The rest of the cast is visibly distinct and each person gets a line or two to establish their character. But they are too quickly swept away like leaves in a firestorm, including, alas, the cute Vasquez analog, played by Agathe De La Boulaye.
Original music by Harald Kloser. Um .. was there music? I guess there was. Certainly nothing that distinguished itself. Some vaguely Aliens-like riffs, but that was about it.
The Italian archaeologist is without a doubt the most annoyingly expositional character I've encountered for a while. He makes huge leaps of understanding, and then tells us all about stuff he couldn't possibly know. I don't believe that Aztec numbering was Base 10, and I'm pretty certain they had a lunar calendar, meaning his instant translation of today's date is something a bit less than believable. (Indeed, it was, ironically, the least believable bit in the movie.) He tells instead of shows, and serves as a short-hand way for the audience to understand what's going on, somehow.
It seems to me we had a lot more chest-bursting and cocooned folks than in Aliens (or most of the other Alien movies). Maybe it was designed for folks who haven't seen those flicks a dozen times, but some of it felt gratuitous and unneeded.
How fast do Aliens mature? Because either there were some warriors down in the deep freeze (which we didn't see), or we had adult Aliens within no more than an hour of chest-burst, as far as I can tell.
The big gotcha plot development is that the humans — food and incubators to the Aliens, cattle and target-fodder for the Predators — find themselves caught in the middle of the conflict between the two groups. Indeed, by their unexpected meddling (via one too-clever-for-belief archaeologist) they have handicapped the Predators, meaning that the Aliens may actually escape and menace the world.
Thus, Our Remaining Hero manages to ally herself (via grudging respect) with the remaining Predator. Can this Odd Couple survive without killing each other?
Well, evidently, yeah, if they save each other's lives enough. It all seems to fall together too easily — and the Predators being strong, silent types makes the interaction between the two of them perforce sketchy and limited, so we don't figure out why the Predator doesn't simply gut her and take his gun before she can try to parlay.
And, yes, he begins to cut her some slack after she somehow manages to kill an Alien. The immediate turn-about, especially given his mission/goal, feels contrived.
As usual, I harp above more on the bits that struck me badly than on the bits that struck me well. I liked the ensemble (though I disliked the too-brief opportunity we got with each). I liked the visual look of the film, particularly in the central set piece, and how it drove the action. I liked the backstory, and l liked the main thrust of the plot.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
very fine job Dave, great to have you back, thanks!
2 - jadester
you do of course realise, that there is a whole series of Aliens Vs Predator novels and comics?
I'm not sure if the plot of the film closely follows any of these in particular, and as you'd expect there is a fair amonut of "duds" in the group, but equally there are some pretty good stories to be had.
3 - *** Dave
I'm not only aware of it, I even make reference to it in the first paragraph.
While there may very well be some very good AvP comics/novels out there, I don't believe that the impetus to produce them, or this film, was the desire to make great literature. It was more, "Predators vs Aliens -- would that be cool, or what?!"
There's nothing wrong with that (or with cross-overs in general -- I particularly liked a Walt Simonson-drawn Robocop vs Terminators series, of the same ilk). One can certainly tell good stories that way. And there are elements of this film that certainly qualify -- like I said, I'm happy I went to see it, and think I'll probably pick up the DVD.
But it's not a great movie, or even (IMO) a great sf/action movie. Aliens, at least, was better. That it's fair-to-good is nothing to sneeze at, esp. since I think most people are expecting less of it than that.
4 - Tom Johnson
From what little I've read from fans of the comics and films, PWS Anderson has basically destroyed both franchises with this one - taking little bits here and there that he liked out of each one and ignoring everything else that didn't suit his needs, like the Alien lifecycle (I hear that someone gets face-hugged and minutes later a chestburster appears. It's always been an un-listed amount of time, but seemingly several days, and then the creature runs off to mature for a couple of days.)
I'm a huge fan of the Alien franchise, not so much of Predator, but I think I'm holding off on this one until the DVD - especially if it'll contain extra footage.
5 - jon
the part where she kills an alien and gets 'marked' for her efforts is lifted out of an AvP novel from some years back. well, in that novel, at least the predators brought the female protagonist (she was asian in the book i think; japanese, if i remember correctly) to the predator homeworld where she was accepted because she had the mark of the warrior that the predator whom she fought the aliens with, had given her.
come to think of it, the novel had the same premise as well: pesky humans occupying and setting up base on a planet used for the predator's hunting.
oh well.
was her name machinko in the novel? somehow that name comes to mind.