Movie Review: AVP: Alien Vs. Predator (2004)

The movie stars Sanaa Lathan, Lance Henriksen, Raoul Bova, Ewen Bremner and Tommy Flanagan.

My wife came across this film on one of our movie channels last week and, even though it was half over, thought it looked interesting. As a result of that, I decided to record it and we ended up watching the movie with our oldest daughter this past Saturday. Overall, I have to say this film exceeded my expectations.

I think the thing I really liked about this movie was the thought that went into the plot. When we first started watching this, I wasn’t sure how they were going to connect the two science fiction franchises in a way that wouldn’t be too unbelievable. But, the film managed to do just that and was entertaining as a result of it.

Another thing I really liked about this movie was the setting. The humans weren’t just on Antarctica. They were on a remote island on that region and, just in case that wasn’t enough, 2,000 feet below the ice. That, combined with the fact the pyramid they were investigating was an elaborate trap, created a surprisingly high amount of hopelessness and kept things interesting because it was hard to tell whether or not they were going to be able to find a way to escape and, even if they did, if the surviving alien species would let them live. Not to mention, even if they did survive the pyramid, they were still thousands of miles from home.

My only real complaint about this movie is it doesn’t really do a good job of connecting the franchises beyond this film. For example, if the aliens from Alien were created by the Predators specifically as a test of the latter’s skills, then why were they found in space? I suspect it maybe had something to do with the surprise ending. But, I’m not really sure and don’t know if this gets explained in another film or not.

There are some things that kind of get skipped over in this film as far as how the franchises are connected. However, overall, I thought this was a good movie. It was exciting to watch and very entertaining as a result.

My Grade: B