Alien Versus Predator: Requiem

Alien may be one of the best movies of all time. While Predator is not in that league, it is a first rate action film. Two great franchises, both of which have sparked the imagination of the public leading to many tie in products, particularly in the field of comics. Two great tastes that taste great together?

Like Salmon and Butter Pecan Ice Cream.

The premise is this: the Predator species are hunters. The Aliens make excellent prey, a challenging hunt. A Predator ship is transferring face huggers; one of the life stages of the Alien species, when one gets loose and infects a Predator. This Queen causes a crash on a primitive planet, Earth.

A father and son are out hunting from a small town. Face huggers that survived the crash attack them, and soon, they are hosting Aliens with in them.

The infection spreads quickly, especially because the Predator Born Alien Queen can inject young through her tongue, and each host gives birth to a litter.

There are several side plots; a kid gets out of the slam, and has trouble fitting back in, a woman is home from the military, and has trouble fitting in, and who really cares?

I'm not even going to bother crediting actors. There were no outstanding performances, either good or abysmal. I am sure that in years to come, these people will think of this movie as "paying dues."

One of the scariest features about the original Alien was the fact that you never saw the monster complete until the very end. This movie does not bother with suspense. This is a standard monster munch fest. It is Critters with better monsters. Also highly effective in the original was the setting. The Nostromo was very dark, industrial and grimy. To simulate this a big chunk was shot in the sewers of this small town, and then the nuclear power plant. Partially effective in what they were shooting for, the entire movie suffered for a lack of lighting. In the Nostromo there were shadows. Here, there is darkness. I swear; it is difficult to make out what is going on in many of the scenes. It is not suspenseful, it's frustrating.

The Monsters in this movie were great. The special effects were first rate. And that is all that was good. Alien and Predator both had effective dialogue. This is contrived movie cr/@p. It reads like a movie of the week.

Another portion of the movie takes place in the woods, like Predator in the jungle. The cover is not deep enough to build the suspense like it did in the original. Once again, trying to copy a Masterpiece, and pulling a knock off. Further, the sheriff and the military mom, and the boys with hunting experience all arm themselves, and this echoes both Predator, and Aliens. But it is not a mercenary unit. We are not impressed that the monsters can disassemble this band of stone cold killers, instead, we are secretly hoping they will, and soon. Again, the flawed Xerox.

I have tried to be objective about this; sometimes it is easy to bash a sequel that did not live up to its original. I personally thought all the Pirates of the Caribbean movies were good, but suffered because the first one was Great.

And I have to admit, that had I lived in the Amazon Rainforest all my life, and this was the first horror movie I ever saw, it would impress me. But following in the wake of, and mooching off the corpses of two great movies, I tend to grade it more harshly. This could have been better, much better, and without much effort.