Movie Review

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (R)

Mark Burger

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Hollywood.com Says
The second feature film to combine two of 20th Century Fox’s most popular franchises doesn’t skimp on gizmos or gore, just on characterization and dialogue.

Story
Well, if the title doesn’t say it all…Picking up where Alien vs. Predator left off, those pesky aliens cause the Predator ship to crash on Earth, setting them free near a Colorado town. A lone Predator (Ian Whyte, encoring from AvP) comes to Earth to clean up the mess and, what the hell, maybe pick up a few human trophies, too. Needless to say, the town’s human residents are completely unprepared for this sort of inter-galactic free-for-all on their streets. This is, after all, the sort of town where everybody knows everybody but no one seems to notice when a spaceship crashes in the woods outside of town, or when the self-same spaceship blows up the next day. In short, you could say that they get what’s coming to them--and they sure do.

Acting
Pretty dreadful all around. Then again, Shane Salerno’s script is pointless to begin with. Steven Pasquale (TV’s Rescue Me) plays the ex-con hero, Dallas (a nod to the original Alien). Reiko Aylesworth (TV’s 24) plays a veteran of the Gulf War who returns stateside just in time to engage in another one--a pretty pale homage to Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley character. John Ortiz plays the local sheriff, one of the dullest (and dumbest) screen lawmen in recent memory. Veteran Robert Joy drops in briefly as a weasely U.S. Army colonel who would just as soon nuke the town as try to save it. Every time this film focuses on the (one-dimensional) human characters, it stops cold. Unfortunately, this happens a lot. There’s no reason to root for them, because you simply don’t care. True to form, most of them are sliced, diced, chopped, lasered, exploded from within, and otherwise treated in a shabby fashion. They are simply fodder.

Direction
Just for the record, this is the sixth Alien film and the fourth Predator film, and it holds the dubious distinction of being the worst of any of them. The special effects are just dandy, but not much else is. This also marks the inauspicious feature directorial debut of noted visual effects artists Colin and Greg Strause (billed as “The Brothers Strause”). They clearly have an affinity for this sort of thing--and for the Alien and Predator franchises--but are just as clearly content to simply let the special effects run away with the story. The first Alien vs. Predator movie was no great shakes, but it was better than it had any right to be. This one is not. Responding to the fans who wanted this film to be R-rated, the Brothers Strause have delivered on that--and absolutely nothing more. It’s a pointless exercise.

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