Capsule Film Review: Alien vs. Predator (2004)

Most ideas look much cooler during pitches in Hollywood offices than during their realisation, and 2004 science fiction film Alien vs. Predator is one of such examples. General idea to combine two of popular 1980s science fiction series - Alien and Predator - is wasted in a story that mixes them with Erich von Däniken's pseudohistory. Plot is set in a remote Bouvet Island in Southern Atlantic, where an industrialist Charles Weyland (played by Lance Henriksen) sent archaeological expedition in order to discover ancient pyramids; its members soon discover evidence of ancient civilisation worshiping strange creatures from the sky – Predators, who used humans as incubator for xenomoprhs which would later be hunted as their rite of passage. Alien vs. Predator is directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, filmmaker who knows how direct action, but those scenes would have to wait; audience is instead forced to look boring and atrociously unlikable characters whose ultimate fate, unlike previous films, was shown with limitations of PG-13 rating.

RATING: 3/10