AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004) Review

In 1989 a comic book series came out titled Aliens vs. Predator, it was written by Randy Stradley and Chris Warner, and it became a pretty big hit. Having two huge horror sci fi icons in one major crossover event was a must read for every nerd back in the day, so plans of adapting the premise into a movie were inevitable. It took more than ten years and a couple more movies in both franchises for it to get made but eventually it was released in 2004. It's rare for this type of crossover versus movies to happen, so the fact that it exists is a small miracle.

The source of the crossover.

Resident Evil (2002), Mortal Kombat (1995) and Event Horizon (1997) director Paul W. S. Anderson was tasked to bring the monster brawl to the big screen. He was a near perfect choice considering that he was one of the young filmmakers inspired by the original movies, and it's very evident throughout his career as he often recycles and references the classic moments from Alien (1979) or Aliens (1986) as well as character archetypes and tropes that became prominent after the release of the first two films. Obviously, this film would focus more on action than in scares and would attempt to be bigger in scale than the original ones.

Needless to say, Anderson's approach was not met with praise upon release as a lot of people considered it too silly of a concept to take seriously and fans expected a more faithful movie when it came to the tone and story of the originals, but they instead got a very different experience, one that prominently consisted on action thrills instead of sophisticated and realistic terror. However, once you understand Anderson's popcorn and hyperactive approach you can let yourself loose in the kinetic experience and enjoy the non-stop spirit of pure entertainment he delivers.

A wealthy industrialist hires experts and researchers to investigate a strange ship that crashed in the middle of Antarctica. Among the group we have the knowledgeable guide Alexa Woods, played by Sanaa Lathan, who aids the group of people through the snowy land. Once they reach the site, they find themselves in the crossfire of an intergalactic battle between the deadly Predators and the fatal xenomorphs. Alexa must then join forces with the extraterrestrial race of hunters in order to survive the battle. 

Paul W. S. Anderson brings his best spectacle-making skills to the project, narrating a quick and fast rollercoaster of pure comic book action without any other ambition than to be the biggest and most exciting blockbuster of it´s year. I would say that he accomplished it. Because of its simplicity, the heavy lifting of the storytelling is mostly done by shot composition, camera placement and movement, color coding, lighting and editing; something that people expecting a more novelistic type of storytelling filled with plot and dialogue might find disappointing. Anderson created a machine that runs perfectly and smooth, easy to watch and hard to forget. 

A wise decision was to make things start relatively fast and rejoice in the expanded lore the Alien and Predator universes were given in their sequels. It would have been very uninteresting to see yet another Alien rip off with Predator joining in, so instead of scares and mood, the film opts to go the Aliens route and deliver the goods as well as it can. These monsters were icons by 2004, so keeping them hidden for most of the movie would have been a terrible choice. Instead, Anderson shows them without overdoing it, slowly revealing their part in the story and properly accommodating the creatures in order to make all the pieces come together and unleash all the mayhem at the midway point.

Agathe de La Boulaye as Adele Rousseau, another action girl in the movie.

The film has an unrelenting pace and never runs out of fuel, it simply keeps growing and growing until it reaches an explosive climax. Even the set up manages to be interesting because the script never tries to disguise the intention of making a simple movie, no time-wasting info dumps or exposition lines about a character's full backstory, since they will get killed off eventually. The script reveals just enough about the people to make you slightly care about them but they are mostly functional pawns to get to where the film needs to be. 

The main heroine, Alexa, works in the same way Ripley worked. She's a woman of mystery, an expert and likable gal but we don't get a lot of unnecessary information that could ruin her character, no need to explain what doesn't need to be overexplained, she's just cool and relentless. There's also no forced romance in the movie, something that often ruined decent scripts in blockbusters at the time, especially with female characters. 

The image of her taking the xenomorph´s remains and using them to create a shield and a spear to fight alongside the predator is just magnificent. It's the type of creative fantasy element that often appears in W.S Anderson´s films, always making memorable images. 

I also enjoy how it delves deep into the lore of both franchises. The fact that Alexa manages to prove herself to the predators and ending up being respected by the advanced alien race is something quite astounding, it was done way better here than in Predator 2, specially because battling the xenomorphs was a greater challenge due to their numbers and dangerous nature.

Alien vs Predator is one of the ideal popcorn flicks of it´s time, never slow, always moving and presenting insane action set-pieces that seem very worthy of both franchises. Its non pretentious attitude is what made it work, putting it in a higher tier than the likes of Alien 3 but below the classics it spawned from. I am sure even Anderson would agree that this is something completely different in tone and scope, you can tell just by reading it´s title. 

The film utilized a few of the elements inspired by the comic but nothing too direct. Alexa, for example, could be seen as a character based on Machiko, but in reality both follow in the tradition of the Alien franchise having leading heroines, so it's not a simple swap, they are very different characters at the end of the day.  I will add that having a black female action lead was a very bold move, something that to this day is absent from mainstream blockbusters, almost as much as a female Asian lead, so either choice would have been very progressive. 

As a whole, both the comics and the movie are different beasts. We might take a look at the comics next year, but for now these are all the leftover Alien movies I plan to spotlight in the blog. The rest of the Alien movies do feature strong female characters but they are not really full-on action heroines like the ones from the original movies who were the main characters and were far more active physically in the story. I might feature Alien Romulus but we will see.  

The rest of the month I will review other spooky classics, so stay tuned.