Alexa Woods AVP: Who She Is and What Happens to Her

Alexa Woods is the experienced guide hired for Charles Bishop Weyland's expedition in AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004), directed by Paul W. S. Anderson. Sanaa Lathan plays her and is billed first, and the credits list the character only as Alexa Woods.

The film opens on a satellite reading that picks up a heat signature under the ice of Bouvet Island, near Antarctica. Weyland, a billionaire who is terminally ill, sees a chance at a historic find and gathers a team of experts and hired specialists. Alexa is the guide among them, and the team also includes the Italian archaeologist Sebastian de Rosa. Think of her as the person on a group hike who actually read the map, while everyone else is still taking photos.

The team reaches a remote whaling station and finds that someone has already bored a tunnel down toward a huge buried pyramid. That discovery starts the film's main events and puts Alexa at the center of them. Lance Henriksen, who plays Weyland, is the only returning cast member from earlier films, according to Screen Daily, so Alexa is one of the fresh human faces of the crossover.

Alexa begins as a hired guide on Weyland's team and ends as the human the Predators single out. The pyramid under Bouvet Island turns out to be a ritual hunting ground, and the skeletons with ruptured rib cages in its first chamber show what happens to the people who wander in. When the Queen Alien wakes and the walls start shifting, the expedition breaks into small groups with no clear way back to the surface.

The turning point is Sebastian's reading of the carvings. They show that the Predators have used the structure for ages as a coming of age hunt, with humans serving as hosts for the prey. Alexa draws a hard conclusion from that: the Predators have to win, because an Alien that reaches the surface would threaten the whole world. In my opinion, that is where she stops being a guide and becomes a combatant.

Sebastian is infected, and she ends his life at his request. After that she joins Scar, the last Predator standing, who makes her gear out of Alien remains. His wrist bomb brings down the pyramid and most of the Aliens with it.

The Queen survives the blast and follows them to the surface. There, Alexa and Scar loop a chain around the Queen, anchor it to a water tower and send her over a cliff into the sea. The Queen's last blow leaves Scar mortally wounded before she goes over.

Alexa's most important relationship is her alliance with Scar. Scar is the last surviving Predator, played by Ian Whyte, and he builds gear for her out of Alien remains. The pair fight side by side against the Queen.

Her link to Sebastian de Rosa is the human one. He is the archaeologist who decodes the carvings that explain the Predator ritual, and his work gives Alexa the information she needs to choose a side. Sebastian is later infected, and Alexa puts him down at his own request.

Her link to Charles Bishop Weyland is the starting point. He is the terminally ill billionaire who hires the team and drives the expedition, and Alexa is one of the specialists working for him.

As for the wider saga, Alexa belongs to the crossover side of the series. The Alien vs. Predator pages cover that part of the series in more detail.

Alexa lives. She is the only human left when the fighting stops, and the film sends her away from Bouvet Island in a snowcat.

Before she goes, more Predators arrive on the ice. Their elder marks her face and gives her one of their spears, an honor that treats her as a hunter and not as prey. Scar is not so lucky. On the Predator ship his body is laid out for farewell, and a hybrid of Alien and Predator bursts from his chest, which hints at further trouble.

What comes next for her is unanswered. Aliens vs Predator: Requiem moves to Gunnison, Colorado, and she is not among its top billed cast. So, anyone asking about Alexa Woods after AVP gets the same picture the film leaves: alive, marked and armed.

To place the film among the others, the Predator movies in order guide lists it in both release and chronological order.

In my opinion, Alexa's best moments are the ones where the film lets her think before she fights. The first is her decision that the Predators must win. It could be argued that this is the smartest choice any human makes in the film, because everyone else is trying to survive the next corridor while she is weighing the whole planet.

The second is the scene with Sebastian. She puts him down at his own request, and the film does not dress it up. After that, she teams up with Scar.

The third is the water tower and the chain. It is a practical set piece, built from a chain, a cliff and a Queen, and it has Alexa and Scar finishing the Queen together. Paradoxically, the film's biggest monster is beaten by a plain piece of rigging.

The last is the quiet one: the elder marking her face and giving her a spear. It is a short beat after a long fight, and it tells the audience that the Predators regard her as a hunter. Perhaps that is why the character is still the one fans ask about, and not the billionaire who paid for the trip.