A lazy and standard attempt to bring two iconic franchises together, Alien Vs Predator just feels uninspired. Apart from a few good parts, it’s largely forgettable and boring. A truly uninspired movie that does barely anything right.

A satellite detects unusual heat off the coast of Antarctica. Using thermal imaging, wealthy but frail industrialist Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henriksen) discovers  that an ancient pyramid resides deep under the ice. He assembles a team of experts for this excavation into what lies beneath. There is the leader and experienced guide Lex Woods(Sanaa Lathan) , archaeologist Sebastian De Rosa(Raoul Bova), scientist Graeme Miller(Ewen Bremner) , soldier Maxwell Stafford( Colin Salmon) and a few others who journey to the remote area to uncover the ancient pyramid. The group are amazed by the pyramid and the secrets to civilisation it could hold. Once they venture the pyramid and someone messes with the order of it , things start going wrong. The pyramid is on a mechanism that shifts at varying intervals. This leaves many of the group separated or trapped. The group find themselves in more danger shortly after. They are in the middle of a battle between two ancient races, the Aliens and the Predators. To make matters worse, Aliens are birthed by the Alien Queen, sparked back to life by the shifting pyramid mechanisms. Facehuggers pick off members of the crew, allowing Aliens to spawn from them very quickly and become fully grown. It transpires that every hundred years, the Predators would come to Earth to do battle with the Aliens. Humans would be sacrificed via being hosts for Aliens , allowing many of the vicious features to be able to fight the Predators. If beaten , the Predators would activate a self destruct device that would wipe out the Aliens. Now with time lining up, three Predators have landed ready for there rites of passage . As battle commences and death surrounds all, it’s down to eventually Lex to figure out a way to survive the conflict .

Paul W. S. Anderson is a competent enough director, who I mainly know from Resident Evil and Event Horizon , but he isn’t at a good level here . The aforementioned films occasionally a rep that isn’t great, but they look like masterpieces next to this sorry excuse of a film. Alien Vs Predator feels squandered , especially in it’s pandering to get a lower rating certificate. What could be tense or scary is completely bypassed and the film becomes a true mess. I wasn’t expecting high art from a film like this, but I did at least expect something of interest and something to entertain. Apart from a few flashes of it, the action here is dead on arrival. The movie feels like an afterthought during its duration, with dodgy effects and awful dialogue . One bit of credit is that the sets are pretty good and well mounted. It’s such a shame that they belong in such a weak movie . The music is pretty generic and gives nothing of note or atmosphere to proceedings.

The cast assembled is largely wasted with this paper thin and joyless material. Sanaa Lathan is probably the best served here. Her part isn’t written with the most depth, but she brings a strength, resourcefulness and sense of intelligence amidst the idiocy of the film.  Raoul Bova and Ewen Bremner , while both likeable presences, are poorly used here as archaeologist and scientist. They are basically there for exposition and nary a thing else. Colin Salmon, who I often find reliable, is lumbered with an unmemorable part which is a damn shame. Bringing Lance Henriksen to the film might have seemed like a good idea , given that he famously played Bishop in Aliens . But his talents are like many of the people here, completely wasted. 

So what emerges in Alien Vs Predator is a tired, uninspired and joyless film. Pitting two legendary characters might have seemed like a novel idea, but the execution is poor and just not worth viewing.