Alien vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)

9th Feb 08





Plot
Following on directly from where the last movie left off, with the birth of the ‘Predalien’, the action now transfers to Earth, and rather conveniently to a small Midwestern town where the rest of the world would be oblivious to the ensuing mayhem.

As a scrap kicks off with the Predalien trying to kill off every Predator on the vessel, one silly bugger accidentally blasts a hole through the ship’s hull, causing the ship to crash in the woody surrounds of Gunnison, Colorado.

Before you know it face-huggers are impregnating people that no one else will miss till the plot requires otherwise and characters are introduced with no other purpose than to get messed up between the two battling alien species. It’s loud, it’s dumb, but is it fun? Welcome to Alien vs. Predator: Requiem.

Review
With the critical derided first instalment still bagging $171million worldwide at the box office, it was inevitable that there would be a follow-up. That the follow-up took three / four years to reach cinema audiences indicated that perhaps some effort was being made to ensure that second time round the scrapping monster icons would offer something more substantial than the PG-13 rated thrills that didn’t impress last time out.

Making their feature film debut The Brothers Strause (Greg and Colin), whose Hydraulx outfit supplied special effects for the likes of 300 and The Invasion (both 2007), they took over from Paul W.S. Anderson (who now produces). Their intention was to make the Alien and Predator scary again, to do a ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre with creatures’. In that respect they have failed considerably. It is far from scary. Instead it is just very noisy. It is too loud to ever be tense, opting instead for explosive action over trying to make the audience shriek in terror.

The movie failed to make an equivalent financial dent at the North American box office grossing just over half of the $80.3million the first outing did, and as with the last, it also failed to register with the critics.

Considering how bland the first Alien Vs Predator movie was, hopes were not exactly high for this sequel. Against the odds though it makes for passable entertainment; it isn’t a bad movie but then it isn’t a great movie either. Far from the Chainsaw Massacre they were aiming for The Brothers Strause have instead come up with their Friday the 13th with aliens tearing up the clichéd group of American kids that Mr. Voorhees normally chops up.

With the first movie heavily criticised for toning the shocks down to a teenage friendly PG-13 rating in the States, The Brother Strauss have upped the grim stuff to secure a more fan-pleasing R rating (although both rated a 15 in the U.K.) to include onscreen nastiness to both children and pregnant women. Elsewhere though there is still quite a bit of killing that takes place off-screen which begs the question as to why, if the Brothers are prepared to go so far in certain respects, they still remained shy about going the full hog.

The guys do their best to nod and wink to previous movies from in the franchises. We have a character named Dallas, an Iraq War veteran (played by Reiko Aylesworth) who plays as a pale imitation of Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley in Aliens as she runs around with her daughter clutching tight to her, the list just goes on. The execution of these references is heavy-handed and elicits a huge groan rather than knowing nod. Such references were one of the key areas of criticism levelled at it upon its release with many citing that it was one of the worst films released that year.

It seems churlish to grumble about the performances when the film is so obviously not pitched that way but some characterisation wouldn’t have gone amiss. Writer Shane Salermo (Shaft remake) has concentrated more on circumstance and setting up events rather than providing the audience with anyone to emphasise with. Amongst the cast Shareeka Epps (Half Nelson) and John Ortiz (American Gangster) are as close you’ll get to a name or face you may recognise.

By their own admission the directors were not looking for stars when in the Alien and the Predator they felt they had their stars already with both Tom Woodruff Jr. and Ian Whyte filling the roles of the Alien and Predator respectively for the second time.

Whyte’s Predator is a cleaner, sent in to tidy up the mess on Earth with his never ending supply of blue corrosive ooze to wipe out all evidence of any alien activity. Nicknamed ‘Wolf’, after Winston Wolfe the cleaner in Pulp Fiction, he must be so busy tidying up the mess others have made that he overlooks the fact that he has left a skinless torso strung-up in the woods dangling there for all the world to see.

For fans / committed geeks of the series, some interest might be derived from seeing the Predator planet for the first time. Given the Predator’s generally unkempt appearance it comes as a surprise to see how pristine and tidy their abode looks. There is also a God-awful pay-off come the final scenes as we are introduced very unsubtly to a Ms. Yutami (‘Weyland-Yutami’ anyone?) where in case the viewer didn’t register the character name first time it is repeated yet again in quick succession.

There is nothing new on show here and it falls far from the giddy heights of the original Alien and Predator movies. Take it separately as ninety minutes of brainless entertainment it does the trick nicely. Expect to be bludgeoned by a great sound mix coming at you at volume eleven and Brian Tyler’s relentless score papering over the abundant cracks and flaws in what is best suited for an un-involved Saturday night rental from Blockbuster.

Posted by
S Cockwell



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