Post by Quorthon on Jun 3, 2008 12:55:34 GMT -5
Alien Vs Predator: Requiem
Science Fiction/Horror/Action
2007
Color
MPAA Rating: R
Directed by:
USA
***WARNING***THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN SOME SPOILERS AND THEY WILL BE MARKED WITH “***”
Just a few short years ago, I was pretty hyped up to see an Alien vs Predator movie looming on the movie horizon. Then, uncomfortable tidings blew in. Paul W.S. Anderson was not only directing, he was writing it. Then worry spread when it remained unrated for far too long. Turned out it was PG-13. In utter disgust, I flatly ignored the film only to view it upon it’s release on DVD to immense disappointment. The writing, which is not even remotely a strong point for Anderson, was awful. The strong female lead was annoying. The story was of incomprehensibly poor quality. The actors and characters were all forgettable, even Lance Henrickson who, let’s be honest here, has had a career in a freefall dive for a number of years already. Plot elements were stupid, “rules” set up governing the universes of the Aliens and Predators were flatly ignored or offensively rewritten, and the violence and gore—in fact, all the adult content—was now watered down to appeal to children despite the very real fact that both of these popular franchises were always—always—aimed at adults. Be it in movies, comic books, novels, or video games—the target audience was always adults.
So then, a couple years pass and along comes Alien vs. Predator: Requiem. Finally, a return to the R-rated roots. Like the previous film, helmed by Paul “Barely Better Than Uwe Boll” Anderson, there were a lot of lofty promises made before the film launched. For instance, this would bring back the horror element. It would earn that R-rating. Essentially, the two brothers directing the film indicated that they understood all the ways in which Anderson failed and they wanted to remedy his wrongs.
This film, unfortunately, directly follows the first movie. Usually, this is a good thing, but when it follows a film that was so badly a mess of utter trite and childish writing, we can say that it’s a tad unfortunate. ***When we left off the previous film, the Predator ship was leaving Antarctica with a wounded Predator. The final shot had an alien carrying Predator-influenced DNA (which is the way of the Aliens as we all know from Alien 3 with the Dog-alien) burst from the abdomen of the wounded one. This film starts right there with the new Predalien (a queen, no less) causing havoc on the ship until it crashes in the mountains in Colorado. From here, a distress call is sent to the Predator homeworld, and the aliens run amok. One Predator arrives to clean up the mess, and chaos ensues in the small town.
Here’s the breakdown:
The Good:
--With the last film, I found barely any quality moments which earned a positive point. One of those was the special effects with a disclaimer: The special effects were damn near perfect from the very beginning of either Alien or Predator series—so they should still be awesome today. And that’s true. The effects of the Aliens and Predators are awesome, the designs are fairly standard, though good. And for the most part, even the CG effects are exceptionally well done.
--Yes, it earns that “R” rating. For one, the first two people infected with aliens are a little kid and his Dad who are out hunting. There is “adult language,” plenty of violence and gore.
--Heavily borrows the music from previous films (especially Predator), and it still sounds good.
--Strong female lead is still no Ripley, but she’s much more likable than that awful woman from the previous AvP film.
--Stupid, nonsensical plot elements kept to a minimum. For instance, the characters who would be a burden on the heroic characters tend not to last very long.
--Human characters are better and typically more likable than in the first AvP film.
--Whereas the last movie totally failed to give us the signature shocks and gore of these two franchises, this film does not fail. We see a couple heads explode, inner-mouths of aliens smashing people’s heads, chest-bursting surprises, and acid blood burning the hell out of some people.
--There is only one real Predator in the film and a plethora of aliens. No, don’t get the wrong idea. This actually worked in the benefit of the film because we finally got some expansive story on the Predator species that doesn’t go out and contradict some things that we already know. This one lone Predator seems to be playing as a one-man clean-up crew to erase any evidence of either Aliens or Predators on the planet. Rather than having the sometimes ridiculous nature of the previous film where there were just seemingly random shots of Aliens and Predators fighting each other, we had the lone hunter again—not really seen since the first Predator film. Remember, in the second film, the Predator was as much a hunted as a hunter. This, for me, was probably the most enjoyable part of the film overall.
--Queen Predalien actually looks pretty cool.
--Much improved horror atmosphere, but somewhat average cinematography overall.
--Remember in the previous AvP film where the Predator decided he was going to team up with the “heroic female lead?” And he gave her a laughably stupid weapon and ridiculous “shield” which was little more than just an alien head? Yeah, nothing quite that stupid going on in this film.
Didn’t Hurt It, Didn’t Help:
--Usually, when a film late in a series pays homage to previous films, it’s pretty cool. Here, it felt a little over-obvious. “Get to the chopper!” is yelled, the Predator removes his mask in a rather cliché manner (exactly duplicated from the first film), and a couple other moments.
--Acting pitches and wanes in quality. It’s never perfect, but typically it’s pretty good. There are moments where it’s just average for a film of this nature “to carry the story until the movie gets gory.”
--Burgeoning love story between two of the main characters is pretty weak.
--Follows somewhat typical horror-action film format where we are introduced to a bunch of seemingly random characters who all end up working together for a common goal in the end. Hey, at least the horror elements are back.
--Character development is typically pretty light—which is par for the course of this type of film. Better than the last film which had next to none.
--Predator under-utilizes his cloaking ability. While it makes sense for us moviegoers to see him, logically for his character, I’d have expected him to use it more.
--Action hero moments a la the Predator series are still here.
--Story picks up right after the dreadful first film.
--Occasionally bland or cliché dialog.
--The previous film ran at a bare minimum 84 minutes—this one at least fills the time with a more workable story at about an hour and forty minutes.
The Bad:
-- *** There is some real plot confusion at an unfortunate key moment in the film: The National Guard is called in to help the people in this town, yet, it seems the information on the Aliens creeping around is yet unknown. So, this is to aid a town whose only power station was completely destroyed. Yet they all have guns drawn, and weapons a bit more “automatic” and powerful than you’d expect. It almost seems as though the government is aware of the “infestation,” but clear links aren’t easily made.
-- *** A bizarre new development was spawned with this film—and maybe it’s intended to be a side-effect of the Queen also being the Predalien, I don’t know, but she seems to have cut out the middle man. She moves in to a victim’s face, spreads the Predator-like appendages, then plants that inner mouth inside the mouth of a human—and lo and behold, she’s playing the role of an instant-face-hugger. While it helped speed the action along, it violates some of the “known rules” of Aliens.
--Aliens were still born and grown to adulthood a bit too quickly.
--Strange occurrence of a large spaceship crashing in the mountains in the US and pretty much no one in the nearby small town hearing it. Perhaps this relates back to the explanation of why the military took such serious notice—but then, this whole part of the film could’ve used a lot more explanation all around.
The Ugly:
--Alien queen goes into a hospital… and there are pregnant women there.
Memorable Scene:
--Predator meets the “hero group” for the first time in a store—and the humans realize there is a lot more going on than just these black alien things.
From Best to Worst:
--Aliens (best)
--Alien
--Predator
--Alien 3
--Alien vs. Predator: Requiem
--Alien: Resurrection
--Predator 2
--Alien vs Predator (worst)
--Now, I’ll explain: Aliens was a science-fiction action film with strong horror elements, and it worked brilliantly in “upping the ante” from the first film, which was essentially an excellent, futuristic take on Gothic Horror. The original Predator works fairly well as a horror film, however, it has an awful lot of 80’s action film cheese thrown in which works against it ever so slightly. Alien 3 is a decent film, as is this new AvP—neither really excel in any way, but both are decent films. Alien Resurrection, I have to give a somewhat lower note because the acting was the worst in the regular Alien series (truly awful at times) and the writing was often disappointing. Originally, the AVP franchise was apparently supposed to take off with the end of Resurrection where the Aliens were finally brought to Earth, and to be honest, this is the way I hope it will one day continue. Predator 2 is simply the worst “bad cop” drama ever made with the Predator thrown in for gory good measure. Danny Glover spends most of his screen time sucking as bad as possible. I’ve said it before, and it’s worth repeating: Without the Predator, Predator 2 would simply be one of the worst cop-drama movies ever made. AvP, as I noted in its original review, is pretty much the worst thing to ever happen to these franchises.
Quality:
Acting: 7/10
Story: 7/10
Atmosphere: 8/10
Cinematography: 7/10
Character Development: 5/10
Special Effects/Make-up: 9/10
Dialog: 6/10
Music: 8/10
Direction: 7/10
Quantity:
Nudity: 0/10
Sexuality: 1/10
Violence: 7/10
Gore: 5/10
Cheesiness: 4/10
Crappiness: 2/10
Overall: 6/10
Now, 6/10 isn’t exactly a high score, but it is double what I gave the first Alien vs Predator film which I felt was largely a waste of time. Unfortunately, you sorta have to have at least seen the ending to understand the starting point of this film. It has a much better overall story, it has the adult elements again, and the characters are somewhat better—not that this would have been a difficult accomplishment. Believe it or not, I will generally recommend this film to Alien and Predator fans, despite the few missteps.
Science Fiction/Horror/Action
2007
Color
MPAA Rating: R
Directed by:
USA
***WARNING***THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN SOME SPOILERS AND THEY WILL BE MARKED WITH “***”
Just a few short years ago, I was pretty hyped up to see an Alien vs Predator movie looming on the movie horizon. Then, uncomfortable tidings blew in. Paul W.S. Anderson was not only directing, he was writing it. Then worry spread when it remained unrated for far too long. Turned out it was PG-13. In utter disgust, I flatly ignored the film only to view it upon it’s release on DVD to immense disappointment. The writing, which is not even remotely a strong point for Anderson, was awful. The strong female lead was annoying. The story was of incomprehensibly poor quality. The actors and characters were all forgettable, even Lance Henrickson who, let’s be honest here, has had a career in a freefall dive for a number of years already. Plot elements were stupid, “rules” set up governing the universes of the Aliens and Predators were flatly ignored or offensively rewritten, and the violence and gore—in fact, all the adult content—was now watered down to appeal to children despite the very real fact that both of these popular franchises were always—always—aimed at adults. Be it in movies, comic books, novels, or video games—the target audience was always adults.
So then, a couple years pass and along comes Alien vs. Predator: Requiem. Finally, a return to the R-rated roots. Like the previous film, helmed by Paul “Barely Better Than Uwe Boll” Anderson, there were a lot of lofty promises made before the film launched. For instance, this would bring back the horror element. It would earn that R-rating. Essentially, the two brothers directing the film indicated that they understood all the ways in which Anderson failed and they wanted to remedy his wrongs.
This film, unfortunately, directly follows the first movie. Usually, this is a good thing, but when it follows a film that was so badly a mess of utter trite and childish writing, we can say that it’s a tad unfortunate. ***When we left off the previous film, the Predator ship was leaving Antarctica with a wounded Predator. The final shot had an alien carrying Predator-influenced DNA (which is the way of the Aliens as we all know from Alien 3 with the Dog-alien) burst from the abdomen of the wounded one. This film starts right there with the new Predalien (a queen, no less) causing havoc on the ship until it crashes in the mountains in Colorado. From here, a distress call is sent to the Predator homeworld, and the aliens run amok. One Predator arrives to clean up the mess, and chaos ensues in the small town.
Here’s the breakdown:
The Good:
--With the last film, I found barely any quality moments which earned a positive point. One of those was the special effects with a disclaimer: The special effects were damn near perfect from the very beginning of either Alien or Predator series—so they should still be awesome today. And that’s true. The effects of the Aliens and Predators are awesome, the designs are fairly standard, though good. And for the most part, even the CG effects are exceptionally well done.
--Yes, it earns that “R” rating. For one, the first two people infected with aliens are a little kid and his Dad who are out hunting. There is “adult language,” plenty of violence and gore.
--Heavily borrows the music from previous films (especially Predator), and it still sounds good.
--Strong female lead is still no Ripley, but she’s much more likable than that awful woman from the previous AvP film.
--Stupid, nonsensical plot elements kept to a minimum. For instance, the characters who would be a burden on the heroic characters tend not to last very long.
--Human characters are better and typically more likable than in the first AvP film.
--Whereas the last movie totally failed to give us the signature shocks and gore of these two franchises, this film does not fail. We see a couple heads explode, inner-mouths of aliens smashing people’s heads, chest-bursting surprises, and acid blood burning the hell out of some people.
--There is only one real Predator in the film and a plethora of aliens. No, don’t get the wrong idea. This actually worked in the benefit of the film because we finally got some expansive story on the Predator species that doesn’t go out and contradict some things that we already know. This one lone Predator seems to be playing as a one-man clean-up crew to erase any evidence of either Aliens or Predators on the planet. Rather than having the sometimes ridiculous nature of the previous film where there were just seemingly random shots of Aliens and Predators fighting each other, we had the lone hunter again—not really seen since the first Predator film. Remember, in the second film, the Predator was as much a hunted as a hunter. This, for me, was probably the most enjoyable part of the film overall.
--Queen Predalien actually looks pretty cool.
--Much improved horror atmosphere, but somewhat average cinematography overall.
--Remember in the previous AvP film where the Predator decided he was going to team up with the “heroic female lead?” And he gave her a laughably stupid weapon and ridiculous “shield” which was little more than just an alien head? Yeah, nothing quite that stupid going on in this film.
Didn’t Hurt It, Didn’t Help:
--Usually, when a film late in a series pays homage to previous films, it’s pretty cool. Here, it felt a little over-obvious. “Get to the chopper!” is yelled, the Predator removes his mask in a rather cliché manner (exactly duplicated from the first film), and a couple other moments.
--Acting pitches and wanes in quality. It’s never perfect, but typically it’s pretty good. There are moments where it’s just average for a film of this nature “to carry the story until the movie gets gory.”
--Burgeoning love story between two of the main characters is pretty weak.
--Follows somewhat typical horror-action film format where we are introduced to a bunch of seemingly random characters who all end up working together for a common goal in the end. Hey, at least the horror elements are back.
--Character development is typically pretty light—which is par for the course of this type of film. Better than the last film which had next to none.
--Predator under-utilizes his cloaking ability. While it makes sense for us moviegoers to see him, logically for his character, I’d have expected him to use it more.
--Action hero moments a la the Predator series are still here.
--Story picks up right after the dreadful first film.
--Occasionally bland or cliché dialog.
--The previous film ran at a bare minimum 84 minutes—this one at least fills the time with a more workable story at about an hour and forty minutes.
The Bad:
-- *** There is some real plot confusion at an unfortunate key moment in the film: The National Guard is called in to help the people in this town, yet, it seems the information on the Aliens creeping around is yet unknown. So, this is to aid a town whose only power station was completely destroyed. Yet they all have guns drawn, and weapons a bit more “automatic” and powerful than you’d expect. It almost seems as though the government is aware of the “infestation,” but clear links aren’t easily made.
-- *** A bizarre new development was spawned with this film—and maybe it’s intended to be a side-effect of the Queen also being the Predalien, I don’t know, but she seems to have cut out the middle man. She moves in to a victim’s face, spreads the Predator-like appendages, then plants that inner mouth inside the mouth of a human—and lo and behold, she’s playing the role of an instant-face-hugger. While it helped speed the action along, it violates some of the “known rules” of Aliens.
--Aliens were still born and grown to adulthood a bit too quickly.
--Strange occurrence of a large spaceship crashing in the mountains in the US and pretty much no one in the nearby small town hearing it. Perhaps this relates back to the explanation of why the military took such serious notice—but then, this whole part of the film could’ve used a lot more explanation all around.
The Ugly:
--Alien queen goes into a hospital… and there are pregnant women there.
Memorable Scene:
--Predator meets the “hero group” for the first time in a store—and the humans realize there is a lot more going on than just these black alien things.
From Best to Worst:
--Aliens (best)
--Alien
--Predator
--Alien 3
--Alien vs. Predator: Requiem
--Alien: Resurrection
--Predator 2
--Alien vs Predator (worst)
--Now, I’ll explain: Aliens was a science-fiction action film with strong horror elements, and it worked brilliantly in “upping the ante” from the first film, which was essentially an excellent, futuristic take on Gothic Horror. The original Predator works fairly well as a horror film, however, it has an awful lot of 80’s action film cheese thrown in which works against it ever so slightly. Alien 3 is a decent film, as is this new AvP—neither really excel in any way, but both are decent films. Alien Resurrection, I have to give a somewhat lower note because the acting was the worst in the regular Alien series (truly awful at times) and the writing was often disappointing. Originally, the AVP franchise was apparently supposed to take off with the end of Resurrection where the Aliens were finally brought to Earth, and to be honest, this is the way I hope it will one day continue. Predator 2 is simply the worst “bad cop” drama ever made with the Predator thrown in for gory good measure. Danny Glover spends most of his screen time sucking as bad as possible. I’ve said it before, and it’s worth repeating: Without the Predator, Predator 2 would simply be one of the worst cop-drama movies ever made. AvP, as I noted in its original review, is pretty much the worst thing to ever happen to these franchises.
Quality:
Acting: 7/10
Story: 7/10
Atmosphere: 8/10
Cinematography: 7/10
Character Development: 5/10
Special Effects/Make-up: 9/10
Dialog: 6/10
Music: 8/10
Direction: 7/10
Quantity:
Nudity: 0/10
Sexuality: 1/10
Violence: 7/10
Gore: 5/10
Cheesiness: 4/10
Crappiness: 2/10
Overall: 6/10
Now, 6/10 isn’t exactly a high score, but it is double what I gave the first Alien vs Predator film which I felt was largely a waste of time. Unfortunately, you sorta have to have at least seen the ending to understand the starting point of this film. It has a much better overall story, it has the adult elements again, and the characters are somewhat better—not that this would have been a difficult accomplishment. Believe it or not, I will generally recommend this film to Alien and Predator fans, despite the few missteps.
