Two commentaries lead the way, one features Anderson and his two leads, Sanaa Lathan and Henriksen. The second is of a technical nature with the special effects crew explaining how they pulled off each shot. These are only available for the theatrical cut, not the much advertised "extended edition." No, it's not the gorier R-rated cut. It's nothing more than an added shot to the beginning of the film making it all of two minutes longer. Wow. That was worth an extra $3 million out of the marketing budget.
Three deleted scenes, all in the incorrect aspect ratio, have been tossed on. Only one was a keeper, a bit of Predator humor if you will. "The Making of AvP" is a very good 23-minute feature with an outstanding look at the miniature and suit work. There's a great shot of a full dressed actor in an Alien suit leaning on a table, sitting on a chair, like he's asleep while the crew works around him. Elsewhere, you'll see the inner workings of the animatronics and absolutely nothing on the CG work, a refreshing change of pace. The final notable content are the covers for the various "AvP' comic books from Dark Horse.
Finally, Fox has been flat out stupid with this one. Beyond the now typical "first look" for the already released "Elektra" and terrible looking "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," they found is necessary to throw on a totally useless 30-second promo for Fox sports. They even claim it has something to do with the Super Bowl when it covers all the sports they carry. Adding in more uselessness is a "Family Dad" promo, roughly the same length. It's the same one they have shown on their network for months. Some actual related content would have been nice. (***)
Only time will tell if "AvP" goes down as hard as "Alien Resurrection" did. There's a strong, very dedicated, and very vocal fan base out there. There are plenty of "those" moments in this film, just nothing to support them. Everything is set up for a sequel (surprise, surprise) so maybe we can finally see the Aliens rampage in a major metropolis. Please?
Article comments
1 - girl in USA
I agree - what a disapointment! The only relation this bears to the earlier films is that it contains aliens and predators. There is no linking of the storylines whatsoever and doubt any effort was made to do so. A massive anticlimax, which is a shame given how eagerly this film was anitcipated
2 - Aaman
A good example of the point in an earlier bc post that the trailer of some films captures the best parts - This would have a cool short film on iFilm - 90 seconds of tension.
3 - Marty Dodge
The games are fairly rubbish as well, so its not a shock the move was crap too.
4 - Matt Paprocki
Not all the games were bad. The original arcade beat-em-up by Capcom is a classic. The same goes for the Jaguar version. Not rally sure about the recent additions to the series, but the Xbox strategy styled one is pretty weak. Seems the classics are the only way to go.