‘Alien Vs. Predator’ at 20: An Underrated Franchise Mash-Up That Overcomes Its Cash Grab Reputation

Quick, name the top three highest-grossing movies in the Alien series (before the box office for Alien: Romulus drops and presumably shakes that list up). If you included Aliens, you’re right – in raw dollars, it’s the second-highest-grossing installment, and adjusting for inflation since 1986 makes it the hands-down winner. Maybe you even remember that Prometheus was a surprisingly big hit in 2012, given its mixed reputation today. But the movie that technically rounds off the franchise top three doesn’t even rate inclusion on many fans’ feverishly compiled and re-compiled all-Alien-movies-ranked: Yes, it’s Alien vs. Predator.

Befitting the movie’s dual citizenship, it’s also the highest-grossing on the list of Predator movies – again, not adjusting for inflation, which would vault classics like both Alien and Predator further up. Still, it’s notable that this opportunistic mash-up was an unambiguous financial hit in a way that most recent attempts to revive either franchise have not yet managed. (Romulus, a perfectly timed and highly enjoyable late-summer horror-thriller, may break this anti-streak.) Yet Alien vs. Predator has warranted no 20th-anniversary rereleases, despite the fact that this momentous occasion nearly coincides with the release of Alien: Romulus, which comes 20 years and three days later. Instead, Disney/Fox cast about for seemingly any other anniversary to celebrate, and settled on wishing Alien a happy 45th with a brief Dolby re-release last spring.

This makes sense, in that Alien is an all-time classic and Alien vs. Predator is the clear product of the studio saying, well, I guess we’re not doing anything else with these guys. Freddy vs. Jason was a big hit in the very same August release slot in 2003, and this served as an unofficial companion piece in the relatively rarified company of modern “versus” films. But sometimes mercenary missions can have perfectly entertaining results, and Alien vs. Predator works on its intended level. It’s a B-movie, comics-inspired, wrestling-match-y sci-fi-horror thriller that would also be fine for virtually any 12-year-old to enjoy, even if they’re not yet old enough to have seen the other, better movies in the monsters’ respective series.

It’s also, in its own way, a continuation of the Alien auteurist project that wound up accidentally characterizing the series for its first 25 years. In fact, Alien vs. Predator wound up overtaking Alien projects that James Cameron and Ridley Scott had attempted to develop in the years following Alien: Resurrection (apparently that idea eventually became Scott’s Prometheus). The unlikely inheritor of this rich tradition, following Scott, Cameron, David Fincher, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, was fanboy nemesis Paul W.S. Anderson (not to be confused with the There Will Be Blood filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson). At the time, Anderson was known for turning several video games into movies that gamers and comics geeks mostly hated, at least in the ’90s and ’00s. But the Resident Evil director has seen a cult reclamation over the past 20 years for his skill at making visually striking, unpretentious B-movies, often starring his wife Milla Jovovich.

Jovovich was busy with a Resident Evil sequel (written but not directed by Anderson), so Anderson’s no-nonsense lady hero is instead played by Sanaa Lathan (a few years before the Beyhive would come after her for allegedly biting Beyonce). Her mountaineer character is hired by rich businessman Charles Weyland (Lance Henriksen) as part of a team looking for an apparent underground pyramid in Antarctica. It turns out that it’s a temple built by the Predators where teens from that alien race can prove themselves by hunting the most dangerous game: xenomorphs. Soon, the team is caught in the crossfire of this ancient and hilariously unnecessary conflict. It doesn’t seem like a spoiler to say that Lathan is the only one who really thrives in this environment, and that the movie has her embark upon a delightful human-Predator team-up, because, look, in this situation, the Aliens are much worse.

It’s a very silly movie, with very silly references to famous bits of better Alien and Predator movies, most prominently having Henrikson play the Weyland of the Weyland-Yutani corporation, after having played the android Bishop in Aliens and Bishop’s creator in Alien 3. (In the parlance of Futurama: That just raises further questions! So Bishop’s creator looks almost identical to his presumed relative Charles Weyland, and also created androids in that exact same image, some two centuries later?) And yes, the dopey-human set-up can be a bit of a chore. But once Alien vs. Predator kicks into gear, it’s a lot of fun, with Anderson imposing some of his favorite visual conceits – ornate shifting-maze environments, surprise slicings and dicings, splash-panel leaps of ridiculousness – on material that has typically been treated with greater seriousness. If you can get past the fact that this movie uses Alien iconography in service of something that plays like Predator 5, its monster-mashing will feel more like old kaiju face-offs or Universal monster team-ups. They’re hardly ever going to be the best entries in their series, but they have their own rich carnivalesque lineage as drive-in-worthy B-pictures. There is a bad, low-rent version of this, to be sure – it’s called Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem – and it sure as hell isn’t the Paul W.S. Anderson version.

Also, consider: A talented genre craftsman, playing in a franchise sandbox, a little too eager to supply fan-pleasing references to franchise lore… this describes Anderson, yes, but it’s also not far off from Fede Álvarez, the filmmaker behind Alien: Romulus. Romulus doesn’t throw in any Predators (who just experienced some of the best reviews of their careers with Prey), but it’s arguably just doing a more tasteful and moderately less dumb version of good ol’ AVP. That’s not a knock on Romulus, which is a blast. It’s a reminder that the Alien series hasn’t been above some enthusiastically nerdy monster-mashing for at least 20 years.

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.