| Director: The Strause Brothers |
| Screenplay: Shane Salerno (based on characters created by Dan O'Bannon & Ronald Shusett and Jim Thomas & John Thomas) |
| Stars: Steven Pasquale (Dallas), Reiko Aylesworth (Kelly), John Ortiz (Morales), Johnny Lewis (Ricky), Ariel Gade (Molly), Kristen Hager (Jesse), Sam Trammell (Tim), Robert Joy (Col. Stevens), David Paetkau (Dale), Tom Woodruff Jr. (Alien), Ian Whyte (Predator), Chelah Horsdal (Darcy), Meshach Peters (Curtis) |
| MPAA Rating: R |
| Year of Release: 2007 |
| Country: U.S. |
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When the eagerly-awaited-by-some Alien vs. Predator was released in 2004, there was no small amount of grumbling that that big-screen match-up of two long-standing and very R-rated sci-fi franchises had been diluted for the PG-13 market. How could you possibly make a film about one alien species that bleeds acid and punctures skulls with a retractable mouth and another alien species that likes to skin its victims alive and deliver it in PG-13 form? A subsequent unrated DVD release helped heal the wounds to an extent, but that clearly wasn't enough, which is why it's hard to ignore the idea that the very existence of the sequel Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem is its R rating. Even the theatrical trailer emphasizes this by fading out the film's awkward acronym title AvPR so that the R is the only thing left on screen.
The majority of the film unfolds in the picturesque environs of a small Colorado town, which has the great misfortune of becoming ground zero for the ongoing war between Aliens and Predators (if you don't already know what they are, you probably aren't interested in seeing the film). The story begins on-board a Predator spacecraft with an Alien egg hatching inside one of the Predators, which creates an Alien-Predator hybrid that quickly comes of age, wipes out all on board, and causes the ship to crash on Earth. The Alien-Predator quickly goes about killing and spawning, creating more Aliens that must be dealt with by a lone Predator who travels across the cosmos to set things right. Caught in the crossfire, of course, is a bunch of pathetic human characters who have virtually no idea what they're really dealing with until it is too late. By that time, the town has become little more than the battleground for the Aliens and Predators, which are brought to life with a mix of practical make-up effects and CGI work, the latter of which is consistently inferior to the former.
Screenwriter Shane Salerno, who cowrote Shaft (2000) and Armageddon (1998), makes a semi-valiant effort to make some of the characters memorable and not just fodder for gory death, but they all ultimately derive from the Big Book of Stock Characters: the Likeable Ex-Con Who Has Just Returned to Town, the Well-Meaning-But-Misguided Local Sheriff, the Nice-Guy Teen who gets beat up by the Sadistic Bully because they both want the Good-Hearted Hottie, and so on and so forth. The one potentially interesting twist Salerno throws in is a returning soldier from Iraq who, in true Aliens fashion, is a woman and a mother whose maternal willpower makes her the baddest of the bunch. Unfortunately, she doesn't really stand out until the end, and by then it is too late to do much with her except marvel at her resolve under fire.
The real star of AvPR isn't the actors, but the violence inflicted by the Aliens and the Predator on them. Salerno is intent on righting the wrongs of AvP's PG-13 compromises by ensuring that no one is safe, while former visual effects supervisors-turned-directors Colin and Greg Strause do their part by making sure that everyone's demises are particularly gruesome. A small child out in the woods with his father? Why shouldn't he get a chest-burster in his gut? The sweet-natured waitress at the local diner? Toast. And, in the middle of such a violent intergalactic smackdown as this, why would we think that a ward full of pregnant women, including one who's water has just broken, be spared the nastiest of deaths? AvPR is an equal-opportunity killer: It's not just for soldiers, bums, and wayward kids anymore.
Overall Rating:  (2)
Thoughts? E-mail James Kendrick
All images copyright ©2007 20th Century Fox |
