This weekend, while sick and enduring what could only be described as a “mild” headache, I decided to watch the two “AVP” or Alien vs Predator movies.
What a ride.
I would never claim to be a longtime fan of the Alien or Predator franchises. In fact I am a very new fan. But I am a diehard new fan (of Alien at least). I watched the original Alien about a year ago, then 6 months later went on a binge of Predator, Prey, Aliens, Alien 3, Alien: Resurrection, Prometheus, and Alien: Covenant in about a week. A little later, I watched Alien: Romulus. I didn’t like Predator or Prey enough to continue the series.
My opinions on these movies range from “pretty good” to “pretty bad”, but there is one thing that I think all Alien and Predator fans can agree on: the Alien movies all have about the same plot as each other. And, assuming nothing major is different about the later Predator movies, the same goes for Predator. This dawned on me as early as Aliens, when I wrote this in my Letterboxd review:
This is the same movie as Alien.
And by the time I got to Romulus, I appreciated this fact fully:
If the other Alien movies didn’t exist, this would probably be the best movie ever right? … I can’t wait to see what this franchise does next (probably the same movie) (i like these but it’s now 7 of the same fucking movie).
That being said, I definitely like Alien movies, and I definitely like them more than I liked the Predator movies I did watch. So, about 6 more months after I watched Romulus, I decided to jump into the Alien spinoff movies, AVP and AVP: Requiem.
A LOT has been said about these movies, mostly that they are bad. But, while I don’t think they’re good, I want to try to present a new take: AVP is a bad Alien movie, and AVP: Requiem is a really bad Predator movie.
AVP is a bad Alien movie
At its core, AVP is a classic Alien movie. It follows all of the same beats: a team in an enclosed space, escaping Aliens, and our our sole female protagonist barely makes it out, this time, with the help of a predator. The setup is actually almost identical to Prometheus, and that sense of isolation really makes it feel like Alien or Aliens.
But, it is by no means a good Alien movie. To be fair, the effects are great and the fights are exciting (and well-lit). I did like this movie a lot, but not as an Alien movie. I think that Alien is at its best when it is 1. actually scary (AVP is not at all…), and 2. exploring big-ish sci-fi themes. This movie. I mean it takes place in 2004. The only world-building is done very overtly in a flashback! And there are no androids! This is a huge part of the Alien lore! It just really lacks that mysterious-existential-anti-corporate-edge of the good Alien movies. So while AVP categorically an Alien movie, it’s not a very good one.
AVP: Requiem is a bad Predator movie
This movie might be one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. And SEEN is a strong word. This is not just an aesthetic complaint, this is a crucial part of why this movie is worse than AVP. In AVP, even when the story was boring or the characters weren’t being interesting, you were watching Predators and Aliens fight! This is not true in this movie. Even when the Aliens and Predator DO fight, which is rare, you cannot see a thing. The ultimate battle between the Predator and the (horribly named) PredAlien is complete visual nonsense.
And in my initial review of AVP: Requiem I wrote:
If I wanted to watch aliens dunk on plumbers and electricians I would have watched Alien.
But in thinking about it, I realized that AVP: Requiem is formulaically much more of a Predator movie! A group of people are hunted out in the open by an alien threat, only this time it’s Predators and Aliens hunting. In fact, other than the Aliens being there, AVP: Requiem shares almost nothing with the formula or feeling of any of the Alien movies.
But, to be clear, this is a really bad Predator movie. In the original, Schwarzenegger’s men are picked off and skinned alive for most of the movie’s runtime! But! There is this warrior-code thing going on, there’s honor and stakes and all of that. In AVP: Requiem, no one fights back, the Aliens and Predators kill high schoolers and pregnant women and babies for shock value. And ultimately, the film rewrites the Predator ending, instead of the humans winning, the government NUKES THE ENTIRE TOWN. What a mess!
What does it all mean?
Alien movies ask us big questions: Why are we here? Do corporations have our best interests in mind? What is up with that space jockey? And why did that girl run away in a straight line in Prometheus?
Predator movies ask us small questions: Who is the biggest guy? Will they get to the chopper?
Alien vs Predator movies ask a single question, a far more important question: who would win, an Alien or a Predator?
In some sense the AVP movies try to give us a meta-answer this question: it is the Alien franchise versus the Predator franchise. The formulas go back to back and head to head in the crossovers, with AVP representing Alien and AVP: Requiem representing Predator.
This is, of course, not really a fair fight because AVP: Requiem almost completely butchers the Predator formula. And it is also just a much worse movie. But, in looking at these movies as Alien and Predator movies, I think I saw more clearly how different the formulas are, and why I keep coming back to one but not the other.
Or maybe I wrote this whole thing because I’m annoyed that the Aliens were turned into Predator-fodder in both movies. Suck it Predator fans, your movies will always be worse.1
Note: I will be watching the remaining Predator movies before the upcoming Predator: Badlands, maybe my opinion will change!