Aliens vs Predator: Requiem

By: RadcliffeV
Date: Tuesday, January 29, 2008

I should note that I didn’t like the first Alien vs. Predator movie.  I mean, who needs an expansive and popular history of comics, movies, and video games when we can just throw all that away and rebuild the franchise on plot holes and canned plot devices.  So, when the hype train rolled around the net that the new movie would do the series right, I had my hopes placed high in the sky.  After approximately two hours, however, my hopes are now buried deep in the remains of the generic Midwestern town this movie was obliterated in.

I’ll do everyone a favor and get all of my fan boy woes out of the way first, because these don’t actually make this movie as bad as it really is.  It leaves off right at the end of the last movie, and ends with a very forced connection to the rest of the series.  And by forced, I mean it could have been cut from the movie and no one would notice.  A piece of Predator tech is given to the head of Yutani by some generic government dude, fade to credits.   After all the crap I had to sit through to get to this “pivotal” scene, I honestly can’t tell if this was a hacked attempted to force this movie into canon, or just to alienate the hardcore fanbase. 

But, shoddy attempt or no, this is all the connection to previous movies you get.   The other 90% of the movie is a mind numbing trip to generic land.  In fact, you could rename this movie from AVP: Requiem to “AVP Generic Movie Plot Here” or, as we will explore,” AvPvTGCODCRO” or Aliens versus Predator versus the generic cast of Dawson’s Creek rip-offs.  We have the Pred-Alien, its Alien brood, and a Predator run amok in the same Midwestern town we’ve seen in every horror movie/teen drama ever made. 

Let’s see, a sheriff with a history with the town, a café/diner in the center of town everyone goes to, a drifter with a dark past, an angsty kid that has a crush on the hot girl with a prick for a boyfriend, and an extra side of goons to go with that douchbag boyfriend.  It’s like they picked out characters from the generic plot value meal at McCrappy Movie.   Even our” Ripley” like military mom isn’t even original or interesting.  It’s like her whole purpose is to move the plot along and look like Ripley in the trailer to sucker you into seeing this movie.   

The unoriginality doesn’t stop here.  This isn’t a sci-fi thriller; it’s every slasher movie you’ve ever seen.  In fact, every scene, down to its camera work, build up, and musical score, can be picked out from other slasher and horror movies, sometimes down to the same characters in the same roles.  It’s actually the most upsetting movie experience I’ve ever had.  Sometimes we can all guess what’s going to happen next in a flick, but this time we all know exactly what we’re watching and we didn’t buy it from the used VHS bargain bin for a laugh.  The only device I could use to stay sane during this torture was to mentally call out which movies each scene came from.

You may have noticed earlier that said that “a Predator” attacks the town.  That’s right, there’s only one, and apparently they couldn’t afford more than one poorly made rubber suit, because he has a striking resemblance to the few other Predators we see at the very beginning of the movie.  But, taking a cue from the generic once again, he’s more than fit enough to take on a legion of Aliens because he has two guns just like every action hero ever.  And what happens when he faces the “last boss” at the end of the movie in the epic showdown with the Pred-Alien?  He takes off his mask for no reason and has the same slug fest that’s ended movies since before I was born, except this time both parties gut themselves anticlimactically before dues ex machina blows the town to kingdom come. 

There are other, more technical, problems with the movie as well.  This movie was also produced like a low budget slasher flick, and as mentioned before, goes back to the old rubber suits we haven’t seen since the 80’s.  The Predator suit is the better looking one in the movie, with no real complaints except that it doesn’t seem to have as much detail in the body than in previous movies.  The Pred-Alien and two other Alien suits, however, are atrocious, with limited movement.  Yes, there are only two other Alien suits; you will never see a close up of more than two Aliens at once anywhere in the film, the rest are poorly placed CGI over mostly static shots at a distance.

 Lastly, the one thing that can pull the blandest movies out of the water is the performance of the actors.  Unfortunately, they aren’t up to the herculean task.  No one can escape the trappings of their generic characters, and the dialog, which at times has an odd second or more spacing between lines I’ve never seen before in film, is so atrocious that the even average movie goers are taken out of the movie experience.

At the end of the day, there’s nothing for anyone in this film.  I can honestly say that it was my worst movie experience ever, and I would never see this movie again under any circumstance.  If you are a hardcore fan of the Alien/Predator universe, this movie will upset you, and if you’re just looking for something to watch, it won’t entertain you.  It’s so bad that you probably couldn’t parody it ala Mystery Science 3000, and the only thing of value that could be derived from it would be if someone were to splice the scenes that were ripped off to make this movie together, and send it to the director.

 I haven’t even scratched the surface with what’s wrong with this film, as one could honestly spend more time than the length of the film pointing out all of its flaws.  Don’t see it in theaters, don’t buy the DVD, and don’t buy anything attached to this movie at all.  The people who made this movie don’t deserve your money in any way.

Click here to read the staff review by Mania.