I had no desire to see this movie, but when it came out in theatres about 18 months ago, I thought : "don't laugh...I KNOW I'll end up watching it eventually". Eventually became last night.

Things start out well enough. A group of "experts" are assembled by a filthy rich robotics millionaire to investigate a mysterious pyramid in Antarctica. The millionaire is Lance Henriksen, star of countless B-movies who was probably the only guy from the "Aliens" movie looking for work when this film went into production. The rest of the cast is made up of random nobodies, but thankfully the group doesn't have the obligatory "smart-ass guy who makes off-key, yet somewhat humorous quips in the face of danger" (see: the dork in "American Treasure" or Steve Buscemi in "Armagaeddon"). It's a little dorky, but seems fun at first.

When the group reaches the pyramid, things go south. Well, as further south as things can go in Antarctica (*rimshot*). What made the original "Predator" so fucking awesome was how the audience saw as much of the Predator as Arnold's commandoes did. We learned about the mysterious Predator at the same pace the characters did. This is probably why all the Predator sequels have sucked---there's no mystery, as the Predators suddenly enter and reveal themselves. An early scene with a goofy English guy and his digital camera is completely wasted. He sets his camera's timer and takes a picture of himself. It would have been cool if, later on, he looked at the camera's preview window and saw an Alien or Predator behind him in the picture. Some suspense would have been generated, instead of the stupid sci-fi convention crap that follows.

The pyramid turns out to be the Predators' hunting cabin. They like to cook up Aliens and hunt 'em, every 100 years. They last visited Antarctica in 1904... which kinda' contradicts the pre-established mandate that the Predators like heat. The movie tries for its "money shot" early on, by showing a slow-motion face-to-face confrontation between an Alien and a Predator. I suppose a few sci-fi dweebs creamed their pants when they downloaded that particular scene back in 2003.

Things really get out of hand as a Predator befriends a member of the expedition team. He gives her a special set of "weapons"-- an alien's head and tail...which she proceeds to NEVER USE. Another laughable scene has the Predator describing his timebomb, complete with "it go BOOM" hand motion.

The original Predator is one of my favorite movies, but mainly because of Arnold and his pals. Plus, it was as close to a big-screen adaptation of "GI Joe" as I would get, right down to a Spirit Iron Knife stereotype. Plus Jesse Ventura and all the fun lines ("geez you got a big pussy! geez you got a big pussy!"). It was fine by itself and didn't need to be exploited with sequels, video games and other crap. Nothing worth seeing or quoting in "Alien vs. Predator". But I'm sure it helped sell some video games to dweebs.

3 beer movie.

I beg to differ, she DID use the alien's head to protect herself from AcidBlood ™while she ran big daddy predator's expando-sword thru the alien's belly, thereby killing one of the bad guys (things?).

Smoke on THAT, little mister. You just been called out.

;-)

Aw hell no...you are NOT going to make me watch this again!

Towards the end I was probably on that third beer and didn't pay as close attention as I should've. I began scratching myself and started thinking about peeing.

"AcidBlood"? Should I be worried that you know and use that term?

:)

Be afraid. Be very afraid.