb how the chick became friends with the predators… I don’t know, it sort of made sense but it seemed like to easy an out or something. Just sorta cheesy?

6

[ still SPOILing ]
I think it had to be done though. Its one of those things where they didnt want to let EVERYONE die and certainly no human had a chance by themselves. Most actually started dying off a lot faster than I thought they would. The girl was the obvious lone human survivor, and she was no “Warrior” so she kind of had to make friends. I can see it working though - you’ve seen compasion in the predators a few times in Predator 2 (the pregnant girl being left alive and letting danny glover live at the end giving him the gun); in avp too you see the predator let bishop initially live because of his condition. As predators I guess they still have a certain respect for the humans, espeically one that managed to kill an alien. :-/

7

[moreSpoilers]
Yah I agree that people died off quick, it was weird. I thought they would be in a big group for like half the movie, then split up or something, and then get picked off. REALLY suprised when that old guy (I am so bad at remembering key names and such), when he died. It was pretty early on seeming. And that he was such an idiot and was like, ‘don’t turn your back on me’. Man what a moron.
I really wish they had let the chick die in the temple. I jsut thought it too ridiculous that she became friends with the predators, even if they respected her and such. Near the end when he took off his mask, I thought they were gonna kiss. It was just too cheesy.
[/moreSpoliers]

8

lol

9

I haven’t seen the movie yet, so I didn’t read many of the earlier posts, but can one of you tell me if there’s a clear winner? (don’t tell me who, just a yes or no) And, in comparision to Freddy vs. Jason, would you guys/gals say AVsP is better or worse? I personally found FvsJ to be a movie mainly for the fans, so I can understand why others wouldn’t have liked it…what about AVsP?

10

I haven’t seen Freddy vs. Jason but I think that (well I gues this is obvious) that AVP is more for the fans, but not bias towards them. There’s nothing that is over a non-fan’s head - you can walk into this movie and enjoy what its worth not having seen any Predator or Alien movie. However, fans will certainly appreciate it more knowing more about each species and speculating just who would win and simply watching them fight. There are also little things in the movie that relate to the other movies (mostly the alien series from what I saw) that are good for the fans but non-fans wouldnt recognize. Nothing important so much to the story though - you’re not missing anything for having not recognized them.

Is there a clear winner? Why would I give that away? Thats half the fun of the movie! I will say the aliens were a little better than I expected them to be. :wink:

11

Anyone ever play with the alien toys when they were around? I friggin loved those things.

12

The ones that explode when you hit the button on their back? The ones that also took insane agility to put it back together? yeah, I had those. They ruled.

Also, I thought it a good movie. Has anyone played the game?

!!!SPOILERS!!!

Well, not really, but, if you’ve played the game, you can play as a Alien-Predator. Its the product of the face-hugger latching onto a pred. They are insanely slow, but -nigh invincible. And they look EXACTLY like that lil sonsa* that popped out of the pred’s stomach at the end.

!!!END SPOILERS!!!

Overall, I thought it was a good movie. There’s some speculation that this was released only to promote more interest in both series. Aliens 5 is speculated to be greenlit by now, and rumors are that a Predator 3 is also due to be greenlit very soon.

More importantly, AVP, along with Resident Evil:Apocalypse, should hopefully regain some of Paul W.S. Anderson’s street cred, considering the first RE was somewhat disappointing. I loved it to death, but it just left way to many plot holes. RE:A is defiantely a MUST SEE for anyone who enjoys Horror-Action. I’ve read several sneak-peek reviews of it so far, and it sounds like it’s gonna kick major ***. Oh well, I’m going off topic. Time for me to end this post.

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Guess I can’t just edit quotes, gotta actually post something…

14

I think if you read the comicbook then you would understand their relationship. The director was able to put in small reference for the readers of the series.

15

I saw thsi movie friday and to be honest it was better than i expected, i went into the theater expecting a freddy vs jason kinda thing but this movies story was great it was original and made sense, and just havng both aliens and predators fight eachother made it even better.

Let me tell you this i saw collaterall last night and me and my gf enjoyed AVp more than Collaterall.

I’ll give it a 7 as well Sen cause i didnt know what to ecpect of the flick but came out satisfied, now the wait till Resident Evil: Resurrection begins oh boy cant friggin wait
:beam:

16

If ‘they’ refers to the Aliens, then you’re talking about Independence Day. If ‘they’ refers to us (humans), then you mean that thing Ripley was in at the end of the second one, right?

Hahahaha…I’m dieing over here. The suspense is killing me.

I hate to break it to you, but it doesn’t look as scary as it looks like non-stop zombie killing lalapalooza. Granted, no ones seen it, so I can’t comment, but from the previews it looks this way.