The original AVP was bad. The plot was OKish, but all of the suspense and violence was taken out of the franchise in order to obtain a ridiculously low rating (I think it was rated 12 in the UK). This was the movie in which two of Hollywoods baddest of bad-ass baddies met for the first time. It should have been a bloodbath. Instead, it was a gayfest. The Predator even had compassion for humans; he should have been skinning them alive and hanging them upside down in trees, not scanning them for terminal illnesses then leaving them alone.
Watching the trailer for the sequel, it seemed that they may have righted some wrongs. Instead of trying to fit the movie into the Alien/Predator universe, it looked like they might have made a stand-alone movie, with some of the violence of old reinstated. There are no recognisable actors in it, so you just don't know who was going to make it to the end. That's where the good stuff ends. Unfortunately, although the plot isn't too bad (essentially a Predator ship crashlands on Earth, unleashing a bunch of face-huggers and a "Predalien" on the unsuspecting small US town it inevitably landed next to, prompting another Predator to come and clean up the mess), the film throughout seems to be extremely dark and over-contrasted. So much so that it's difficult to make out what's actually happening (I'm assuming it's the movie and not my projector going wrong). This is made much, much worse by the editing, which features lots of fast cuts and super-close-ups on the Aliens and Predator fighting. Consequently, you can barely tell who is attacking who.
The resulting movie is a mess and we spent the majority of it trying to piece together what was happening. It's about time someone made a GOOD Alien vs Predator movie, because the source material is awesome.
My rating: 4.0 / 10
IMDB rating: 4.9 / 10
Running time: 94 mins
IMDB link
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