Making one film that involves both the Aliens and the Predators is, in my opinion, a synonym to splitting “headaches”. How the hell do you slap these two beyond-beloved species into a single narrative and have the “meat” hold up as a full length feature film? How do you tell your own story without disregarding all that has been established in both separate series (6 weighty entries combined)? Well, from where I was sitting, Mr. Anderson tackled the challenge admirably beginning with the Pyramid and the Teen Predators’ rite of passage concepts.

Not only did the Predators’ tie to “true life” legend (humans worshipping Gods’ who dropped by in “Chariots of Fire”) gel so damn well within their mythology, I also boogied to how the Pyramid’s inner “Domino Effect” mechanism unraveled to finally get the Aliens and the Predators into the same ring. Quite “Rubik's Cube” inventive! Sure, the premise resulted in some ALIEN rules being bent to keep the sequence of events moving (like the gestation time of a chest-burster), but I let that shit go in the name of enjoying myself. I mean, that’s why I gave away my green and was sitting in that vibrating seat…no? In addition, the noticeable efforts to keep to and/or wink at both franchises rubbed my “cloaked staff” the right way. In fact, solely having Lance Henriksen in the mix would’ve been enough for me! His classy presence gave an extra ounce of “street cred” to the proceedings and his screen time blessed me with some of my fav bits in the film (all about his “face a face” with a Predator).

The picture displayed even more respect to its source material by going as far as referencing the comics during its final block, in terms of the Predator/Human relationship. Although the twist was kind of rushed, I personally signed, sealed, delivered and bought it! A matching esteem to roots was applied to the “we love to fear them” Alien entities who looked simply razor-kool amazing! The mix of practical and CG that was used to communicate the slime-balls was bang-on! After the cruddy "Alien: Resurrection", I didn’t think the acid-filled buggers would ever jolt me again, but they gave me the willies here! And did you see that Alien Queen? WOW! Not only did they thankfully mostly keep to her "Aliens" blueprint, but being that technology is superior today, she got to do the “woman-dance” like never before! Great stuff! Lastly, although few and far between, the Alien vs. Predator skirmishes that went down in this petting zoo had me cumming to “fanboy” paradise! I couldn’t have imagined better "mano a mano" fights between the two beasties taking place! Thank you P.A.!

Sadly, the Predator humanoids didn’t fare as well as their slick Alien counterparts. Their feel, toughness and look were “off”. They felt like dudes in suits to me (We needed you Kevin Peter Hall…RIP). Some checked out too easily and I didn’t care for the “unmasked” update they did on its face. At least the myriad of slick weapons they used whooped me into smiles (my tops were the net and that giant shuriken). But where AVP truly botched up, is that it tried to keep to the spirit of "Alien" when it should’ve aimed for "Aliens". The buildup was too extensive and the pace lagged at times in between the action. Two factors that aided ALIEN, ALIENS and PREDATOR in making their chain of events go down smoother than an ice cold brew on a Sunday morning were “fleshed out enough characters” and “standout” casting. I genuinely cared about the Commandos/Marines for those reasons.

Here, the cast was too wide, the character development sloppy and true to grit testosterone was sorely missing. To make matters worse, one duder was mucho grating in being Mr. Exposition (the Pepsi Cola Man), the dialogue was silly-willy at times (Hunter’s Moon a-holes…) and the “shreddies” ensemble expired too damn swiftly. Result: all of the kill scenes had almost zero impact on me! My final irritation was the evident PG-13 rating which resulted in lots of the violence taking place off screen. Shit, the Predators hung up their victims with all their clothes on! WTF? Either skin those trophies or if you’re in that much of a hurry…don’t freaking bother stringing them up! The lack of “balls and guts” pissed me off more than that time I caught this hombre (Es tu, JoBlo?) nailing my ex-girlfriend in the crapper with no sign of lube. How insulting! The ALIEN and the PREDATOR franchises were rated R for a valid reason...graphic violence! I’m an adult man...don’t treat my like a f-ing diapered, pooped up child! TAKE THE TIME TO BLEED (he he he)!

You notice Bishop playing with that pen like he did the knife in "Aliens"? Nice!

Didn’t "Predator" and "Predator 2" establish that the Hunter loved doing his thing in warm climate? Why Antarctica then?

Paul Anderson loves dicing actor Colin Salmon up! He did it in both "Resident Evil" and "AvP".

It seems this flick was called "Alien vs. Predator" as opposed to "Aliens vs. Predator" in order to separate it from the the comics and video games.

"Weyland Yutani" is the name of the “company” in the ALIEN world. "Bishop" was the android in ALIENS and ALIEN 3. That’s how the character of "Charles Bishop Weyland" was born.