I’m watching all the Alien films in order. I feel this needs to be stated as normally I’d not be up for watching Alien vs. Predator, but I’m going in with an open mind. To be honest the Alien franchise already lost its way before this sidebar, so what’s the harm in getting two classic 80s film monsters on the screen together. A team of archeologists are assembled in Antarctica by Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henriksen). He’s the only holdover from what’s gone before, the rest are brand new. We have Alexa (Sanaa Lathan), the guide on this expedition, Sebastian (Raoul Bova) the charismatic digger, Mark (Tommy Flanagan) the miserable muscle and Graeme (Ewan Bremner), the scientist goofball. Deep below the ice, they think they’ve found an ancient pyramid… possibly the first built, but by whom, or what. The set up is riddled with clunky cliched dialogue and it doesn’t improve, but you’re not watching this for its writing are you. Weyland is of course the company name from previous films and therefore assumed the bad guy, but not so. Here he’s mostly just a rich old man, sick and looking for one last adventure to be remembered by. The pyramid when they reach it is like something from Indiana Jones, except instead of hieroglyphs of sphinx, there’s Predator statues. Plus there’s a defrosting caged Alien in the basement. A Queen! It’s seems the Predators have woken the structure, as a team of them arrive from space. They gut the surplus cast and follow the human explorers into the icy depths. It’s all a bit nuts, but I don’t hate it. It’s far-fetched, but not dumb, certainly not in terms of Alien films. It’s a playful twist on the question of how the Egyptians built the pyramids conspiracy, it was aliens… according to this it was. The pyramid is a rights of passage colosseum for coming of age Predators, pitting themselves against the Aliens. It helps if you’re familiar with Alien to follow this, it expects you to know that face-huggers are bad, although I guess there’s little doubt of that. They get the Matrix bullet-time treatment here, which is pretty cool. Adele (Agathe de la Boulaye) gets the first honour of incubation, but doesn’t do it nearly as well as John Hurt. I won’t lie, the pyramid setting is a masterstroke. It reconfigures every ten minutes, with the walls grinding and shifting in ever twisting puzzles, separating those still alive into prey. Bang on the hour, the two species come face to face in a bonkers battle of brutal bloodlust. It’s what you’d expect, but quite entertaining and it provides distraction for the few remaining humans to run for it. Shy on action it is not. A great film it is not, but compared to some other Alien films, it fairs better than you might think. It actually makes sense in a way and doesn’t pretend to be anything but an action romp. This is my first time watching this spin off and I’m pleasantly surprised. My expectations were low and easily met, but freed of the weight of the standalone alone Alien films, this is quite good.
6/10
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