All I wanted from the Paul Anderson’s Aliens VS. Predator was for these two extraterrestrial badasses to tear each other up on screen. That’s all. It was not only one of the biggest debacles in film but it was also insulting to the AvP origins.
I wished I wasn’t so hyped about the first one because my expectations have lowered drastically for this one. It’s very much like trying so hard to get laid with a hot girl and then giving up after 4 months to go poke your fat friend who’s always had a crush on you. So with even lower expectations for Aliens VS. Predator Requiem, I thought I could waste some time and money before Christmas dinner started.
If you’re looking for good acting, don’t watch this movie. If you want to experience a deep story plot then go play Bioshock. If you’re mad about the first AvP and just want to see Aliens and Predator painting the town red then this is it. Bring a flask to double-up the fun.
Within the first ten minutes of the movie, an 8-year old boy gets face-hugged and killed by a Chestburster. No shiny red bike for little Bobby this year. This will set the relentless tone for the rest of the movie and every time you think they’ve gone too far, they’ll go further.
AvP left off with a Chestburster coming out of our previous Predator hero. AvPR starts with the Chestburster growing into a PredAlien (haha) and killing everyone on the ship, causing it to crash land back onto Earth. The Facehuggers break free along with the new PredAlien and begin their invasion in a small Colorado town, which is a decent start because if they crashed in Wyoming, the Aliens would have just eaten each other out of boredom.
The next awesome scene shifts to the Predators’ home planet, (first time on screen!) where a Predator analyzes the ship’s tragedy and immediately gets geared-up for battle. It was very disappointing to send only one Predator to clean up the mess. Their budget probably allowed only one Predator costume.
Predator goes to Earth and hunts down the Aliens one by one. Even humans that got in Predator’s way were murdered! At this point, the action goes balls-to-the-walls and everyone gets beaten, eaten, lasered in the face, ninja-star’ed, grabbed and stabbed - rinse and deplete.
Even the National Guard that comes in for backup gets eviscerated. Everyone that you think lives, dies. And if they are not killed by the aliens then they all died at the end with an unexpected decision by the military to nuke the entire town. There were only 4 survivors out of a party of about 15-ish. What a great death ratio for a Christmas movie!
The parts that sucked are the action scenes, which take place in darkness and under heavy rain. The fighting sequences were also shot so close that you didn’t know what the hell was going on. At least you knew someone was going to die hilariously when that scene was over, hurray!
Some would argue that this horrible filming was due to their lacking budget. I say it’s due to The Strauss Brother’s lack of experience. Take a look at their work for example, the only thing I see are commercials and edgy music videos with a lot of visual effects. Don’t get me wrong, this movie was fun but it does not hit the high note of Ridley Scott or James Cameron’s productions.
Not even close.
There were still plot holes rampant in AvPR but not as much as the first one. However, the brutality and face-paced gore fest is enough to make up for it. You’ll be saying, “Holy shit!” so much that you’ll forget about the cheesy love story and all other impossibilities.
If that wasn’t enough, you’ll be treated to oldschool sounds from the first Predator movie and other audio elements that will tickle your geek bone. Consider this an optimistic point-of-view but in reality, this franchise has yet to take off. It’s not getting better, it’s just getting less crappy.
The movie’s conclusion leaves for a definite sequel, which I hope will be in the same mean spirit as this one and bury Paul Anderson’s AvP out of our minds forever. But as we see in AvP and AvPR, it doesn’t matter that these directors are fans of the franchise so how about we let some real veterans step in and try to make a decent AvP movie. Please. Just once before I die.
1 comment
This movie sucked. Straight up. You never knew what the hell was going on because their shitty budget only allowed them to use fucked up costumes (which they only did close-ups of the face and not a whole body shot) instead of CGI. When did you see CGI in the movie??? Probably a total of 10 min worth. AT LEAST Paul Anderson used CGI to capture good images of both Aliens and Predator. Either way, both films blew ass. I couldn’t convince myself to even like AVPR. I don’t think anybody will ever get it right. It’ll always be some geek with a budget that claims they loved the whole AvP story, but they’ll never get it right because all they’re gonna do is bite off every other stupid sci-fi movie and rehash the same exact scenes (notice how in AVPR, when the Aliens came into the kitchen? Hmm…kind of reminds of when the Velociraptors came into the kitchen in Jurassic Park) in a “new” and “fresh” perspective. No respectable director will try and pick up the franchise because it’s already been bastardized by these other directors and writers. The old Aliens and Predator movies had an astounding amount of suspense and they hardly ever showed both Aliens and/or Predator in those movies. It’s amazing how they can’t even get close to that level of suspense and we’re in 2007! They did that back in the effing 80’s! So sad. In conclusion, let go of your hopes of there ever being a decent AvP movie. It’s just simply never going to happen. Unless you get Christopher Nolan to pick it up and let him do to AVP what he did to the Batman franchise. But that’s pretty far fetched. Anyways, enough of my rant. Go get drunk or high and watch this movie.