‘AVP’ plot holes saved by action sequences

In theaters

Alien vs. Predator

Written and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, 110 minutes, rated PG-13.

Don’t believe the advertising poster for the hammy new sci-fi horror movie, “Alien vs. Predator,” which sports a slogan that suggests even the film’s studio, Twentieth Century Fox, was expecting it to be a dog: “Whoever wins, we lose.”

Not quite.

As directed by Paul W.S. Anderson – “Mortal Kombat,” “Resident Evil,” “Event Horizon” – from his own script, “Alien vs. Predator” is a reasonably well-crafted B movie that moves briskly, has style and features several genuinely exciting action sequences, particularly toward the end. If you’re up for this sort of thing and if you’re willing to roll with its illogical punches, the movie provides a purely visceral ride that’s better than most will expect or likely want to admit.

Currently being slammed by the majority of critics who might feel they need to save face by not endorsing what most expect to be a stinker, “Alien vs. Predator” is a rather lively, fun pairing of two infamous screen monsters, the aliens from the “Alien” franchise and the predatory beasts from the “Predator” franchise. I’ll take it any day over such contemporary monster mashes as “Freddy vs. Jason.”

Set in Antarctica and shot in hues that are as blue as deep ice, this sticky, gooey film has, shall we say, its share of plot problems, dialogue that’s just one step removed from camp and logic that falls a bit short in making sense. Still, what it gets right trumps the weak underpinnings that undermine it.

In the movie, expert rock climber and tour guide Alexa Woods (Sanaa Lathan) is tapped by billionaire Charles Bishop Weyland (Lance Henriksen, who appeared as an android in the “Aliens” movie) to join a group of other professionals to find an ancient pyramid buried deep within the Antarctic ice.

When they do so, they find themselves in the midst of a war no one knew existed: The aliens are battling the predators for some otherworldly reasons I’ll leave for you, with these bothersome humans getting in the way of the carnage and thus needing to be bloodily removed themselves.

What unfolds is just what you expect – overblown and ripe, with everyone here given so little to work with, their performances are almost pantomime.

Still, the movie occasionally does surpass expectations, particularly toward the end with a spectacular flight through a graveyard of whale bones that finds the giant, mother alien from hell hot on poor Alexa’s tail.

In the end, what the movie proves is that these monsters are still formidable, still relevant, with an enduring ability to spark interest and sustain it. That’s something you can’t say for their contemporaries, the aforementioned Freddy and Jason.

Grade: B

On video and DVD

New York Minute

Directed by Dennie Gordon, written by Emily Fox, Adam Cooper and Bill Collage, 85 minutes, rated PG.

Dennie Gordon’s “New York Minute” stars those billion-dollar Barbies Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, whose previous forays into film include the straight-to-video favorites “So Little Time – Boy Crazy,” “Double, Double, Toil & Trouble” and “So Little Time – The Wheelchair.”

I’d love to tell you what all of them are about – especially that last one, but when it comes to the Olsens, I’m as clueless about their body of work as they are about what constitutes a good film.

Certainly there’s something about these 18-year-old starlets that has struck a chord with tweens and teens around the world. And really, you have to hand it to them. In spite of some recent health issues with Mary-Kate, they’ve somehow kept it going in spite of the odds stacked against them.

Good for them.

What’s not so good is this movie of theirs, in which Mary-Kate and Ashley try to tart up their wholesome images as twins Roxy and Jane, respectively, who have grown so far apart, they’ve become opposites. Roxy is the wild one who plays drums in the bogus-looking band with the weak beat. She attracts trouble like a Jackson.

Jane is the prim, humorless geek trying to get a scholarship to Oxford while overcompensating for their mother’s death. She’s annoyingly rigid, a flavorless lollipop with no center, which of course means she’s going to get one here.

When the girls inadvertently miss school because Roxy wants to be an extra in a music video, truant officer Max Lomax (Eugene Levy) gets on the case in an effort to give them detention. Also humiliating himself is Andy Richter as Bennie Bang, a Caucasian who thinks he’s Asian and thus speaks with the sort of accent some will consider borderline racist. He’s here because of a music piracy angle that involves a hairless dog that swallows a valuable computer chip. The girls have the dog in their possession, which is fitting since that’s just what they hand audiences here.

Like so much of what the Olsens do, “New York Minute” is product for the sake of product, another way to feed this curious cash cow. To say it’s slight and dispensable is to be kind, but why start now?

Grade: D

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, 5:30 p.m. Thursdays on WLBZ 2 Bangor and WCSH 6 Portland, and are archived at RottenTomatoes.com. He may be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.