Let’s get this out of the way first thing, Alien vs. Predator is a pretty bad movie, and there’s no getting around that. However, there is a certain level of enjoyment that can be had from this particular film, but overall, AVP is an extremely subpar and disappointing take on both the Alien and Predator franchises, and it severely disappointed those franchisees fans upon its release.

The writing is lazy and even worse, the actors don’t do the film any favors. The Italian archaeologist character is a pretentious know-it-all who — with no time to actually research anything — can magically take a look at some artifact or hieroglyph and somehow instantly know what everything means after observing something for five seconds. Out of all the characters that get killed throughout the course of the story, I’m always rooting for him to be offed as quickly as possible.

Then there’s the main character, Alexa Woods, who is portrayed by Sanaa Lathan. In the film, she is introduced ice climbing a glacier, almost in an un-ironic homage to Ethan Hunt in MI:2. Alex is recruited by Peter Weyland as their expedition guide after one of his satellites spots a heat spot from a mysterious and ancient pyramid under the ice in Antarctica. But the problem is that Alexa is barely a caricature of a character. She is so wooden and shallow that there’s really no reason to care for her in the slightest degree. Aside from liking to order people around, she’s never given any character motivation or backstory.

And not to give actress Sanaa Lathan too hard of a time, but for most of the movie, she’s as expressive as Johnny Cage from Mortal Kombat, which, if you’ve seen Mortal Kombat, you know isn’t a compliment. This actually only makes sense since AVP and Mortal Kombat both happened to be directed by Paul W. S. Anderson. I guess he just has a thing for wooden characters.

Speaking of characters, heck, even Ewen Bremner, who plays Doctor Graeme Miller, is written with just enough depth that it’s almost sad when he meets his inevitable demise. This makes it all the odder that the main character has nothing in her background or personality that makes the audience care about her in the first place, even though she is the person we’re supposedly supposed to be cheering for.

It also doesn’t help that they did things like have her recite one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s iconic lines from Predator, which is just plain atrocious, to put it mildly.

On top of that, AVP characters suffer from the same stupid trope that’s commonly found in horror movies. After explicitly telling the group never to go anywhere alone, what’s the first thing that the characters do when given a chance? Yeah, you guessed it.

But not everything in AVP is absolutely horrible.

There are a few surprisingly well-done action scenes in the movie, so if all you want to see is aliens beating the crap out of each other, then AVP might have something for you.

There is one brilliant shot of the Predator spaceship flying silently over the camp that still impresses me to this day. However, the shot’s success illustrates everything that is wrong with the first third of the film. Practically right from the start, we’re introduced to the Predators, which isn’t necessary in the least. We didn’t need the establishing shots of the Predator spacecraft, and every time they show up before everyone gets inside the pyramid just pads out the runtime and is frankly boring and unnecessary. Ultimately, there should have been more horror and mystery at the beginning of the film, but for some reason, they decided to treat AVP like an action-adventure story right from the get-go.

That gun doesn’t change anything

But all of that aside, something stood out to me the most recent time I watched AVP, which made me think that maybe the film was just a little bit smarter than I gave it credit for in the first place.

After the group of explorers finds a stash of Predator weapons inside of the underground pyramid. Ironically, no one recognizes the artifacts as weapons…even though they’re very clearly weapons. Even though this lack of awareness in and of itself is terrible writing, what happens next is even more irritating, but kind of funny.

At this point, the expedition has become separated, and after hearing part of the group get attacked by facehuggers, Alex says, “We’re gonna round up the rest of the team and get to the surface. Let’s move!”

Before anyone has a chance to get going, Maxwell Stafford, the assistant to Peter Weyland, and several other members of the expedition pull the handles from their briefcases, revealing assault rifles inside. At seeing this, Alexa asks, “What are you doing?”

Maxwell responds, “My job. Yours is over.”

To which Alexa says, “My job is over when everyone is back on the boat safely. And that gun doesn’t change anything.”

I remember when I first watched the film in theaters back in 2004 that I found this particular line, “…that gun doesn’t change anything,” absolutely hilarious. I found it funny because Alexa instantly realizes that she doesn’t have any power in the situation after the guns are revealed because the men with guns refuse to follow her orders.

Prisoners and guards

So at this point, it’s been established that Alexa clearly believes that weapons don’t matter when it comes to power structures.

This fact is further cemented early on in the film when — while preparing for the expedition — Alexa has a conversation with a woman with ridiculous hair called Adele. When Alexa comes upon Adele loading the magazine of her pistol, she says, “Seven seasons on the ice, and I’ve never seen a gun save someone’s life.”

Adele responds, “I don’t plan on using it.”

“Then why bring it?” Alexa asks

“Same principle as a condom,” Adele replies. “I’d rather have one and not need it, than need it and not have one.”

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Alexa clearly establishes that in her line of work, she believes that weapons don’t have any inherent value and that they don’t change power dynamics when they enter the picture.

But then, all of a sudden, everything goes disastrously wrong, and the team starts getting picked off one by one. Shortly afterward, the pretentious archeologist who can magically interpret any hieroglyph discovers writings on a wall and explains that ancient Predators used earth as a breeding ground for Aliens, the ultimate prey. To do this, young Predators would come to earth to slay Aliens to gain their status as Hunters. Like a video-game quest, weapons were placed inside of the pyramid for the hunters to find and use in their fight against their prey.

Upon hearing this, Alexa has an epiphany and says, “This pyramid, it’s like a prison. We took the guards’ guns, and now the prisoners are running free. To restore order, the guards need their guns.”

While Alexa probably didn’t mentally link her conversation with Maxwell to her epiphany, the prisoners and the guards’ metaphor helps Alexa realize that power hierarchies matter. Without weapons, guards can’t maintain order, and if they can’t maintain order, then anarchy reigns. This visualization helps Alexa come to understand that yes, the guns do mean something, and without them, the world will be overrun by the serpent-like Aliens.

When confronted by the last remaining Predator, she returns the weapon to its rightful owner to restore order. In return, the Predator crafts a makeshift spear and shield out of the remains of the Alien that Alexa killed and gives it to her to help her survive.

Ironically, now Alexa is armed with weapons of her own.

Weapons do matter

When I first saw AVP, I just chalked these various interactions up to lazy writing, which it may very well have been.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell if Hollywood writers understand if and when they’re own writing contradicts their personal values, or if it’s the case that the writers clearly know what they’re doing and are inserting a clear theme into the story. Was the theme of AVP supposed to be about the main character coming to realize that weapons do, in fact, change power dynamics, or is the film just a hodgepodge of ideas that weren’t meant to amount to anything in particular?

It’s very possible that the writers of AVP sincerely believe that having a weapon “doesn’t change anything” and that the following events in the story weren’t intended as an overarching theme to the story. In other words, maybe it was just a happy accident.

But regardless of intention, when you combine the ideas and themes from all these scenes together, an ideology starts to unfold. What you get is the story of a competent woman who doesn’t believe that weapons and guns have any inherent value, coming to the realization that weapons do change power dynamics, and that guns can save lives when used by the right individuals.

Even though I’m staunchly on the side of law and order, my thoughts regarding this topic aren’t directly correlated with events happening in the outside world, so take from this what you will.

Conclusion

It’s essential for lead characters to learn something and become a different person in most stories than what they were at the beginning of the story. The quintessential example of this is Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars trilogy as he transitions from a naive boy to a wise and powerful Jedi. While it’s true that Alexa is still a boring and somewhat annoying character in AVP, at the very least, she does have an internal story arc.

In literary terms, this is called “The Lie the Character Believes.” In this case, the lie that Alexa believed is that guns don’t matter or that they don’t have any value. But based on the events of the story, Alexa is forced to conclude that weapons do have value and that they’re directly correlated with power structures and hierarchy.

In short, she comes to realize that being harmless isn’t a virtue and that she needs to arm herself to restore order.

So yes, while AVP was deservedly derided upon its release for its bad writing and acting, I have to give it props for the fact that the story was somewhat more profound than I initially gave it credit for.

Now, if they could just stop making Predator and Alien movies, that would be awesome.