At the end of Predator 2, the hint was planted of a potential battle between the two sci-fi monsters when an Alien skull was mounted in the Predator's ship.  With the hugely successful and ultra-violent Alien vs. Predator comics and video games being released since that P2 tease, film fans craved an Alien vs. Predator onscreen confrontation with sticky saliva dribbling from their collective gubs. The long-awaited showdown was bound to feature lots of blood and guts, suspense and horror as both Predator films and all four Alien flicks were rated 18 and catered to hardcore sci-fi/horror audiences. No one thought Alien vs. Predator would be an exception. However, along came Paul "Franchise Killer" Anderson as the film's writer and director.  Next came the 15 rating. Suddenly Alien vs. Predator was in direct competition with "A Sharks Tale". Bummer.

Paul W.S. Anderson trades in the typical nu-metal music that nearly strangled his earlier work for a symphonic score and also leaves most of his MTV camera tricks at home, apart from a retarded scene where an Alien facehugger flies at one hapless punter and, mid-flight, floats in slow-motion. That apart, however, there isn't really anything to pick on with the way the film is shot.  The bad news is that Anderson provides A/P fans with a lot more than tricky camera work for them to tear apart.

The first thing Predalien buffs are going to single out is the lack of stomach-turning butchery.  In Alien vs. Predator, a Predator slashes his metallic claw thingie at one guy and you see a splatter of blood hit a wall, a few feet away.  The revived chestburster scene here looks like a stop-motion display of a woman undergoing a breast implant operation and the leading woman shoots a gun at a man but the camera cuts before we get a chance to see anything.  In other words, a corporate director, cowardly studio and overused editing machine don't do justice to two races of monsters who exist primarily for carnage   

Paul Anderson does just what he did with Resident Evil.  He claims to be the "biggest fan in the world" of the series, promises to be faithful to its origins and then completely throws out everything that made the earlier instalments so memorable.  In Anderson's crazy new Alien and Predator world, the Predators are the good guys, never after humans - unless they're carrying baby aliens - and aparently they were actually worshipped as gods by early man.  Being that he claims to be the biggest fan of the Predator series alive, I'm surprised that Anderson forgot that Predators hunted humans in the first two films, skinned them alive, hung them upside down and kept their skulls as trophies!

Alien vs. Predator has a group of the usual expendable morons, led by the "Bishop" character from an earlier Alien film, hanging out in an ancient pyramid buried in the Antarctic.  A group of people trapped 20,000 feet underground with two savage groups of aliens could make for a terrifying film if, say, Ridley Scott directed it.  In the hands of Paul W.S. Anderson, it's just another random action movie with only a few tentatively standout moments.  The Predators don't camouflage themselves enough (and seeing as how they look like Klingons, they should hide their appearance as much as possible) in the film.  Anderson does direct a few nifty scenes of the hunters blending in with the snow, much like they did with the jungle in the original Predator, but he seems utterly incapable of any build up of suspense before these moments.

What the director and/or his effects team do achieve superbly however, are the Aliens - they look perfect.  Although Anderson never does grasp the fact that the aliens are scarier the less you show of them, he does have some nasty looking creatures that made me long for an Alien 5. (An 18-rated Alien 5 that snivelling pests under that age would have to wait several months to see on DVD).

The Queen Alien actually outdoes the scary bitch we were given by James Cameron in Aliens.  Not because Anderson is a better director than James (that'd be like saying Ed Wood is superior to Alfred Hitchcock), but because technology has improved in the past 18 years.  The Queen is a slobbering, pissed-off mother and worth the price of admission, just to see her in action.  Imagine the T-Rex in Jurassic Park.  Now imagine the T-Rex in Jurassic Park as an Alien.  Now imagine the T-Rex in Jurassic Park as an Alien directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, rather than Steven Spielberg.  The beast would still look nifty, but it wouldn't scare you. 

That about sums up AvP.  It looks good, but it doesn't terrify you.  There is no sense whatsoever of apprehension nor dread in the film.  Without that, there should have at least been some gore. I dread the damage Alien vs. Predator could inflict upon the horror genre and despise the fact that, if it's a hit, we're going to see even more franchises sliced and diced to meet the coveted 15 rating. 

Alfie

Director: Charles Shyer
Writer: Elaine Pope, Charles Shyer
Cast: Jude Law, Sienna Miller, Omar Epps, Marisa Tomei, Susan Sarandon
Running Time: 105 minutes

A fairly smooth and zippy update of Sir Michael of Caine's 1960s misogynist classic - this time the eponymous philanderer is played with considerable charm and ease by Jude Law, emitting spades of cheeky South London charm, this time around based in contemporary Manhattan.

Prowling the NY streets as a limousine chauffeur, Alfie seems irrestible in his espousing of charm to tempt any woman he encounters into her birthday suit in jig time. The seduced temptees include Sienna Miller, Marisa Tomei and a delicious turn from Susan Sarandon. However after suffering a bout of the dreaded dick-droop, he starts to mutter the inevitable Alfieism: "What's it all about?"

As a remake of such a (then) controversial movie which tackled head-on the quad themes of sexism, non-commitment, abortion and abandonment - this 2004 version falls a bit flat by sidestepping the relevant modern issues of post-feminism and AIDS, concentrating on the easy options of laddism and post-modern knowingness on commitment, or lack of it.

Law is excellent though - sublimely milking the 'fourth wall' technique - the straight-to-camera monologues - but not even his terrific performance can disguise the glaring narrative inadequacies which a 21st Century Alfie should have tackled head on.