A general premise for Alien vs. Predator feels kind of superfluous since it's apparent to anyone with a working brain that the key component of a movie called Alien vs. Predator is not the human relationships or plot structure but rather any duels between the two quarreling extra-terrestrial species. But there is a framework to deliver all of the clashes between Alien and Predator alike, as a bunch of human beings, led by Alexa Woods (Sanaa Lathan), is grouped together to provide an expedition to an underground temple in the arctic as the super sickly Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henrikson) wants to discover what exactly the origins of said temple are in an attempt to etch his name into the history books.
Once they're down there, well, they're also cut off from civilization (the temple is located underground arctic terrain hundreds of miles from any other human beings) and inadvertently awaken an Alien queen that's been long buried underneath the temple. At the same time, some Predator soldiers are going down into the temple to hunt the various Xenomorphs in the complex. These guys are looking to kill the Xenomorphs and don't care about slaughtering a few human beings who happen to get in their way. Alexa will try to keep herself alive while helping keep the remaining humans alive for as long as possible.
Alien v.s Predator is basically a SyFy Saturday night movie with a slightly higher budget (though about the same level of quality in CGI visual effects) but it does manage to be better than Alien: Resurrection for sure. Why? Mainly because it's lead character is more interesting (Sanaa Lathan is doing surprisingly good work in the part of Alexa that it's easy to see too many other actors just sleepwalking through) and it's got slightly more fun moments than I expected to see. Sometimes, just watching two aliens thrash about and spill each other's guts is all ya want in a movie and Alien vs. Predator manages to deliver on that front more often than not.
Unfortunately, it does take quite a long while for those two titular movie monsters to show up and until they do, we're stuck with some incredibly disposable human characters who are obviously being lined up as victims for the Aliens and Predators. Good luck even distinguishing anyone apart from "That guys Italian" or "That's Spud from Trainspotting!" or "That's the only other woman in the entire movie!". There's really no tension to be found in having the film follow these people around or act like there's intensity to be wrung out of them being chased by Xenomorphs since anyone that isn't Alexa is laughably cookie-cutter.
It is very much worth mentioning the PG-13 rating this movie gets saddled with, which actually doesn't hinder the Alien and Predator fight scenes all that much since the MPAA seems to have no problem with fantasy creatue blood being spilled so long as it isn't red. On the other hand, human death scenes are awkwardly edited and executed to a frustrating degree. A Chestburster scene, a cornerstone of the Alien franchise, is incoherent in its visual presentation here in order to achieve a PG-13 rating. it's not too cumbersome but it does take you out of the movie, which itself is generic sci-fi schlock that did surprise me in being slightly more fun and involving (though much of that should go to Sanaa Lathan for being way better in the lead role than expected, someone get her some more stuff to do besides animated Seth Macfarlane shows) than expected. And like I said, it's at least better than Alien: Resurrection....
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