The Good

A solid film that almost seems to stand apart from those from which it sprang.

The Bad

With the Predator as our ally… where do the next films go?

Alien vs. Predator is certainly not the greatest sci-fi film ever lensed, but it is the kind of movie that, if nothing else, manages to become its own entity. I know that the writers, actors and everyone else involved in this affair will try and go as deep as possible in telling you about it. However, this movie really doesn’t have that much of a plot. The long and short of it is that a very rich man (Lance Henriksen) puts together a team to find out what one of his satellites managed to pick up in the Antarctic. While excavating this area, the team comes across some kind of a hunting expedition that is going on between the Aliens and the Predators. Yes, you read that right. Suddenly, the humans are in a fight for their survival and somehow they team up with the Predators in order to fend off the Aliens. While this doesn’t exactly satisfy the tagline, “Whoever wins… we lose,” it does sort of continue along with the idea that the Predators have a little more depth to them than perhaps previously thought. (At least that was my initial assumption after viewing Predator 2, which sort of started the whole Alien vs. Predator thing in the first place…)

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

When I saw Alien vs. Predator in the theater, I liked it. I argued with friends that it was a good movie, that it was nice to see that certain ideas from Predator 2 were carried out, etc. Watching it again on Blu-ray disc I will say that I liked how it performed in this next generation format, I just can’t say that the subject matter of the film has worn as well.

Features

They have put two commentary tracks on this release. One is with the director Paul W.S. Anderson, and actors Lance Henriksen and Sanaa Lathan. The other tracks feature visual effects guru John Bruno, as well as creature effects/designers/creators Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff, Jr. I decided to go with the director and the actors mainly because I find that effects people, while brilliant, don’t get interviewed enough so they try and make everything they say sound brilliant. Here, Anderson, Henriksen and Lathan offer an interesting discussion. They talk about the earlier films, the effects in the movie, as well as trying to make these characters seem as three dimensional as possible. Anderson does a good job of breaking down the technical details in the film, while the actors seem to offer a somewhat more open-ended aspect to the discussion.

Trivia Track

Video

Aspect Ratio - 2.35:1. 1080p HD. This movie looked really good and to be honest it was one of the Blu-ray titles that I was really excited about watching. There’s a lot of state of the art looking shots, as well as shots filmed in black/bluish conditions. On Blu-ray disc these seemed to have a lot more punch than they did in the movie theater. Also, I found that I noticed a lot more details to the creatures than I did in the theater. The creators of this DVD really seem like they’ve given this release the room that it needs to breath, and as such it seems to offer more than it did in the theater.

Audio

English: DTS HD 5.1 - Spanish and French: Dolby Digital 5.1. The audio on Alien vs. Predator was pretty darn potent. They have done it in such a way that it makes the sound feel really full and it also gives your system a workout. There is a richness to the way the sound appears to be mapped out that makes the audio almost explode out of your speakers. At times I had to lower things and then turn them up when it was only the characters talking. This didn’t happen that often and it really isn’t enough to mar the viewing experience of this film in this format.

Package

The Alien seems to get more front cover real estate than the Predator here. However, the images on this Blu-ray DVD box are beyond sharp. The back cover showcases some more solid shots from this film. It also offers up a description of what Alien vs. Predator is about, a Special Features listing and system specs.

Final Word

You have to give the creators of these genre films a lot of credit. When they first come out they make a splash because usually the first film is groundbreaking in some way. In this case that could be said about Alien but not so much about Predator. However, when both these movies first came out, if you had told their creators that one day these two beasts of cinema were going to fight they would have laughed you out the door. So these movies come out, for whatever reason they do well and suddenly they are sequelized. Once they run their course and people grow wary of them, over time these films get redone by younger, hipper people that are apparently more in touch with what today’s generation wants to see. This can go on forever and in some ways I think it will, until new films come along that show themselves as being capable of doing the same thing as the aforementioned movies.

Who knows? In a few years we could see Neo and Luke Skywalked teaming up? Or, maybe Jigsaw will take on Pumpkinhead? Whatever the case, Alien vs. Predator shows us all the potential that these films have both with their subject matter and in the next generation format.

Alien Vs. Predator was released August 12, 2004.