Aliens Vs. Predator - Requiem (DVD, 2008, Widescreen; Unrated)

ALIEN VS. PREDATOR relegated its intergalactic grudge match to Antarctica, keeping most of humankind gleefully ignorant. This time around, though, the destruction takes place in suburban America, and those who have been waiting for it finally get to witness facehuggers, alien hybrids, and the dreadlocked Predator wreak some homeland havoc. Directors Colin and Greg Strause (billed as "The Brothers Strause") don't seem concerned with achieving the tension of the original ALIEN and PREDATOR films, instead using their visual effects backgrounds to create a steady stream of monsters, gore, and goo. Picking up where AVP ended, REQUIEM sees Predator on a homebound spacecraft when a baby alien/Predator hybrid bursts from his chest, causing the ship to crash in the Colorado woods. Several facehugger specimens escape, planting eggs down the throats of a hunter and his son. Soon, baby aliens emerge from their bodies and head for town, where ex-con Dallas (Steven Pasquale), Iraq War vet Kelly (Reiko Aylesworth), pizza delivery boy Ricky (Johnny Lewis), high school heartthrob Jesse (Kristen Hager), and sheriff Morales (John Ortiz) have their own separate encounters with the creatures. The dead Predator's home planet receives a transmission of the alien outbreak, and a fellow denizen of his world is dispatched to clean up the multiplying aliens, eventually causing enough death and destruction for government intervention. This is essentially a slasher film (or FREDDY VS. JASON with aliens), and the characters in REQUIEM are secondary to the creature effects. Fans of the comic books and videogames will appreciate the Strauses‘ adherence to the lore of the series, but others will probably just find thrills in the copious special effects, which are frequent and well-done (if often occurring in darkness). There is also a significant amount of indiscriminant gore in this rightfully R-rated film. A government conspiracy plot thread and an ambiguous ending ensure that this battle isn't over yet.

I should have learned my lesson the first time around. After the dismal first pairing of these two modern-day Horror/Sci-Fi icons failed to deliver, I should have realized that an unexpected sequel would do any better. However, this second time around does do better than it's first, but not enough to stop wishing for either an Alien 5 or Predator 3.

Like a page from Casting 101, you have the typical parade of careless characters:The bad boy with brother, the sympathic cop, the solider coming home, and various family members searching for the rest of their clan. There's no time, or need, to care about them, but you figure you'd care about what's going to get them, being the A's and the P's. But honestly after a total of seven movies showing what these monsters do, you can't really be surprised like the first couple of times. Now granted, the Unrated version, of which I'm reviewing here, has a ton of graphic scenes, just how many times can a chest-burster or acid blood be impressive? And for a gore-hound like me to be actually bored with this should tell you something. And if that wasn't the worst of it, the Alien/Predator attacks happen mostly at night, and it looks like in the complete dark as well. 80% of all the scenes are so dark, it's hard to tell what you're looking at. And finally, it's ending is supposed to be some sort of prequel to either the original Alien or Predator films (according to the directors' commentary), but honestly I couldn't place how that could be.

In my opinion, only to be viewed by die-hard fans of either franchise, or the seven people who found the first film entertaining. Oh, I almost forgot: remember the underwhelming "more human than Alien" Alien at the end of Alien:Resurrection? Well, if you can turn your brightness control high enough on your set, you'll see this film's equivalent, the PredAlien!!!

Yeah, it's as bad as it sounds.
(RedSabbath Rating:5.5/10)

This is one of the worst films I have ever seen (try to see) and a shameful abuse of one of the greatest movie monsters of all time. The Alien is no longer scary. Gone is the elegance. Gone is the menace and chilling patience. Made by people who know how to make FX but have no real idea about how to make a movie. I sometimes wondered if they were making fun of what had gone before, like a Zucker/Abrams flick as it seemed to veer into what could be construed as parody. Sadly, no.

I knew going in it would be bad, and that it would probably be yet another nail in the coffin of my favorite sci-fi sequels ("Alien" in my case, though I do enjoy the "Predator" films). I had seen the "redband" trailer, and stared in horror at its frenetic menagerie of 80s teen slasher clichés; I even watched the "exclusive" online clip of the film's first five minutes, and hoped that they had been edited down from a better-paced original (as it turned out, they had not). But even so, I gave the movie a shot. Why? I'm not sure. Perhaps because if a beloved artifice that one has admired for years is to be systematically dismantled and thrown on the trash heap, one should be there to watch it burn. At least, I thought, with my expectations this low, this movie's directors would have to try very hard to undercut them.

They did. I mean really, they must have tried hard. It takes some kind of effort to take two of the most durable mythologies in modern scifi and make them a backdrop to a pizza guy's coming of age. Seriously. That is the only discernible story-arc in this entire film. Truth be told I could forgive even that if the characters hadn't came pre-assembled right out of the teen movie stock barrel. Instead this film spends 40 minutes trying to make us care whether Smarmy Teen gets it off with Hot Blonde before Blond Bully Ex-Boyfriend finds out. Thank God he has Troubled Ex-Con Brother (who trumps in along with his buddy, Nice Cop) to help him out once the aliens (who arrive courtesy of "disturbing" evisceration of Happy Hunting Dad and his son, Curious Preteen) start to take out the population (such as Mumbling Bum Who No One Will Ever Believe and Dense Cop Who Keeps Looking In The Dark After Everyone Else Has Left). They soon meet up with Screaming Bereft Mother and Military Chick, who saves her daughter Cute Little Girl after her husband Wussy New Man is vivisected in line with tradition.

Honestly, with this zoo of automated plot-bots to manage, how do the aliens and the predators (actually a Predator) get a look in? Well in truth, they don't. Very little time is spent developing either character (and let's face it, since neither character actually talks, that isn't surprising) and any tension built up between them is quickly dissipated as the film returns to the interminable "I Know What You Did Last Summer" slasher plot. I'm not sure what sort of budget this had but you can see that money spent on each subsequent Alien or Predator film is getting less & less, with average special effects, no name actors, bland locations & surprisingly cheap looking production values. Please stop embarrassing yourselves even further.

Warring alien and predator races descend on a small town, where unsuspecting residents must band together for any chance of survival.

Cast
John Ortiz
Reiko Aylesworth
David Paetkau
Steven Pasquale
Johnny K. Lewis
Chelah Horsdal

Director
Greg Strause
Colin Strause

If you liked the first movie, then you'll enjoy this one, too. Many people make mention of the lighting, which is a problem, especially early on where everything is very poorly lit. I adjusted my tv's brightness settings until it wasn't a problem.

Disclaimer: I watch movies for what they are, and don't view them with camera moves and symbolism with every shot in mind. This is an action movie, with two franchises battling it out on the screen. I didn't expect a masterpiece, so I wasn't disappointed as some people may have been.

Now, if you're like me (and what are the chances of that?), you only wanted to see this for the Alien vs Predator fight scenes. Honestly, I can live without "the human element" in these films, and hope that if they make a third, it's set on a planet without any humans at all, and that I can watch 90+ minutes of Aliens fighting Predators. That being the case, watching the Aliens infest an entire town was mildly entertaining. Unfortunately, there seemed to be too many characters running around in this film (not including Aliens or the Predator), and not enough focus on any single one of them to make me care if they lived or died (although the characters themselves were well defined).

The movie itself picks-up where the first one left-off: with the Alien/Predator hybrid escaping to Earth, while One Lone Predator becomes the hero of the film, battling Aliens left and right. The ending could have been better, but overall, it wasn't a bad movie to watch. If you haven't seen this already (or the first one for that matter) but are curious, I would suggest renting it or waiting to see it on cable before you buy it (or waiting for a really good deal here on eBay).