Alien vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)

Studio: 20^th Century Fox

DVD Release Date: April 15, 2008

Directed By: Colin & Greg Strause

Cast: Steven Pasquale, Reiko Aylesowrth, Johnny Lewis, Robert Joy & Ian Whyte

Brutal As Hell Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Review By: Annie Riordan

Picking up exactly where the last AVP flick left off, a chestbursting, mandible faced Alien rips its way out of a fallen Predator’s chest and quickly goes on a kill spree, causing the Predator spacecraft to crash land in the woods of Colorado. As the squishy, mutated aliens begin colonizing in the sewer systems, a lone Predator sets off for Earth to deal with the problem. Oh, and a small town’s population of vacuous, one-dimensional dipshits and some horny teens are caught in the middle of the interstellar war, or some such crap.

The first AVP film was, admittedly, dumb as dogshit, but it was still kinda fun. Hell, even Predator 2 – silly as it was – was enjoyable. But AVPR pretty much sucks out loud. The PredAlien hybrid looks cool, the grizzled old Predator warrior (played once again by Ian Whyte) is a cool ass kicker and the scenes down in the dark, slimy sewer tunnels are eerie to the point of being Lovecraftian. But the alien action seems totally separate from the human subplot, which was weak to begin with. There’s virtually no interaction between the humans and the aliens, and it sometimes seems like there’s two totally different movies going on here. AVPR tries to be genre-changing and taboo-breaking by featuring an over-the-top scene involving aliens infesting a hospital maternity ward, but it comes off as a cheap “How shocking can we be?” ploy instead.

Overall, AVPR comes off as a recycled slasher flick, with the knife-wielding psycho replaced with  rubbery, goo-excreting monsters. Bad script, stupid characters and not an original idea to be found anywhere. Fans of the franchise should check it out at least once, just to say they did, but you won’t be missing much if you choose to skip it.

PS – Lance Henriksen is nowhere to be found. Instead, Robert Joy (Land Of The Dead, The Hills Have Eyes) shows up for a lame, hastily thrown together denouement which promises a third AVP sometime in the near future. Oh goody. Can’t wait.