Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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43 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Thanks goodness I'm not the only one who thinks they need to watch this with night vision, 29 May 2008
This is one of the worst films I have ever seen (try to see) and a shameful abuse of one of the greatest movie monsters of all time. The Alien is no longer scary. Gone is the elegance. Gone is the menace and chilling patience. Made by people who know how to make FX but have no real idea about how to make a movie. I sometimes wondered if they were making fun of what had gone before, like a Zucker/Abrams flick as it seemed to veer into what could be construed as parody. Sadly, no.
I knew going in it would be bad, and that it would probably be yet another nail in the coffin of my favorite sci-fi sequels ("Alien" in my case, though I do enjoy the "Predator" films). I had seen the "redband" trailer, and stared in horror at its frenetic menagerie of 80s teen slasher clichés; I even watched the "exclusive" online clip of the film's first five minutes, and hoped that they had been edited down from a better-paced original (as it turned out, they had not). But even so, I gave the movie a shot. Why? I'm not sure. Perhaps because if a beloved artifice that one has admired for years is to be systematically dismantled and thrown on the trash heap, one should be there to watch it burn. At least, I thought, with my expectations this low, this movie's directors would have to try very hard to undercut them.
They did. I mean really, they must have tried hard. It takes some kind of effort to take two of the most durable mythologies in modern scifi and make them a backdrop to a pizza guy's coming of age. Seriously. That is the only discernible story-arc in this entire film. Truth be told I could forgive even that if the characters hadn't came pre-assembled right out of the teen movie stock barrel. Instead this film spends 40 minutes trying to make us care whether Smarmy Teen gets it off with Hot Blonde before Blond Bully Ex-Boyfriend finds out. Thank God he has Troubled Ex-Con Brother (who trumps in along with his buddy, Nice Cop) to help him out once the aliens (who arrive courtesy of "disturbing" evisceration of Happy Hunting Dad and his son, Curious Preteen) start to take out the population (such as Mumbling Bum Who No One Will Ever Believe and Dense Cop Who Keeps Looking In The Dark After Everyone Else Has Left). They soon meet up with Screaming Bereft Mother and Military Chick, who saves her daughter Cute Little Girl after her husband Wussy New Man is vivisected in line with tradition.
Honestly, with this zoo of automated plot-bots to manage, how do the aliens and the predators (actually a Predator) get a look in? Well in truth, they don't. Very little time is spent developing either character (and let's face it, since neither character actually talks, that isn't surprising) and any tension built up between them is quickly dissipated as the film returns to the interminable "I Know What You Did Last Summer" slasher plot. I'm not sure what sort of budget this had but you can see that money spent on each subsequent Alien or Predator film is getting less & less, with average special effects, no name actors, bland locations & surprisingly cheap looking production values. Please stop embarrassing yourselves even further.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
The Good, The Bad, The More Bad, The Still More Bad, and the Fugly., 29 May 2008
This is a Frankenstein's Monster of a movie. Both Victor Frankenstein's creation and "Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem" seemed like a good idea done for what seemed like the right reasons, they both have all the right parts, but they're stitched together in a less-than-ideal manner, and upon being unleashed, they both leave devastation and despair in their wake. Maybe that's too melodramatic a way to phrase it, but watching this movie certainly wasn't an enjoyable experience for me. I started out trying to make this a balanced, thoughtful, even-handed critique: something in between the "Worst movie ever! Kill all those involved!" and "SO kewl best movie in history lol" reviews everyone else is doing. I even gave myself a couple weeks of "cooling-off time." But I just cannot help letting some bitterness and sarcasm leak out. I just can't.
Okay, if you've read the other reviews, you know the deal with this film. If not, in short: at the end of the first "AvP" (which, despite its flaws, is an unfairly underrated film, I feel), a chestburster that shows hybrid features of both Predators and Aliens (a PredAlien, if you will, affectionately known as "Chet") bursts out of one of the fallen hunters aboard the Predators' mothership. "AvP:R" picks up right at that moment. Chet goes on a rampage, somehow makes it back to Earth (it's a bit hazy how unless you listen to all the commentaries) and starts an infestation and killing spree in Canada-disguised-as-Colorado. Back on the Yautja (Predator, for non-übergeeks) Homeworld, a Predator who "cleans up" after hunts that go REALLY wrong -- his name is "Wolf" -- finds out about this little mishap and heads for Earth to take care o' bidness. Carnage ensues. Lots of it. And then you get a hint of what is yet to come for the Human race.
I watched this movie through once normally, once with the producer's & directors' commentary, and once with the creature designers' commentary. I watched all the behind-the-scenes stuff on the bonus disc. And while a lot of stuff is explained in those sections, I'm still left scratching my head at certain points in the film. I'm a self-avowed sci-fi übergeek; if I like a movie, I'll want to learn all about the gadgets, creatures, and suchlike in intricate, obsessive-compulsive detail afterward, so that on my many, many, many subsequent viewings, I can appreciate the film all the more. But I do NOT like to have to do hours of intensive research BEFORE watching a movie to be able to understand it! There were discussions in the commentaries about a couple of scenes that were cut from the theatrical release for time constraints that would have filled in more detail, such as how Chet got from the thoracic cavity of her host (yes, Chet is apparently some kind of immature queen) all the way back to Earth. Perhaps those filler scenes should have been reinstated AS WELL AS (I would even have taken INSTEAD OF) the extra seven minutes of over-the-top gore in this Ultimate Combat Edition.
The Good Stuff: New bad mutha of a Predator with sweet new weapons. A glimpse of the Yautja Homeworld. A LOT of thought and effort went into creature design, only one aspect of which I didn't take to (Chet's method of reproduction, mentioned in the "Bad Stuff" section below). High school bullies dying in horrible, protracted ways -- what's not to love about that? I also liked most of the sound effects and thematic elements (and even a couple of the lines) that were lifted directly from previous Alien and Predator movies. Some of the best tributes are the subtle ones: a "Space Jockey" skull in the Yautja trophy room, for example, and a tombstone in the local cemetery with the name of a victim from the first "Predator" film.
The Bad Stuff: There's paying cool tribute, and then there's outright copying someone else's work because you can't think of anything as good or better. And there were so many call-backs to the previous films that "AvP:R" ended up looking like a patchwork monstrosity overall. And they just HAD to shoehorn some teen "romance" (for "romance," read: "hormone-drenched lust") in there, and it comes off as just a tad creepy. Also, I don't care how bizarre and . . . uh . . . alien . . . a creature is, or how much it's been genetically modified to go quickly from larva to adult for sport purposes, NOTHING, not even Chet, could possibly grow from three-foot-long parasitic larva to sixteen-foot-long killing machine in the space of about an hour and with only one moulting. Speaking of Chet: her method of reproduction seems just too off-kilter, even for a fictional creature that's a hybrid between two other fictional creatures. And unless the Predators have personal teleportation devices, I can't imagine any way for Wolf to get around town so fast. A lot of the other reviewers here have complained about the wooden acting in this film. Personally, I didn't notice anything like that. I'd assumed the townspeople were all in shock about the events unravelling around them and weren't all "with it." Also, other reviewers have complained about the beasties frequently looking like puppets or men in suits. Well, they frequently ARE puppets or men in suits, folks. Even the original "Alien" and "Predator" films that these same critics are lauding worked that way. If you're going to start picking on that angle, you might as well give up on all sci-fi movies. Not everything can (or even should) be CGI all the time. Deal with it. And if you must watch this film, watch it at night with all the lights off and the blackout curtains drawn, because these guys wanted to make a dark, creepy, atmospherically moody movie, and ended up making one that was SO dark, any ambient light in your room will wash away the picture and your ability to understand what's happening onscreen for about 20% of the time.
I give this film a dismally low rating because it is probably tied with "Alien: Resurrection" as my least-favourite film of the franchise. But I bought it to complete my collection, and to let the studio know that I believe the franchise is worth keeping alive, GIVEN THE RIGHT STORY. If you want a better link between the Alien and Predator movies, and how Humanity got to the stars in the first place, I recommend the video game "Predator: Concrete Jungle." It has fewer plot holes, more adult themes, and you get to control how much killing and gore is unleashed and how it is done. It is EXCELLENT. As for "AvP:R," unless you're a die-hard fan who must fill in the holes in his/her collection (like me), I wouldn't even recommend spending money to rent it. Either trick someone into giving you a copy as a present, or wait for it to be broadcast for free on television. Then write to the studio and say you want another "AvP" movie, but next time, make it GOOD.
On the other hand, I watched this with my pal, Simon, who said he enjoyed it way more than he did the first "AvP" movie. To each his or her own, I guess.
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16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Oddly uncompelling mish-mash, 26 May 2008
It's a salutary lesson in movie making - how it is possible to take all the best bits you liked from all the previous movies, and by linking them together with the wrong glue you end up with this... a series of moments that you admit fit well into the canon, and yet leave you with a growing feeling of unfulfillment, which climaxes in little more than indifference..
The story follows on directly from the first AVP, with a predator / alien hybrid being born - the ship crash lands in an isolated town, freeing its cargo of alien facehuggers into the human community. The resulting distress call from the Predator's craft brings a Predator to clean up the mess, and the scene is set for death and destruction all round. It's not a bad set up, with the situation rife with opportunities for suspense and horror - all of them wasted thanks to insipid casting and a script that a standard teen-slasher movie sequel would be happy to have. What happened to the subtlety of characterization of Alien and Aliens, and even Alien 3?
We have the young girl in need of rescue by mother like figure (remember Aliens?), the scene when the escaping humans flee in an army vehicle (remember Aliens?), humans woefully unequipped against their foe but fighting back nonetheless (remember Alien 3?)... in fact, all through the movie you will look at the scenes and say `Oh yeah, I remember how well that was done in the original..', and while the effort at referencing is appreciated for fans, the effect is to make sure you are never invested in this movie, merely reminiscing on the previous ones.
There are a precious few moments of originality which speak to what the movie might have been - the titular stand off is pretty well done, though by its nature it is devoid of human drama, and the best scene is seeing the shadow of an alien as it enters a gaggle of baby's in a maternity ward. Also, the score is effective, bringing back a mixture of both music and sound effects from previous movies. The gore element is back, avoiding the shallow feeling we got from the first AVP. Shockingly however, whatever meager entertainment value the movie has are reduced substantially by the very dark low contrast lighting, which renders most action scenes fairly incomprehensible. Even the daytime shots setting the scene, appear dark.
Above all, the film is mercifully fairly brief at only 96 minutes...
I'd love to review the extras here - all I can say is they are wonderfully plentiful and appear exhaustive from the lost - but truth be told I was too exhausted from the movie to touch them.
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