DEEP SPACE RUMBLE: AVP Whoever wins...we lose.

Seeing this movie when I did was a mistake. I had read the reviews that claimed this would be a disappointment for true A-L-I-E-N fans, but would be liked by action fans in general. I knew of the RPG and Video Game that pitted the Alien species against the Predator species and that the Aliens were little more than animals. I had read the director's comments of frustration about having to edit the movie two weeks prior to release to garner a PG-13 rating, and that the true fan should wait for the director's cut to come out on DVD for the best viewing experience. I waited about a month after the release before going to see this movie. Seeing it was not the mistake; waiting a month to see it was.

I am now convinced that the reviewers who cautioned A-L-I-E-N fans from seeing this movie are not even themselves A-L-I-E-N fans. This movie will reward the knowledgeable fan. This is a thinking man's movie. Its audience is assumed to be one saturated with A-L-I-E-N lore. Its pacing is not stalled by explanation of the Alien life-cycle. (1) When we are shown the captive Alien Queen we know the potential: someone has, like the Weyland-Yutani corporation in the previous films, tried to manipulate the Alien species for military, or other sinister reasons (The Predator's do it for a rite of passage.) (2) A Predator is seen slicing Face-Huggers flying through the air but just as the camera cuts away we see one that he might not be able to stop. When the camera cuts back later, we see him getting up, with no Face-Hugger. We all know that he has been made into a host. (3) In the sacrificial chamber in the pyramid we know the holes at the feet of the victims are for Alien eggs, and are not surprised to learn that the skeletons have their bones broken outward from the inside. (4) A-L-I-E-N fans know when the Queen summons her drones and starts slicing their bodies that she is intelligent and is using their corrosive blood to eat away her metal shackles. (5) The fan also is aware that Charles Bishop Weyland is not just the prototype of the later model of Bishop androids, (seen in the last four ALIEN films, ALIENS, ALIEN 3 and ALIEN Resurrection), but the founder of the dreaded Weyland-Yutani corporation that gets us in so much trouble trying to militarize the perfect Alien species in the all the ALIEN movies. Nice touch.

The movie also assumes prior knowledge of the Predator movies: (a) When the camera point of view comes out from behind the moon we know that we are seeing things from the perspective of the approaching Predator ship. (b) When Alexa Woods (in the Ripley equivalent role) comments to her Predator colleague that she understands he is setting a timer on a bomb, we know just what kind of bomb, and that they had better RUN. (c) The savvy audience is not surprised to see the Predator ship materialize when the last hunter dies, understanding that this was never a battle for survival but a rite of passage that could not be interfered with until the last combatant had conquered or succumbed.

I appreciated the fact that this movie did not insult the viewer's intelligence, but rather complemented it by giving the fan advance clues in the form of H.R. Geigeresque hieroglyphics. AVP makes good use of its time in assuming an informed audience, and concentrating on the action. And this is an action movie. Sure it tips the hat to the original gothic horror A-L-I-E-N, with clanking iron chains suspended from the ceiling, and with claustrophobic passages in the pyramid reminiscent of the famous air-ducts from the movie. But this is more a descendant of ALIENS, with its focus on a small team of people and geared for action.

In the post celluloid era it is not surprising to discover several made-for-video-games elements. The shifting pyramid feels like a game even while watching the movie, and the treasure of weapons smacks of a quest game format. But these were not to intrusive and are perhaps a necessary concession.

Is this the fifth ALIEN movie or the third Predator movie? Neither. It is either the first Aliens Versus Predator, or the eighth in the series. It far surpasses the two previous Predator movies, Predator and Predator 2, and makes a worthy entry into the ALIEN series. I like the fact that it is not an ALIEN sequel but a prequel, being set in the year 2004. This way we can still have Ripley later vanquish the species in ALIEN 3, (Only to be cloned back into existence to terrorize the universe in ALIEN Resurrection.)

The tag line is, "Whoever wins...we lose." So who wins? Although again the Aliens are at a tremendous disadvantage from the outset, held in containment and denied the freedom to amass the accoutrements of a home, they as usual, hold their own, requiring the Predators to detonate a nuclear bomb to avoid a planet wide infestation. What this movie represents in the battle annals of the Predators is one in the loss column. They lost three of their warriors who did not live to fight another day. And you know that the Alien Queen is not dead, and if she lives the hive lives. We see her being towed down to the bottom of the nuclear liquefied depths tethered to a metal tank. We remember the first creature from A-L-I-E-N, how Ripley had to ignite the engines on her escape pod to kill the Alien beast clinging onto the outside of her ship. We know the Queen will be frozen in the ice, frozen as she was at the beginning of AVP, awaiting the next prequel. Who wins? The fans.

SEE THIS MOVIE or you have no right to call yourself an A-L-I-E-N fan.

Doug Eigsti 9/22/2004