Monday, February 18, 2008

Aliens v Predator : Requiem

for some reason a rather large number of fanboys and various other interwebnet types could not bring themselves to enjoy Alien vs Predator for what it was. i am not exactly sure what all expected, but for me it was an enjoyable enough action romp, with a halfway decent cast and enough Alien & Predator action to keep me amused for 90 or so minutes.

those who complained and moaned about it were perhaps in a minority; it apparently did enough business to warrant a sequel in the form of Aliens vs Predator : Requiem. we got to watch it last night, and in short it is more of the same, only slightly more violent.

the comments below the poster could well contain *** SPOILERS ***, so you have been warned!




the first thing you note is that this one starts pretty much where A v P left off, which is a splendid thing - all too often sequels in this genre ignore that which has been before it. the first thing of consequence you note, however, is the fact that the cast is comprised of a bunch of people you have never heard of. gone, specifically obviously and in general calibre-wise, are the likes of Lance Henriksen and Ewen Bremner, here are several unknowns. alas, the acting talents of these unknows is, shall we say, limited. how limited? around the half way mark of the film i was kind of hoping that Gary Busey's character out of Predator 2 might get reincarnated and appear here. yep, that bad.

plot? tricky. the Predator ship from the first one manages to crash land back on earth, thanks in no small part to the arrival onboard of this much celebrated "Predalien" creature, a rather nasty looking hybrid of the two species.

the aliens on earth go on a breeding frenzy, taking out people in what i think is some sort of small town in Colorado, USA.

another Predator, i believe called "Wolf", is monitoring all of this pack on the Planet of the Predators. he appears to take umbridge with this development, and thus belts off to earth to go and sort the whole thing out. needless to say the people of this town in Colorado (or wherever it is) get to bear the brunt of the Alien and Predator activities.





by no means is Aliens vs Predator : Requiem a bad film. the poor acting is assisted by the fact that the makers have decided to get rid of most of the "human drama" element in favour of things, aliens, predators and people being sliced, diced and otherwise blown up.

the ending is a bit of an oddity, and i stress the *** SPOILER WARNING *** again. if they nuked the whole town, why would they trouble themselves to save, rather than shoot, the handful of survivors? also, they leave the door open for a curious sequel, although i suppose they did do that with the first one too. the way the first one was left, however, is not as confusing as how this one ends! i believe this will be it for revelations, so *** SPOILER WARNING END*** !!!!!

so how does it slot in with all the other films? it goes without saying that it is not as good as Alien, Aliens or Predator. it is, however, a far more enjoyable experience that Alien 3, and it can feel no shame in a head to head battle with Predator 2.

if all you want to do is moan and complain that it is "not the film you wanted to see", then don't go and see it. if, however, you are an action sci-fi fan with 90 minutes spare, you could do a lot worse than check this film out!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No comments: