Get to the chopper!
January 19, 2008
Alien Vs Predator: Requiem
In cinemas now
Alien vs. Predator: Requiem (the “Requiem” makes it sound smart) didn’t surprise me in any way at all. It was exactly what I was expecting it to be – for the most part. Glossy looks, decent enough special effects, a crap ending, rubbish dialogue, and characters I couldn’t give a fig about (the fact that I was more bothered about what happened to the Predator character than any of the humans speaks volumes). And it wasn’t a patch on any of the other Alien/Predator films (well, except maybe Predator 2 and Alien Resurrection). Although it was, as I predicted before I saw it, better than the first one – which wasn’t particularly hard since the original, which saw an Aztec temple full of Aliens in the Arctic, was directed by Paul WS Anderson, mother of such cinematic abortions as Resident Evil.
Yet amidst all the stupid lines (someone makes the hilarious quip “It’s not Halloween for another six months” – to someone in his pizza delivery uniform. Is he infamous for his rubbish Halloween costumes, or is it just bad writing? Considering the staggering lack of back story, we may never know), the murkiness (yes, there’s a Predator fighting multiple Aliens – but it’s at night time, and it’s always raining, and the Aliens are black, so you can’t see a God-damned thing), and the ideas which sound like they’ve been come up by a twelve-year-old, who provided sketches in crayon (ladies and gentlemen, I give you… the Predalien!), there’s something other big budget horror films tend to lack nowadays – balls.
Big old hairy testicles. While some of the violence in AVPR (which, when you say it out loud, sounds like a noise a baby would make) is rather tame and rubbish, some of it is actually quite daring – a kid dies within the first twenty minutes (which made up for that annoying-as-hell kid in The War Of The Worlds, who really deserved to die), the Aliens invade a hospital and start killing pregnant women, and there’s allusions to babies being eaten. You don’t see that in The Grudge, do you? No, you just get cat-children.
For the most part, however, the film plays out like a Greatest Hits package of the Alien and Predator films – there’s the skinned guy hanging from a tree (see Predator), the Alien swimming (see Alien Resurrection – or better yet, don’t) – but only for the Alien/Predator characters. Unlike the beefcake Arnie and co/actually interesting Sigourney Weaver and Bill Paxton characters from the other films, the characters in are more broad caricatures – but that’s okay, because then they’re usually exploded/eviscerated. There sure are a lot of multiple choices separated by dashes in this review – and maybe that’s a good analogy to wrap up Alien vs. Predator: Requiem – a lot of multiple choices separated by dashes. Actually, no, that’s crap.
Alien vs. Predator: Requiem – it’s alright.
hmmmm. I still need to see this one but 3/5 sounds a little high. These “objective” rating systems are tough though. I often find that most movies I like get a B from me on the futilepodcast, except for Gone Baby Gone and No Country for Old Men which I gave an A- and A respectively.
Well, AVPR wasn’t a particularly well made film, but it was constantly enjoyable, which saves it from being at 2 or 1 star film in my book.
And, yeah, No Country For Old Men deserves an A, if only because it’s the best the Coens have done for years.
For sure. Have you seen There Will Be Blood? It’s a strange one we’ll review it in a few days and post it by the beginning of next week hopefully.
Well unfortunatley it’s not out ’til February here in jolly old England, so until then I’m trying to placate myself by listening to Johnny Greenwood’s score, which is very good.
Isn’t the mute older brother from Little Miss Sunshine in it?
I didn’t see LMS but that’s what Blaine said on our podcast about it.