Support NeoGAF

[Oni Link 666]

Spoilers ahead!


I saw it last night and it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. I enjoyed it and I would go see it again. Especially since I got a free ticket to see any movie at any time because the theater the movie was going to be played in had a leaking roof thanks to hurricane Charlie.

I didn't really like the whole friendly Predator thing, but that's how the story goes in the comic or at least that's what I've been told. What really sucked was that it was PG-13 and always cut away from the potentially gorier scenes and cut off most of the cussing. I want to see an R rated special edition DVD and an R rated AVP2. My friend told me about some wild stuff that goes on in the comics like something about a planet taken over by Aliens with Alien elephants, rhinos, sharks and other stuff.

 

[evil ways]

The "cliffhanger" ending --

Spoiler

Yeah, I'm sure one Predalien will pose a huge threat to a ship with thousands of Predators on it.

My memory's a bit fuzzy, but didn't the Predators go into some sort of sleep mode for the long trip back home?

Still, I understand your point, especially with the Elder Predator being on board.

 

[Warm Machine]

Did anyone else catch all the homage shots in the film. One was the computer readout in the "empty" Predator ship suddely appearing and then the subsequent shot of said read out reflected in the Predator helmet. That is right out of the opening to Alien.

There are a few nods other nods here and there to Alien as they are walking through the pyramid. One is a duplicate of when Harry Dean Stanton is looking for Jones the cat.

The last shot of the Queen is right out of Aliens.

One motif I didn't like at all was the blend from and into the computer graphics map of the temple. It was used the same way in Resident Evil and is a pretty cheap way of orientating the audience to the geography of the pyramid.

 

[DarienA]

You know I actually enjoyed this movie... there's only one part that REALLY made me groan and that was when

Spoiler

The predator created the shield and spear for her

and seeing her walk around with that stuff... just too f'n much... besides that I enjoyed the action sequences.

 

[Warm Machine]

You know I actually enjoyed this movie... there's only one part that REALLY made me groan and that was when

Spoiler

The predator created the shield and spear for her

and seeing her walk around with that stuff... just too f'n much... besides that I enjoyed the action sequences.

I agree with that but surprisingly the audience I saw the movie with got really into it so I played along!

 

[SKluck]

Eh. It was decent. I'm not going to cry about it, it had redeeming qualities. But honestly it just made me want a Predator 3 even more. We now have the technology to really show a Predator go balls out and kick some ass. We saw glimpses of it in AVP, but they could do so much more with a GOOD script/director/actors.

Spoiler

At the end when the Queen is attacking the chick under the water tower and the Pred jumps up from behind, spins around and slams the spear into the Queens head, who didn't love that? Come on.

It is disappointing though, because humans are no match for Predators, which would be the matchup for a Pred 3 movie, and this is probably the only movie we will ever get that will show what Predators can really do against a worthy foe, and they were just adolescents.

 

[clipunderground]

HOLY SHIT THIS MOVIE S U C K E D!! Do not waste your money on this garbage!

 

[LakeEarth]

You know I actually enjoyed this movie... there's only one part that REALLY made me groan and that was when

Spoiler

The predator created the shield and spear for her

and seeing her walk around with that stuff... just too f'n much... besides that I enjoyed the action sequences.

I thought it looked kinda cool, though I hated the fact that she didn't even use it in any way, shape or form.

 

[ManaByte]

I thought it looked kinda cool, though I hated the fact that she didn't even use it in any way, shape or form.

Spoiler

Except for when she stabbed the queen with the spear and used the shield to protect herself from the acid...

 

[LakeEarth]

Spoiler

I could've sworn she dropped it earlier (and just picked up a stick that was lying on the ground, in fact I remember thinking why the hell there was a decent piece of wood just lying there in the middle of the antartic). I definetely don't remember her holding anything when they were running from the bomb.

 

[ManaByte]

Spoiler

I could've sworn she dropped it earlier (and just picked up a stick that was lying on the ground, in fact I remember thinking why the hell there was a decent piece of wood just lying there in the middle of the antartic). I definetely don't remember her holding anything when they were running from the bomb.

Spoiler

I just got back from the movie and remember her stabbing the queen with the spear and using the head to block the acid.

 

[LakeEarth]

Well I wasn't paying too much attention I guess. As I said in my big post earlier, the movie cut out at the beginning of the final scene, so that probably messed up my sense of continuity during it.

 

[Defensor]

I had to watch Batman Dead End again, just to see a more amusing fight. Even the thermal mode for the Predator was better here

 

[DarienA]

Spoiler

At the end when the Queen is attacking the chick under the water tower and the Pred jumps up from behind, spins around and slams the spear into the Queens head, who didn't love that? Come on.

Yes that is one of the coolest sequences in the flick IMO.

It is disappointing though, because humans are no match for Predators, which would be the matchup for a Pred 3 movie, and this is probably the only movie we will ever get that will show what Predators can really do against a worthy foe, and they were just adolescents.

A fair human/pre matchup is going to have to take place in the slight future.... not WAAAY into the future but just enough so that human tech(via special effects), would limit some of the Predator's advantages... but not too far ahead to delete all of its advantages...

 

[clipunderground]

The fact some of you actually liked this crap makes me want to cry.

 

[ToyMachine228]

At the end when the Queen is attacking the chick under the water tower and the Pred jumps up from behind, spins around and slams the spear into the Queens head, who didn't love that? Come on.

Yeah, definitely one of the coolest parts. Another goes out to when Alien has "the" Predator and they get face to face. We've seen it 1,000 times, but it's still cool.

 

[Spike Spiegel]

After seeing the movie Friday I dug out my old, battered copy of Aliens vs Predator: Prey by Steve Perry, and after hurriedly re-reading it my appreciation of the AvP movie has both heightened and diminished. Soooooo many contradictions of established, existing Pred lore.

 

[Warm Machine]

The fact some of you actually liked this crap makes me want to cry.

Besides that you though it sucked, what were your specific problems with it? I'm not on the offensive, I just want to know.

 

[Pimpwerx]

Saved myself $10. Will hold off for Hero in a couple of weeks. AVP sounds like it should have been straight to video. PEACE.

 

[clipunderground]

Besides that you though it sucked, what were your specific problems with it? I'm not on the offensive, I just want to know.

I'll have to scratch the surface or I'll end up writing a hate novel.

It started off OK, nothing special, but nothing exciting or overly interesting either. I was actually thinking it might turn out ok at one point even. Anyway, I think the point the movie started spiraling straight to hell was when the aliens were inplanted into the humans and they immediately hatched and were adults. Sure, they needed to movie the story along, but they could of thought of something else. Next thing that sucked was how lame the Predators were. They were just slow and clumsy and not really as scary as they were in the Predator movies. The fight scenes pretty much sucked. The crappy storyline was laughable and the movie felt like a rush job. But wait! The icing on the cake had to be the Predator/Human alliance. Good god that was shitty. I mean embarassingly shitty. I think everyone was laughing for pretty much the rest of the movie after that love union happened. *barf*

I mean seriously, what redeeming values did this movie have? I'm the biggest Alien/ Predator fan around and I tried REALLY hard to like this movie, but damn, it was NOT a good movie at all!

I feel like all us fans just got slapped in the face for actually PAYING to see this movie. They must really think we're all dumb or some shit... >:|

 

[KilledByBill]

I'm just glad I didn't have to pay to see this thing, using the free ticket that came with the Predator DVD meant that all I lost was about an hour and a half of my life not $9.

This movie basically exploited the excellent creations from the Predator and the Alien series and threw them into a computer generated, money making, meat grinder. All I was really expecting were some cool Xenomorph vs. Predator fights and what I got was chaotic mess. Like all PG-13 action movies these days the action is cut so fast and so wildly to avoid showing gore that the whole point is lost.

The human cast was horrible. I can appreciate a strong feminine lead character (like in the Alien films) but this was ridiculous. Whoever thought the actress who played LEx could go from being a secondary character in an average movie like Out of Time to an action lead needs to have their head examined. The Scottish "funny guy" was getting on my nerves the whole time and I lightly clapped when he was finally killed. Of course that Italian guy was the worst, figuring out key plot points out of thin air with no explaination other than that he read the script. Mr. Weyland provided some laughs though. Sliding down that hole knocking people over like bowling pins was funny stuff. Also who could forget his, "Don't turn your back on me!!!" line.

It's a shame that the only real entertainment this movie provides is from laughing at its obserdity and stupidity. Especially since if Fox had approved a much larger budget, brought in a qualified director/writer, and was willing to make an R-rated film this really could've been something.

 

[Warm Machine]

I don't know what it was but I really got into the movie. Maybe the crowd helped me get into it as everyone seemed really into seeing it.

I bought the whole setup and plot as contrived as it was.

My biggest problem with the movie was that it seemed as though Anderson was far too impatient getting to the creatures or the fights. So instead of a nice slow burn to anything special it was shoved in our face too quickly. That is typical Anderson though.

I would have liked a better introduction to ALL the characters in the movie. Most of them felt like expendable assets as opposed to people. Aliens was really clever the way it set up the characters as well as enforcing who they were and where they stood. In this you get to know 4 or 5 people and the rest are just empty.

When the team was in the pyramid and we knew there were full grown Aliens in there I thought there was some good tension. That just goes to show me that the dark house filled with monsters concept is still entertaining. I just wished they played it up more.

I also bought the woman teaming up with the Predator concept as the concept pretty well has to go that way. To have the humans constantly being spectators to the 2 creatures as opposed to involving themselves with them would have been boring anyway.

The PG-13 didn't bother me one bit either as showing the hits going down wouldn't have changed the movie anyway. As it was it felt like it pushed the limit of the rating. I look back at Aliens and I can't see that movie getting an R today aside from the language.

There were some really stand-out shots that I was blindsided by. The first was that epic shot of the predators atop the pyramids looking over their empire and the second was that shot of the Alien under the lightbeam in the temple. Both of those scenes just made me want more.

I guarantee that the chestburster timeline thing is a terrible edit. Time was meant to have elapsed in the cut but it just doesn't come across.

 

[Rabid Wolverine]

I thought the movie was average at best.

Aliens looked Fantastic.

Predators faces looked out of whack.

Fight Scenes Were Cool.

The Characters I could give 2 shits about. Unlike Predator 1 and Aliens where I was fully into and cared about Dutch's Team and the Marines.

 

[EekTheKat]

I'm left almost speechless at this movie. I knew this wasn't going to be a very good film walking into it but I can't shake how wrong the whole movie just felt.

What was wrong with the original Predator design that made them choose to make their features so exaggerated (2x as long wristblades, 40x more dreadlocks etc..etc..)?

The Predators in this movie were almost like caricatures of the Predator in previous movies. I mean..they literally made the mask, armor, weapons, everything 2x as large while the body kept their original sizes. The whole time the Predator was fighting the Alien I kept thinking how in the world could the Predator even move in all that garbage tacked on its armor?

I guess the original design has to be seen to be appreciated but, in this one I couldn't stop thinking about how hokey (and how ..short) the predators looked compared to the original.

None of the human characters were particularly likeable in this film (granted the female lead tries so very hard). As mentioned previously, the original team of soldiers in predator and aliens were so over the top macho that they've become icons almost amongst those of us who grew up watching the original. The humans in AvP were just...cannon fodder......the setup was no better than a teen slasher flick (they may as well make a Freddy vs Jason vs Aliens vs Predator next time around).

That pathetic attempt at eliciting some form of pathos from the audience

Spoiler

How many more times do we have to hear about your annoying wife and kids?

The team of surprisingly well armed scientists + archeologists were all motivated by...money?

The Marines in the original films were ordered to do a job by some higher ups, and there was a sense of they were just going in and doing their jobs. Also given that they were supposed to be a military unit, a loss of a grunt had much more dramatic impact than the loss A_Generic_Scientist01

I think the only possible way I could've walked out of that movie enjoying what I saw was if I've NEVER seen nor heard of Predator or Aliens before.

 

[Kumiko Nikaido]

What a horrible, shitty movie.

Nonmemorable characters, lack of tension and suspense, lame dialogue, stupid logic, silly scenes, plot holes galore, and godawful action scenes (hey, Paul...can you please pan the camera back so we can grasp what the hell is going on!??? And why the heck do you insist on using closeups, quick cuts, and sudden shifting so we can't tell who the heck is hitting who, you freaking dumbass!!!!).....yep, Paul Anderson is a complete hack.

AVP is the biggest movie joke of 2004.

 

[Teddman]

AVP is the biggest movie joke of 2004.

 

[Kumiko Nikaido]

Spoiler

But see, Catwoman didn't use an Alien's head as a shield, nor did she become a "friend" of the Predator.

 

[refreshZ]

Where to begin with this awful, shitty film. The fact that some of you enjoyed it just boggles my mind - but this is a biter Aliens fanboy talking here.

What a fucking trashing of two classic franchises so yet more retared teenagers can line this guy's bank account.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD THIS FILM STANK.

 

[Warm Machine]

That should read...Wanted, person who made this poster for not knowing a single thing about how to make a decently believable old fashioned style wanted poster. Crimes also include bitching about a guy who has more talent than he obviously does.

 

[refreshZ]

That should read...Wanted, person who made this poster for not knowing a single thing about how to make a decently believable old fashioned style wanted poster. Crimes also include bitching about a guy who has more talent than he obviously does.

Uh-huh.... not a believable old-fashioned style wanted poster... riiiiight... like it fucking matters.

Thanks for the tip. Its not mine anyway.

Clue GET!