Alien vs. Predator: Requiem [Extreme Unrated Special Edition]

This film may very well have been worse than the 1st..which is truly saying something. I had hopes for it when the directors talked it up so much, but damn was it terrible. Things that should have been built up weren't, and things that shouldn't have were, and all the while, the film loaded one gaping plot hole onto another.

OMG was this movie bad! Apparently the lighting guy used a flashlight. I never knew what was going on. Just an absolute crapfest.

I disagree. I'm a fan of both the Alien and Predator movie series, as well as the AVP comic series. The first AVP movie directed by Paul WS Anderson, was atrocious! By contrast to the original franchise films, the only redeeming qualities AVP had, were the fight scenes between the Aliens & Predators. Other than that, the plot, character building, and to some degree, the costume and creature effects (mainly on the Predator) in AVP, were horrible. The appearance of the hero Predator in AVP looked as if Jim Henson designed it! No offense to Jim Henson, but, scary is not his forte.

AVP2R, while not the best film ever made, nor the best Alien or Predator film ever made, was head and shoulders above the first AVP. The Strause brothers directing style in AVP2R, was exactly what they touted it to be. This film was MUCH closer to the look and feel of the second "Alien" and first "Predator" movies.

As has been the tradition in both franchises, the Strause brothers made the humans involved, fodder, and not the heroes, as Paul Anderson did, in the first AVP movie. On top of which, in almost every Alien movie to date, the situation has always been, humans vs. aliens in some type of enclosed, or limited space situation. This time around, the movie is set in a small town in a LARGE open area (not counting the sewers). Where do the humans have to run and hide?

AVP2R, also gets an R rating for violence, gore, and language, which is what the movies have always been, until Paul Anderson got involved. The violence, while one could argue "do we really need more violence in movies?", did take a new direction with AVPR2. The special effects involved in a scene in which a girl is running along a wall, and suddenly gets anchored to it (mid stride) by a Predator weapon, was shockingly realistic! Throughout the rest of the film, I wondered if it was CG or a real shot with an actor.

The Strause brothers also decided to make the Predator in their film, a REAL hero and not a wuss, as Anderson did with the Predators in his AVP film. The "elder" Predator in this film comes to literally clean up the mess that the Predators in Anderson's film made.

While I obviously prefer the Strause brothers' film, it did have it's flaws. There were a few inconsistancies in AVP2R, one in particular was how the Predator kept pulling out this tiny vial of glowing goop that would completely disolve any trace of living matter. The amount he would pour out over each alien or human, would have run out (according to the size of the vial) after the first or second usage. While this is not a huge oversight, it did detract from the film a bit. The Strause brothers also tried to maintain the Heroine figure that the Alien franchise did with Sigourney Weaver. This wasn't as easily accomplished in AVP2R, as there was no time in the film to get to know the character "Kelly O'Brien." However, actress Reiko Aylesworth pulls off the roll fairly decently.

The Strause brothers included quite a few tie-in elements from the original films, that I'm not sure many people caught. The first that I noticed was the "pilot's chair" that the "elder" Predator sat in, near the beginning of the movie, which directly resembled the pilot chair found by the Nostromo's crew from the original Alien movie. I really liked this tip of the hat, by the Strause brothers. Another was the use of the name "Dallas" (also from the original Alien movie) for the character played by actor Steven Pasquale. Another nod to the franchises was a comment made by a surviving little girl that utters the phrase "will I be able to dream?", which was a little too obvious to me, but, all the same lended a little to the film. The last scene in the film, largely detracted from the film, in the way it was portrayed. The scene where a Predator weapon was presented to a "Mrs. Yutani" (a notorious name throughout the Alien franchise as the amoral "Weyland/Yutani Corp.") and left the film ambigously hanging for a rather weak attempt (if they so choose) to make a third AVP film.

All in all, however, I think if you're as big of a fan of these franchises and science fiction movies as I am, I think you'd enjoy this one. If you're just a "fair-weather" sci-fi fan, you'll probably find nothing but fault with the film.



- Josh

Well, as many critics said, if more gore is all one wanted, then they'd be happy with this film. I assure you, I am very big fan of the Alien series, Alien and Aliens are among my all time favorite films, and though I realize some of the style has returned, it's not near enough, the film's still an insult to the source material. I loved the Alien films for their cleverness as much as its scares/action, and this has none of that. Even the style isn't very good, really, sure, there's a bit of the feel, but you barely get a good look at the aliens, everything is so hazy and biased towards the predators. As for that mother and daughter barely caring that the husband/father character is killed (the daughter is fine all of an hour later, and the mom is flirting), and many other examples of horrible writing, I just couldn't find the movie acceptable. The excuse of the predalien pumping out baby-aliens, the predator using his weapon as a hangun? It's just stupid stuff.

Cool cover-art though.

Vincent,

I think we'll have to agree to disagree, here. While I agree with your examples of character and writing problems, I still think AVP2R did have some redeeming qualities, and it is all we have left of the franchises. That doesn't excuse it, but, we're probably never going to see another Alien (or AVP movie) directed by the two greats of the Alien franchise directors, Ridley Scott or James Cameron, nor will we see another Predator movie.

As such, and as much as I'd like to see AVP films continue on in homage to the two original franchises, with AVP's gross take @ $80.2 M., and AVP2R's gross take @ $41.6 M., any AVP films following (if any at all) may only going to go down hill from here.

I agree, AVP2R could have been done much better, but, I also don't think it was as bad as you and Movielover 316 made it out to be at the beginning of this thread. As I mentioned in my last post, I think it's still head and shoulders above Anderson's AVP, and did have far better action, plot, and believability than Anderson's did.

If they do continue to make AVP movies, as long as they're making "progress", I'll continue to go to them.



- Josh

This movie SUCKED so bad there are no words for it.