Alien Vs Predator (Special Edition) (UK)

Content: The discovery of an ancient pyramid buried under the ice in Antarctica brings a team of scientists led by Charles Bishop Wayland (Lance Henriksen who played the android Bishop in Aliens and Alien3) At the same time, in earths orbit, 3 young Predators get ready for there first hunt. As the scientists explore the pyramid, they find the Predators Plasma Casters and take them, which activate`s what the pyramid is really for (unknown to them) which wakes up an Alien Queen captured by the predators long ago. Now trapped in the pyramid with 2 Alien species, the scientists have to find a way out.

Video: The film is presented in 2.35:1 aspect ratio and looks great, even though most of the film is very dark, it has no problems with picture quality.

Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1, dts 5.1 and 2.0 for the films Commentaries. The Dolby soundtrack is great with good use of the surround speakers, the dts is even better.

Features: Disk 1 has the movie, a few trailers for other films and 2 commentaries by cast and crew. Disk 2 has loads of stuff packed on it. Inside Look Features, Visual Effects Breakdown, Alien vs Predator: The Comic Book Featurette, Monsters in Miniature Featurette, HBO Special, Making of Documentary, Facehuggers and Eggs making of, Deleted Scenes with optional commentary, Storyboard Gallery, Easter Egg.

Overall: While the movie itself was a little disappointing (It should have been so much better, i blame Twentieth Century Fox in some way for letting Paul W.S. Anderson direct the movie, while i dont really hate Anderson like a lot of people seem to, I think Twentieth Century Fox should have got someone more experienced to direct like Ridley Scott or James Cameron as they made great jobs of the first two Alien Movies) But what we get is ok for a starting point, hope Twentieth Century Fox listen`s to the fans and give fans a sequel that is really amazing. Other than that the DVD is really good. Good Extras. Buy it even if its just to give it good sales so they can make a better sequel.

Let me give a very brief review of this disaster of a film: KER-CHING!!!!

It`s clichéd and excructiatingly painful to watch much like shoving 100 million onions in your eyes. Another Paul WS Anderson game to film adaption crap. The extras may be good but this isn`t worth viewing again. In addition to that, there are obvious references to the previous Alien franchises including the casting of Lance Henrikson and the knife trick.

Buy the first 2 SE of the alien franchise and appreciate the flawless masterpieces. Alien and Aliens are bona fide films, AVP is bile product.

If you like great films that have great casting, really good suspense, impressive acting and really good directing... then avoid this like the plague!

How in God`s name anyone can take two of the greatest Sci-Fi horror creations of all time, put them together (in what should have been the most incredible and apocalyptic movie to end all movies) and somehow come up with a film that at best resembles a massively watered down version of the originals, and at worst creates a simply terrible piece of film that you wouldn`t even want to watch if it was free on television on a wet bank holiday when there was literally nothing else on!

Ahem, excuse me.

Ok, it may be worth pointing out that I have the (dis)advantage of being a big fan of both the original sets of films and happen to think that Alien, Aliens (especially the "Special Edition") and Predator are three of the most original and intelligent science fiction horror concepts of the past twenty years. I admit, the other films in the respective series are a tad on the weak side, culminating in Alien Resurrection being nothing short of dire, but hey - despite this I was genuinely excited by the prospect of the two species finally coming face to face on the big screen.

So what went wrong?

Well, firstly the acting is so wooden Pinocchio would have livened it up (arguably a definite problem in using largely unknown/uninteresting/unsuitable actors and actresses - i.e. they cast Trainspotting`s "Spud" as a engineer!?); in addition, no time at all was spent really introducing the characters - They all seemed uninteresting and pointless so when they (invariably) died it was more of a case of "Oh well, never mind hey!" - You just don't care. Whilst we're on the subject, the death scenes themselves were so tame they were laughable (presumably they had to be for it to achieve the more marketable "15" certificate. Again, Hollywood selling out a great movie idea for the sake of extra bucks at the box office!). Remember the first time you saw the bodies skinned alive in Predator? How cool/scary/impressive it all was? How visual? All of that emotion and any physical reaction is lost and what's left feels somewhat sterile and unbearably censored in comparison.

The film has taken the costumes and ideology from the originals (and ripped off the merchandising nicely) but they decided to leave behind the suspense, the actual "horror" aspect of Sci-fi horror, the intelligent casting (for God's sakes why use Lance Henrikson? It just smacks of a desperate attempt at self-justification) and the film lacks the incredible and original visceral and visual effects of the earlier films, and instead it relies far too much on decidedly average CGI footage for the Aliens themselves (when will they learn?). I can't help but feel that the reason the original Alien(s) worked so well was because they used "real" and tangible creations all the time, and this created the sense of touch and realism about them that you lose completely with CGI.

What else? Well the scripting is, in my opinion, totally average, and the numerous coincidences that are littered throughout the film actually become hysterical (like the Italian archaeologist that just so happens can read the ancient hieroglyphs that the Predators wrote over a thousand years ago!). I know it's a rather nerdy point but something that really bugged me (no pun intended) was that the gestation periods of the aliens has suddenly gone from 1-5 days to three minutes; remember Alien? The first ever chest-burster? The suspense? Everyone thought the guy would be ok and then WHAM!

This, amongst other things (like the fact that the film takes an hour to get going and then tries desperately to fit an extra hours worth of film into the last 30 minutes) leaves the impression that the whole film was rushed, almost as if even the director himself couldn`t be bothered with the whole thing. Unfortunately that`s precisely how the audience feels; bored, listless and totally uninterested.

Something that I felt after the film was a strong sense of Déjà vu, and I couldn't quite place why; A strong female character who survives when pretty much everyone else dies, guys with guns (Colin Salmon in particular looked rather familiar in this role…), strange creatures, an attempt at mystery, a sense of "infection" in the plot… And then it twigged when I read another review and realised that the director (Paul Anderson) was the very same guy that was responsible for the utterly appalling Resident Evil! Now, while I have no particular feelings towards the man (some people do seem to really dislike him don't they!) it certainly appears that, to a certain extent at least, he's ripped off his own movie!

Slight Spoiler: The part that really did it for me was when Salmon was being cut by the Predators cheese wire net - A death scene almost identical in style to when Salmons' character gets killed in the laser-corridor in Resident Evil! I swear even the pattern of the cuts looks the same (watch it again; you'll see!)!

So what's good about it? Well, visually the lighting is great and some of the sets really do look impressive. A lot of it is set in the dark tunnels and visually things look great; the laser sights and torches cutting a swathe through the blackness do look impressive, and the fights between the predators and the aliens themselves (albeit they only last a total of about five minutes of the whole film) are really good, and you get some of the old sense of "Woah Yeah" that you got from Aliens (They're coming out of the God-Damned walls anyone?), but it just isn't enough - least of all because they (unsurprisingly) used almost all of the best bits in the trailers!

Extras? The extras on the DVD are good, no doubt about it; with lots of extra behind the scenes stuff, "extended" scenes and deleted bits that would normally appeal to general movie goers and sci-fi nerds alike, but again, the overwhelming feeling caused by this film is one of "I just don't care" - never before have I suffered this level of apathy as a side effect of watching an Aliens movie!

To sum up: A great idea, a great opportunity and a film with really great potential, but ultimately one that is horribly disappointing.

Robert