Alien Vs Predator

The genesis of an AvP movie has been on the cards for years. Fans, comic book creators and video game designers have been imagining wars between the two ever since Predator 2 ended by showing off a Predator spaceship's trophy room, complete with alien skull.

Paul W S Anderson believes the greatest aspect of all these movies is the set-up. By not showing these nightmarish, super human forces of nature until late on will heighten the tension and engage the audience. Like the perfect starter at your favourite restaurant, the DVD extras leave you wanting more and ready for the main course. Sadly, the film doesn't deliver, but what of the extras?

Disc One contains a lively commentary from Anderson, who is passionate about every project he undertakes. You can't fault his enthusiasm; clearly he is a self-confessed fan.

Stars Sanaa Lathan and the gravel-voiced Lance Henriksen, who is always good value, join the director in talking about bringing Anderson's vision to the screen. The second chat track comes from Alien SFX veterans Tom Woodruff, Alec Gillis and John Bruno. The featurettes follow the movie through pre-production, production, post-production, licensing the franchise and marketing.

These branch off into extra segments, where you can witness Behind The Scenes clips, the usual talking head interviews with cast and crew where you get an insight in the casting process, witness "creature effect" tests, view "visual effect" breakdowns of specific scenes and live action fight and stunt sequences.

The featurettes are informative, creative and demonstrate how much hard work went into bringing these two "alien forces" to the big screen for the first time. The making of AvP and a HBO special have a combined running time of over 1 hour 30 minutes and contain an abundance of material which I am sure will satisfy the fan base.

You can also watch a segment on the AvP Dark Horse comic, which documents the journey from book pages to big screen, where you learn that this project has been in development for over 10 years. These two chartbusters - or chestbusters, if you prefer - have finally been allowed to release their Greatest Hits on an unsuspecting audience before coming together for a final duet.

This is a must-buy for aficionados of the deadliest creatures in sci-fi, or anyone wanting to hear Henriksen reminisce. He states that working with Anderson was as much fun as his time spent on Aliens with James Cameron.

I think he may have had one too many battles with these creatures. When it comes to the Alien franchise, Anderson is no Cameron.