[Nowhere Man]

Saw it last night, and read the novelization today.

The good:

-The fight sequences are very physical, and pretty evenly balanced. Thank God they didn't make it like the comics, where the Predators are virtually godlike and the Aliens can't even get a hit in.

-For once, Paul Anderson didn't fill the movie up with corny techno-metal during the action scenes.

-Damn, the Queen looked awesome!

The Bad:

-Most of the characters died way too quickly to get attached to any of them. Within the first ten minutes of action, we're already down to two humans and one Predator.

-I hated the design for these Predators' faces. I'm not sure why they decided Predators need gigantic chins, but whatever.

-The whole idea of using the Aliens' body parts as weapons seemed really campy to me. Especially when Lex was wearing the Alien's head on her arm.

-I wasn't too crazy about the temple constantly reconfiguring itself. Made it seem too video-game-ish.

The Ugly:

-The movie is way, way, WAY too short. Just when it seemed the action was starting to pick up, the movie was over. There just seemed to be lots of stuff that should have been in there, but came up missing, particularly a confrontation between the lead Predator and the net-scarred Alien. Fox had Anderson cut his original script down by a good half-hour, and take out the more gory sequences in order to get the PG-13 rating. This is especially evident in the novelization, which has just about all of the things I thought were missing. There'd better be a ton of extras when the DVD comes out.

Overall, Anderson managed to make a movie that wasn't a complete slap in the face, but should have been way better. AvP fans ought to read the novel, because it's got tons of stuff that didn't make it into the movie, and explains a lot of things (like why the Predators left their laser cannons deep inside the temple) Typical popcorn fluff on the whole, but it had its fun moments. It could have been worse, but it could have been much better, too.