"Alien Vs. Predator" has been out in the theaters for a little over three weeks now. It has gone on to gross over 70 million dollars and has made a decent sized profit. Everyone who wanted to go see this movie has by now already seen it, which would make this review seem somewhat pointless. But, alas, i have an excuse for the tardiness of this review. This review is not for the people who wanted to go see it. This review is for the many people out there who, like myself, felt that this PG-13ified pairing of hardcore horror villains was a slap in the face by the studio bosses who know absolutely nothing about their fanbase or the people who grew up watching these franchises since 1979's "Alien" and 1987's "Predator." They're out to make a quick buck by taking out everything ballsy about the previous films. It's one of the only horror films I can think of that seems like it wants to completely skip the theatrical release and go right into "edited for television. Call it marketing, call it whatever you want. It is censorship. It is a trend that I hope will quickly die, and I want it to happen onscreen.

Let's look into the history books, shall we. The Predators. What are they? They are extra terrestrials from outser space who come down to earth for the sheer thrill of the hunt. They take their human victims, skin them, and hang them upside down either in the forest or in a nice LA apartment complex. That is if you seem threatening to their well being. The Predators reek in the aura of cool. They're like an intergalactic medieval version of Jason Voorhees with brains, if that makes any sense whatsoever. It does to me. The Aliens are the wolverines of ET's. Fierce and slimy, and they will rip your balls off with one pair of teeth, and dissect your nutsack with the smaller pearly whites. When you bring these two legendary killers together, you wanna see some skinned souls hanging from a spaceship while they duke it out to see who gets to finish off the foreskin.

Do we get that in this movie? If it were made ten years ago...yes, we would have. Unfortunately in todays world, what we see onscreen is essentially a WWF smackdown. I'm sure it will be different when the hardcore version is released on video (depriving its fans of seeing it on the big screen), but for now, I can say this. I hate WWF smackdown.

This movie is hardly a movie it all. It's like something that walks into your best friend's room at night, takes a dump in their bed, then they go over to you, while your passed out on the floor, and they write "I Did It" on your forehead with a small gob of feces. It's an insult. Unfortunately since this is a movie, you can't exactly insult it back...or can you? I'm not talking about taking a dump on the projector. That would be too hot.

Let's think for a minute. What do studios consider to be the biggest insult regarding their movies? That's right, you guessed it. Bootlegs. I didn't even see this movie in the theater! I'm a fan of both of these franchises. No way was I going to spend my hard earned money to see an edited version of two cult figures duking it out to the death(s). I just hopped online, and in no time, I had a copy of "Alien Vs. Predator" right on my lap top. I watched it last night, got rather angry, looked in my wallet, was releived that my money was still there, and quickly went to sleep. Actually I went to the bathroom first, then I went to sleep.

Now...let's talk about the movie. Okay, according to this movie, the Predators come to earth, since the beginning of time apparently, to train their youths in the art of the hunt. What does this training consist of? Well, while being worshiped by the Aztecs as gods, and building some pyramids, they use the Aztecs as a sort of sacrifice to harvest aliens within their chests. The Aliens come about, and to prove their manhood, the Predators must kill off all of the Aliens. Soon enough, the aliens fight back, and the Predators destroy the civilization.

And that's just the back-story! Personally, I would have found it more interesting if THAT had been the damn movie. Imagine a hardcore "Alien Vs. Predator" that took place thousands of years...in the past! Well, unfortunately, this movie is written and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson who, when it comes to film making, can either spit or swallow.

He decides to go the "Jurassic Park" route with it's story. We get the industrialist billionaire Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henrikson, from "Aliens" and "Alien 3") who rediscovers the underground Predator Pyramid, and immediately assembles a team of scientists to stake out this pyramid, which is in Antarctica by the way. Never mind training these dopes, they are informed that there isn't enough time! Makes sense. It's not like the pyramid has been there for thousands of years!! Sanaa Lathan is the Antarctic expert and leads the scientists on the very dangerous mission.

Once they get inside the pyramid, weird things start to happen. I say weird, because we don't really know. Most of it is off camera, thanks to the film's producers. Off camera deaths are not a pretty sight. The pyramid itself is really an amazing form of technology. Imagine, if you will, the movie "Cube." But have it be a pyramid. We've got tons of ancient rooms, which relocate themselves every ten minutes, making an interesting hunt. All that commotion however has put a disturbance in the force. Well, whatever the disturbance, it has awaken the Alien queen, now about 30 feet taller since her last b*tchy appearance. This spawns up a new breed of face huggers, dying to force their airplane of eggs in the human's digestive system. At the same time, a new batch of Predators are on their way to earth for some more training.

That's very much the set up. The rest is the Aliens and the Predators beating the hell out of each other, with some green ooze flying all over the place, while the humans try to make their way out of the pyramid and not get killed off camera and spouting off lines of dialogue like "now it makes sense." Of course it does, my one dimensional friend. Of course it does.

Is their a winner in the movie, my gambling friends? Well, it does have an ending that one can see coming a mile away, yet, if you pay attention to detail, the ending makes no sense whatsoever. As far as a winner goes, it's not who completely wins or completely loses, it's who has the most points.

Now, are there things that I liked about "Alien Vs. Predator." Sure there is, and when I see the original intended version, I'm sure there will be more that I like. I like the look of the film. Anderson may be a studio lap dog, but he does have a little bit of style. It's a very dark film, which contrasts great with the silky look of the Aliens, and the towering masculinity of the Predators. I love the Predators in this film. I absolutely love them. Now, about 3 feet taller than before, they seem to be like an uber-Predator, or Predator X. They've got a new batch of weapons, or at least a sharper and more shiny batch. I'm talking bladed discs, metal claws, the works. And, we actually get to see a bit of a human side to these beasts. I also like the Aliens. They're no more different than before, just, as I said, bigger.

It also has some campy touches to it. I kid you not, Sanaa Lathan, this movie's poor man's answer to Ripley, uses a severed Alien head as a weapon that shoots out acid. Even I could appreciate that. I would have appreciated it even more if she shot something with it. The friendship she develops with one of the Predator's is surprisingly not that bad either.

The things I don't like, other than it being completely and utterly corrupt in every single way that is holy and sacred...the humans bored me to tears. Sure, they are just cattle lined up for the slaughter...but we don't see the slaughter. So they're just assholes in a pyramid. I get the whole Lance Henrikson thing, but any character could have been placed there, and it would have been the same. If they had gone with Paul Reiser's Carter Burke from "Aliens," then they would have had something! I'm not going to make a joke about the tagline, because every reviewer has already done that. I'll just say that the tagline is wrong. I don't want to give anything away, but if you know enough about the mentality and behavior of the Predators, or have seen the movie, then you know what I mean.

But for you out there who are interested in this bootleg copy that I watched...beware! Yes, it is a camera pointed at the screen, but let me just say that with a decent camera, you can watch a bootleg and it won't look much different than watching a 1987 copy of "Predator." Now, I've seen enough of these in my time to know that the ones running the camera usually have decency to record during an empty theater. I mean, that's the polite thing to do. But these punks at tmdmoviez.com not only picked a crowded theater, but it sounds like they may have picked a crowded theater in, lets say, Brooklyn! It's like the studios knew they would anger the fans, so they stuck some bootleggers in the most annoying crowd they could find! For the record, let me just say that the joke "it's a boy!" when referring to the John Hurt tummy ache...it was old back in 1979 and it's old now.

From what I have said, one may think I only watch a horror movie for the blood and gore, and no good horror movie is bloodless. Not true. I enjoy the scares more than the gore, it makes for a better movie. But...this is "Alien Vs. Predator." It in no way is supposed to be a scary horror movie, and if it tried to attempt that, it would have failed miserably. This is supposed to be a hardcore film about alien species ripping apart tiny humans and fighting each other for the torsos. I'll compare it to something. "Freddy Vs. Jason," a decent movie, a fun movie. Remember all the hysterically brutal death sequences, like the rave in the cornfield? Now, even if you liked or didn't like that movie, picture it being edited down to a PG-13, and all those blood soaked moments taken out, completely disregarding the previous films in the franchise.

Makes you kind of mad, doesn't it?

Recommended: No