In any film, it is important to please your core audience, that is, your key demographic. In a film franchise, your core audience already exists, so you need not waste time with character development nor with introducing the audience with the film's universe. What a film franchise does need to do, above all else, is to satisfy the audience's desire to see more of what made them come back in the first place.
When two franchises come together to make a completely new film (i.e. Godzilla vs King Kong, Freddy Vs Jason, Abbot and Costello meet the revolting blob) the resulting film is presented with the task of giving fans of both universes enough eye-candy to make them leave the theater happy.
Paul W.S. Anderson, most notable for directing the 2002 hit Resident Evil, was presented with the unenviable task of pitting Ridley Scott's Aliens against John McTeirnan's Predator; and he did a terrible job of it.
For nearly 45 minutes, Anderson subjects his built-in audience to scientists who are about as scientific as Gallagher: a trail guide, (without anyone trailing) dangling inches from the summit of a mountain to answer a cell phone, an Italian archaeologist who, after months of excavating an ancient ruin with toothbrushes and pipe-cleaners, reaches into a hole and rummages around in the dig with his hands, and an inexplicable Irish guy, whose sole purpose on this expedition is to display that he has children, thus making his death that much more tragic. Briefly speaking, the characters are informed that Satellite imagery has detected an ancient pyramid 2000 feet below Antarctic ice, and after far too much bickering, decide to go investigate. All this, and we still have not seen that stars of the film, the reason we all came down to the theater in the first place: The Aliens and the Predator! Instead we seen Lance Henriksen reprising his role as the legendary Charles Bishop Weyland, and Sanaa Latham as Ashanti Lookalike Alexa Woods, both of whom are constantly at odds against one another about whether this expedition is a good idea or not.
Finally, when the humans eventually meander their way blindly and stupidly (as humans in these films often do) into the bowels of this pyramid, the beings commonly referred to as "Predators" arrive on the scene. At approximately the same time, in one of the more interesting scenes of the film, we are given a chance to see an Alien Queen bound in chains, and forced to lay dozens of eggs. Thus begins the plot which the audience came to see, Aliens versus Predators, a little less than an hour into the film. What results are most of the humans being killed by Aliens, (which we rarely are allowed to actually see, due to Hitchcock style camera work, and sub-standard lighting techniques) as well as a few red-shirted extras getting slaughtered by Predators. Given that this film takes place in 2004, we must assume that Weyland created the Bishop android before going to Antarctica since... well, he's not going to be going home.
Finally, we get to see the Aliens and Predators battle it out mano a mano (not the free-for-all that most of us would have enjoyed) and surprise! There's no clear-cut winner, but I doubt that anyone really expected that.
The most disappointing aspect of this film was that the aliens (Aliens and Predators combined) seemed to be completely different entities from the incarnations of films past. Originally, the Aliens of Ridley Scott's film were frightening because they were simply so strange and creepy. The aliens of AVP were neither strange nor creepy. Perhaps we are so immune to their appearance that the Aliens no longer affect us in the same manner, or possibly this anomaly is due to the fact that the Aliens are so rarely on the screen that we are not given a chance to revile them but rather we are expected to assume that something terrible is happening just off camera.
Similarly, the Predator character (there are several "predators", but the film centers on one character) is reduced to screen fodder by making "him" much less menacing and frightening. The previous two Predator films involved a monster that their victims could not see. In AVP, the Predators' camoflague is used once or twice to exemplify the elemnt of surprise, but never again. Predator is cast here as little morem than Jason Voorhees.
While there were wonderful elements of the film; the Predator's use of a third light spectrum to view the Aliens, the unlikely alliance between human and Predator; the film lacked any real draw as a sequel to either franchise. It was watered down in order to garner a PG-13 rating (a rating mind you, that none of the Alien movies sported, nor did the Predator films, all six were rated R), meaning less to see and more to complain about.
If taken seriously, AVP is a disappointment. If taken for what it's worth, a B-movie directed by a hack director who fails to do any research, it would be less of a disappointment. In all, a decent movie, with one dimentional acting and a terrible script.
The special effects?.... that's another gripe entirely.
When two franchises come together to make a completely new film (i.e. Godzilla vs King Kong, Freddy Vs Jason, Abbot and Costello meet the revolting blob) the resulting film is presented with the task of giving fans of both universes enough eye-candy to make them leave the theater happy.
Paul W.S. Anderson, most notable for directing the 2002 hit Resident Evil, was presented with the unenviable task of pitting Ridley Scott's Aliens against John McTeirnan's Predator; and he did a terrible job of it.
For nearly 45 minutes, Anderson subjects his built-in audience to scientists who are about as scientific as Gallagher: a trail guide, (without anyone trailing) dangling inches from the summit of a mountain to answer a cell phone, an Italian archaeologist who, after months of excavating an ancient ruin with toothbrushes and pipe-cleaners, reaches into a hole and rummages around in the dig with his hands, and an inexplicable Irish guy, whose sole purpose on this expedition is to display that he has children, thus making his death that much more tragic. Briefly speaking, the characters are informed that Satellite imagery has detected an ancient pyramid 2000 feet below Antarctic ice, and after far too much bickering, decide to go investigate. All this, and we still have not seen that stars of the film, the reason we all came down to the theater in the first place: The Aliens and the Predator! Instead we seen Lance Henriksen reprising his role as the legendary Charles Bishop Weyland, and Sanaa Latham as Ashanti Lookalike Alexa Woods, both of whom are constantly at odds against one another about whether this expedition is a good idea or not.
Finally, when the humans eventually meander their way blindly and stupidly (as humans in these films often do) into the bowels of this pyramid, the beings commonly referred to as "Predators" arrive on the scene. At approximately the same time, in one of the more interesting scenes of the film, we are given a chance to see an Alien Queen bound in chains, and forced to lay dozens of eggs. Thus begins the plot which the audience came to see, Aliens versus Predators, a little less than an hour into the film. What results are most of the humans being killed by Aliens, (which we rarely are allowed to actually see, due to Hitchcock style camera work, and sub-standard lighting techniques) as well as a few red-shirted extras getting slaughtered by Predators. Given that this film takes place in 2004, we must assume that Weyland created the Bishop android before going to Antarctica since... well, he's not going to be going home.
Finally, we get to see the Aliens and Predators battle it out mano a mano (not the free-for-all that most of us would have enjoyed) and surprise! There's no clear-cut winner, but I doubt that anyone really expected that.
The most disappointing aspect of this film was that the aliens (Aliens and Predators combined) seemed to be completely different entities from the incarnations of films past. Originally, the Aliens of Ridley Scott's film were frightening because they were simply so strange and creepy. The aliens of AVP were neither strange nor creepy. Perhaps we are so immune to their appearance that the Aliens no longer affect us in the same manner, or possibly this anomaly is due to the fact that the Aliens are so rarely on the screen that we are not given a chance to revile them but rather we are expected to assume that something terrible is happening just off camera.
Similarly, the Predator character (there are several "predators", but the film centers on one character) is reduced to screen fodder by making "him" much less menacing and frightening. The previous two Predator films involved a monster that their victims could not see. In AVP, the Predators' camoflague is used once or twice to exemplify the elemnt of surprise, but never again. Predator is cast here as little morem than Jason Voorhees.
While there were wonderful elements of the film; the Predator's use of a third light spectrum to view the Aliens, the unlikely alliance between human and Predator; the film lacked any real draw as a sequel to either franchise. It was watered down in order to garner a PG-13 rating (a rating mind you, that none of the Alien movies sported, nor did the Predator films, all six were rated R), meaning less to see and more to complain about.
If taken seriously, AVP is a disappointment. If taken for what it's worth, a B-movie directed by a hack director who fails to do any research, it would be less of a disappointment. In all, a decent movie, with one dimentional acting and a terrible script.
The special effects?.... that's another gripe entirely.
