Or Alien Versus Predator: Requiem to give it it’s full title.
Went to the cinema last night to see this the latest instalment in the AvP “franchise”, not really expecting that much to be fair after the disappointment of AvP and I wasn’t really surprised to be left feeling that way again.
Not sure how to put this film in a nutshell so this may ramble slightly or end abruptly but here goes….
Viewers of 2004’s Alien versus Predator will remember the end sequence of the “hybrid” bursting free from our “hero” Predator, well this sequel begins there with the newborn hybrid suddenly sprouting into a full size beastie and killing the crew of the Predators ship forcing it to crash land in a quiet mountain town in Colorado state.
One of the biggest problems I had with AvP was the woefully short gestation period of the Aliens and unfortunately this has been shortened still further for this movie. To add to this we now have the “hybrid” replacing the Queen as the sole matriarch of this bunch of Aliens, laying eggs directly down the throats of pregnant women. These then seem (in a matter of hours) to burst the stomach and grow to full size, spreading like wildfire.
The problem with this notion is that such a rapidly spreading parasite such as this would be uncontainable and by now the entire universe would have been colonised by sheer weight of numbers alone.
Whilst on the subject of the “Hybrid”, what makes it that way in the first place?
Why just because the host is a Predator does the chest burster become 50/50 instead of just pure Alien?
Surely any chest burster coming from a human being should look partially human then.
This is just one of the many holes easily all too easily picked in this chapter of the franchise
with what could have been a good old fight between two movie favourites ending up as a plethora of reasonably well thought out set pieces, intermingled with meaningless background story, leading to a film that just doesn’t really make much sense.
You just do not care about any single resident of this town and to be honest, you feel a sense of relief when they are wiped out one by one. In fact some of the best moments of the film are watching these “dumb asses” get wasted.
The only saving grace for the film is the Predator sent to clean up this mess (an unwitting metaphor for the whole film methinks). He is very cool and we don’t see enough of him.
Hopefully this will signal a dignified death for this chapter in the Franchises history. Take my advice, do yourself a favour and go out and buy the original Alien quadrilogy and the original Predator film, watch them and be happy in the knowledge that there was a time when Alien/Predator films were pretty damn good.
Felgercarb Rating 6/10
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