Why Alien Vs Predator Left Me Unsatisfied
I just finished watching the film - and I use the word 'film' very loosely here - 'Alien Vs Predator' or - as the Universal marketing department would prefer me to refer to it as - AVP. Luckily for me I didn't have to pay to see it, seeing as my roommate Christoph downloaded a bootleg on-line...Er, I mean he acquired a copy of the film through legally accepted channels. And his name's not Christoph...It's...Chuck....Yeah, Chuck. The movie is not very good. That's all I'm really going to say directly toward the quality of the film. This post isn't meant to be a review of a mediocre action/sci-fi film.
What this post is about is how the film left out a vital piece of information: The motivation of the Predators. Now I know what everyone's thinking: that in bad actions movies no one's motivation is clearly defined. I know that the human characters in the movie have very flimsy motivations, but at least they tried. Also, I am well aware that the aliens also have no motivation, but they don't need any. They're just mindless destruction machines. They have an unevolved intellect and want nothing more than to eat, destroy, and procreate. They're almost like frat guys. The only thing separating frat guys from aliens is the desire to get wasted - frat guys are a step up on the evolutionary ladder.
Predators, on the other hand, are given no motivation. According to Christoph...er Chuck - whoever he is, he's my personal authority on all things sci-fi - the predators are a war like race and live only to hunt. Fine, but why? Is there a reason they hunt? What do they get out of it? The movie never spells this out. I have an uncle who lives to hunt, but he has other things going on too: wife, kids, a job. He also likes beer. Maybe, beer is what's missing. In real life hunters always drink. In the movie, the predators never crack a beer. Of course if they did it would be a completely different movie. It would be a better movie too. I would love to see the predators acting a little bit more like the hunters I know: wearing orange vest, getting wasted, sitting in tree stands waiting for an alien to walk underneath.
It's not just the predators motivations, it's their whole civilization which remains a mystery to me. The predator civilization is far more technologically advanced than ours. They have space ships which can travel through the vast reaches of space. They have hi-tech hunting gear, such as cloaking devices - light years ahead of spreading deer urine on yourself. They have all this, and the only thing they want to do is hunt aliens - and Arnold and Danny Glover. Do they do anything else? What do they do between hunting trips? What do they do on the long voyages to the hunting destinations? Do they talk? Have long heart to heart conversations? Play Monopoly? On their home planet do they have day jobs, like accountants and video store clerks? Are there people in their society who don't like hunting? Do predators have hobbies, friends, families, hopes, or dreams? Do predators love?
Of course AVP, answers none of these questions. All we know about predators is they like to hunt and they have really cool gear. We never get inside their heads. We never get to know what really makes them tick. We aren't offered anything in the way of back story. Maybe an alien killed one of the predators brothers. That would be okay, if a little predictable. Maybe they hunt for food. Although I do remember a predator killing Jesse 'The body/governor' Ventura, and I don't think he would taste very good - I'm certainly not about to find out. Of course, maybe predators hunt for the same reason men here on earth hunt: to get away from their nagging wives. That's a good answer, but I can never be sure. Apparently B-movie makers don't need to know these things about their characters before making the film. ARGH!! It's so frustrating.
And that's why Alien Vs Predator left me ultimately unsatisfied.
Shalom
