In short, the film is equally bad as it is good. Also, to give you more perspective, I went to the theatres with the expectation of making a day out of the theatre, by watching AVP, Collateral, and then AVP again. After seeing AVP once, I did not have desire to see it again, so soon. I can't wait for it on DVD, but the overall experience, and approaches taken to AVP, left me no desire to see it again within same day. The whole time I watched AVP, I kept thinking about how TombRaider-esque the movie was. Most lines and scenes were overstated, not understated like Alien, Aliens, and Predator. To much posturing, overacting, and "big" presentation. I never felt like these were people like you and me that were suddenly faced with something out of the ordinary. Instead of a normal world with normal reactions, normal dialogue exchange, where the extraordintary occurances, we have a TombRaider/ResidentEvil comic-booky world where everyone more or less strikes a pose and delivers pumped-up lines. PG-13. I could really see and feel the effect of the PG-13 rating. Important scenes to Alien and Predator films had the camara cut away to quickly. Someone else said it perfectly... Studios have other PG-13 francises to use, like MIB. Aliens and Predator have no business being toned down to appeal to those markets those other properties capture. POV. The Point of View in which AVP is told, lets the audience jump around and watch action from the human's POV, Predator's POV, and Alien's POV, and even an omnipotent POV. This is different then all the Alien and predator films that had the camera follow the humans and see only stuff from the human's perspective. There are big pluses and minuses to having the POV that AVP uses. The biggest minus is that AVP totally loses the feel of past Alien/Predator films and feels like a new beast. The first 45min was very nicely paced. From then on, it felt like alot was chopped out and/or rushed to get to the end. Scenes felt intentionally edited short. It felt like it was intentionally shortened to hit the 87min mark. I wanted many, many scenes to linger a bit longer, not because I wanted to see more AVP, but simply because it felt like the scenes needed it. People died, or other important events happened, and the movie instant kept rolling onward with zero lingering time. I can only hope that a Director's Cut will make it out on DVD and give scenes a bit more justice. Weylands role. Other char development. The Weyland char served little purpose other then to provide a reason to get to have the funds to get to the Antartic location quickly. None of the potential mythology of Weyland or Weyland Yutani was furthered. No aspect of robotics reared it's head. I even thought that Weyland would lead to the introduction of Standford being an early andriod, but this was not the case. Other chars were clearly there as cannonfodder, though some attempt was made to let us know they had families, to help make their deaths have meaning. We never had much chance to get to knwo them to get any sense of loss when they died. The Alien life-cycle. Wow is it sped up. The facehugger face-grabs a victim, and before the pyramid even shifts states(every 10min), a chestburster is popping out. And the chestbursters are then full-size in the next scenes. Glaringly annoying. Totally inexcusable. Cheezy moments. There are some really cheezy moments, like the slow motion running of the Predator and Lex fleeing an oncoming explosion. The long stares between Lex and Scar. There are alot of moments that make me cringe. CGI. For all the talk of low reliance of CGI and heavy use of actors and models, the CGI can be glaringly evident. There are many scenes where the actors and models look great. And there are even scenes where the CGI looks great. But when the CGI gets heavy usage, it is very apparent, and snaps you right out of the movie. Predators. Alot has been said about their size, and much of it is rightfully said. I think some of the complaints are just a side-effect of the style in which the Predators where shot. The Celtic Predator was indeed the biggest, and did look huskier then the others. But overall the Predators did have a huskier look, instead of a tall and lanky look. Height was fine, but husky stood out. At points they looks like football players, or even WWF wrestlers. And unfortunately often it looked like men in suits. There are times that body language was effective and made the Predators look like Predators, but more often then not, it looked like men in suits.
The Predator vision itself looked like bad CGI at times that facehuggers and chestbursters were seen. the Pred-vision classic sound was oddly missing, or rather changed. Checklist of features. AVP was indeed a checklist of features I wanted to see in a AVP film. It had Weyland, it had Weyland's homage to the Bishop knife trick, it had unique looks to the Predators, it covered the Predator manhood ritual. It had a pissed-as-hell Queen Alien and some kick-ass effective killing machine Aliens that were powerful and not just cannonfodder. It had alot more stuff I won't bother listing. Infact, it had more items on it's list then I would have even hoped for. I liked that the stuff AVP fans wanted to see in a AVP film made it to the film, but the actual execution of the film still hurts. Sequel. I could really care less for a sequel now. The checklist of stuff I wanted to see covered was indeed covered, except for the introduction of an andriod, by way of Weyland. Without Weyland around, any future introduction on any andriod is meaningless. And I certainly don't want to see Lance Hendrickson brought back in andriod form for a meaningless tie to bind the franchises together. The only thing I want to see in any sequel is to see a strong, deadly experienced Predator in action, kicking ass to help make up for the poor showing of the Predators in AVP. We knew these Predators were young and inexperienced. I can accept that. I love that the Aliens were shown as the underestimated powerhouses they are meant to be. But I want to see an agile, skilled Predator that shows us the difference between young inexperience and a skilled vet. Overall, the movie had as much good as it had bad. And it had some really good stuff, and some really bad stuff. Some aspects were so bad, I left feeling embarressed for the film, and how others might view the francise. I came with low expectations. Part of me wants to rank this film down with Alien: Resurrection, but I thik the concept of AVP was very sound. It was the implamentation of certain parts that made me cringe. Repeat viewings might sway me towards a better or worse opinion, but as of right now, it is worse then Alien, Aliens, Predator, Predator2. It is around Alien3. Concept and a checklist of stuff AVP fans wanted to see keeps it from hitting Alien: Resurrection status, though it comes dangerously close.
