While a financial success, the original Alien Vs Predator left a rather large hole in the "Alien" and "Predator" franchises, at least from a lot of fans' point of view. Feeling like it was a missed opportunity, many fans looked to Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem as a glimmer of hope to bring these two (or is it now one?) franchises back on track. Basically, the directors, the Brothers Strause, had nowhere to go but up and out of that hole.
Starting right where AVP left off, we find ourselves aboard a Predator ship, with the slain body of the last movie's main Pred laid out on an altar. Out of his chest bursts a baby alien, though different than any alien we've seen, as it appears this one is a hybrid of both of the title creatures. With the magic of a nice cut, some time passes, the thing grows up, and kills some Predators. During the attack, the ship gets damaged, and it crashes to Earth, releasing some facehuggers into the Colorado forest. A hapless father and son witness the crash, and while investigating the alien ship, are attacked and impregnated. Meanwhile, back at Predator Headquarters, a distress signal is detected, and one lone Predator gears up, then heads to Earth to clean up the mess.
(You can see all this online now, and with the exception on one quick shot of the hybrid creature shedding it's skin [showing some time has passed], it's pretty much the same in how it goes down)
After the break-neck pace of the opening 5 minutes, the film slows down a bit for the fodder, er, human introduction- Dallas (1st of many not-so-subtle throwbacks to the previous films), an ex-con who is just released from prison, and happens to be friends with Morales, the town's new Sheriff. There's also Dallas's younger brother Ricky, who pines away for the hot blonde Jesse. And finally there's Kelly, who's a soldier returning home from service, who has a husband and a daughter. We get very small glimpses into their lives. Not too much, just enough to get a slight history of each one.
All this set up felt like a film out of the 80's, as I recalled The Blob remake, though you may find something less random to compare it too. I don't mean this in a bad way, as it was cool to get this feeling in a movie again. I think some may find this part of the film a bit slow, but I always loved the set up of small town daily life, with everyone living their little dramas, juxtaposed against an unimaginable threat just out of sight.
As people go missing (remember those facehuggers, and oh yeah- the Predalien hybrid?), the police begin searching the woods. It's about this time that the badass looking Predator arrives on the scene, and when he crosses paths with humans that get in the way of his business, it's then that the action slowly starts ratcheting up to what we all want to see-
A hot blonde chick in her underwear! Wait, no. I mean- YES! But we also want to see a Predator fighting some Aliens, right? Well, we get that, for sure.
So is the movie good?
Like I was saying earlier, the first AVP left a hole of disappointment in the hearts of most fanboys. So what do the directors, along with writer Shane Salermo do? They take everything that was cool about Aliens and Predator, lay those parts out, fill in the blanks with some slightly sketched humans, throw a cool new monster in, ice the cake with some over-the-top violence (even for these films), and viola! A much better film than AVP.
Despite playing out more as homage, than a sequel, AVP:R is a lot of fun. Sure, there's the blatant Ripley/Newt dynamic. Sure there's the very familiar score by Brian Tyler, that's more of a mash-up of James Horner and Alan Silvestri, than anything else. Sure we get and APC-type vehicle smashing through things, and Colonial Marine-looking Nation Guard getting over-taken by aliens. And sure there's the Predator treating his injury, and even taking off his mask in the EXACT same way as the Pred in the 1st Predator film. There's even the return of one of Arnold's most quoted lines from Predator (much too my pleasure).
But it's these familiarities that remind us why the idea of taking these two movies, and Wolfman Vs Frankenstein-ing them, seems like such a badass idea. Because it is. The human story is just filler to when the two alien species clash onscreen. Sure, the humans get to kill some aliens, but nothing beats watching a Predator slice one to pieces with a saw-like bullwhip. Or blasting away hordes of aliens with double shoulder cannons. Or even just smashing one's head with his foot.
I'm glad we're getting a "give the people what they want film" this time, as it takes us to where the last film should have. Now, if this film is a success, I hope we get us a film that can take us to a somewhere totally new.
(Or, at least, to the lovely 1st AVP trade paperback, which inspired this whole "AVP thing", that I have sitting in front of me. Hint. Hint.)
gil@movieweb.com
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