ALIEN vs. PREDATOR

Year: 2004 Rating: PG-13 Overall Evaluation: 7.5 Significance Suppositions Story Style 8.0 / 10 7.0 / 10 6.5 / 10 8.0 / 10 Click HERE for evaluation criteria.

Style

Stylistically the film does well. The FX are well done - we get to see the Aliens do things we never have before and with much more detail. Further, the battles are much more harrowing now that they take place between more equal creatures. While it is violent once the fighting starts, the gore/goo factor was toned down a bit from previous films - more implied than graphically displayed. Foul language is not over the top, and nudity / sexual situations are nonexistent (even the requisite heroine-changing-into-her-underwear scene is missing!). The acting was acceptable from the non-throw-away characters - nothing special, but not distracting from the story which was my principal interest.

Story

Overall the movie is a worthy successor to both lines of its predecessors. I say "worthy" because while it was not as good as either of the originals or the best of the two franchises' sequels (e.g. Aliens), it was not as bad as their worst (e.g. Predator 2 or Alien 3). This is owed mostly to the story's originality and the inclusion of believable heroes (the absence of which contributed to Predator 2's downfall - I mean, c'mon, Danny Glover beats an alien that Arnold and two special forces teams had trouble with???). Anderson gives us another glimpse of Predator ethics and values (see below), but from there the film follows its basic genre blueprint with little if any character arc and few creative twists (save the interesting sequel possibility thrown in at the end). No surprises here.

Suppositions

Considering how easy it would have been to mess up a potentially great merging of two storylines, Anderson's efforts are appreciated. AvP's back-story is an amalgamation of Erich von Daniken's "Chariots of the Gods" theory, and Stargate-style mythology which would both require a monstrous suspension of belief if either were presented as anything other than somewhat imaginative fiction.

Significance

I think the film's biggest strength is in its contrast between the moral status of the Alien and the Predator. Aliens basically represent the nihilistic outcome of a coherent evolutionary world view (i.e. "survival of the fittest," and, "kill or be killed"). They show no remorse, no rationale, and live only to overpower the weak and reproduce themselves regardless of the consequences or suffering they might cause along the way. In other words - they are animals.

The Predators, on the other hand, are "persons" (creatures possessing emotion, intellect, and will). They are even, in a sense, an honorable race. In contrast to the random Alien killing machines, the Predators seek out warlike societies for their hunting grounds - what they seem to consider a morally level playing field. They kill for sport, but they do not attack unarmed victims. Oddly, given their assumptions of species-superiority, they are actually more honorable than those humans who consider it a heroic triumph to shoot a deer from a tree 1,000 feet away with a high powered rifle! That the Predators value honor, courage, and strength is also made clear in several scenes. More attention to this fascinating aspect would have strengthened the film considerably.

Anderson does not lose sight of this ethical distinction although it is not made as thematically evident which is unfortunate. The more obvious and questionable theme ("the enemy of my enemy is my friend") is really brought forth more as a "lesser-of-two-evils" philosophy than a considered moral decision for the good.

Overall, it's a good action flick that is fairly moral within its dubious backstory.