Years ago I remember spotting the Alien head in the Predator 2 spaceship, and since then we’ve had comic books and video games linking the two franchises, so it was inevitable that Alien Vs Predator would turn up as a movie.

Surprisingly the director chosen was Paul W.S. Anderson, who is the target of much fan-boy ire on the net, but he does a serviceable job and certainly makes the movie look good. The problem is mainly the script which has a few neat ideas but fails to create any memorable characters. Unsurprisingly Lance Henriksen walks off with the movie as Charles Bishop Weyland, current ancestor of the android designer from Alien III and his invention from Aliens, and presumably founder of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation (hope you’ve been paying attention here). The rest of the cast try their best as alien fodder.

The other main problem is the much-publicised decision to make a PG-13 movie, so although it’s very violent for a half-kids movie, there’s no really extreme gore. Anyway it passes the time and could have been a whole lot worse. Or better. And you can get a really good plush face-hugger as merchandise.

The DVD in the UK is better than the US one for a change, although the ‘extreme edition’ only contains some extra character stuff so doesn’t strike me as very extreme at all.

Mild Peril Rating:

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