I went to see “AVPR: Aliens vs Predator – Requiem“.
I wasn’t ever a big fan of “Alien” movies. Space horror is not something that turns me on. However I remember enjoying the “Predator” flicks. Especially the first one with Arni. When they mixed the two, it was sort of interesting to see how it will all come out. And the trailer was excellent. But the film was somewhat boring, even though it had its momentss.
The Requiem part sucked though. The good parts aren’t visible because of the constant mix of night, darkness, shadows, absence of lights, smoke, fog, underground catacombs, water, and a bunch of huge objects obstructing the view. And just to be on the safe side, scenes are cut at every half a second. That’s about the good parts.
The bad parts are shiny obvious. The biggest of them is acting. I know, I know, I’m not supposed to expect any great acting out of a sci-fi space thriller sequel. But what this movie had doesn’t even qualify for acting. I have a suspicion that even Keanu Reeves could do better than that (and we saw speculations of that it is possible to replace Keanu Reeves with wooden plank). I mean, where do they even find actors like this?
Then, there is the Achilles’ heel of all horror movies – common sense. This film had the smallest fraction of common sense you can see in the horror movie. People, evacuating from the town in a hurry, are waiting in the traffic jam on the freeway, while the second line is empty. A soldier popping out his head of the armored military vehicle to see what’s going on with this shooting outside in the middle of ambush. One predator calling another one for help after an accident, and that other predator going into almost full scale war with aliens, without ever calling for any more help. Alien inserting eggs into women at the hospital for them to give birth to more aliens only a couple of minutes later (previous parts of the movie seemed to have a rather longer period with eggs growing and stuff like that). The list goes on. And of course it is possible to find explanations for each one of them, but that will hardly help the feeling of things happening in the way that they aren’t supposed to happen.
As I said, I’m not the big fan of either the genre or these particular movies. But I think I can realize a good piece of entertainment, when one is offered. And in this particular case, I don’t think it qualifies. Rating: a weak 4 out of 10. Feel free to express you disagreement in the comments.
