ALIENS VS. PREDATOR - REQUIEM (UNRATED EDITION) (2007)

Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem (Unrated Edition) (2007)

Actors: Steven Pasquale, John Ortiz
Directors: Colin Strause, Greg Strause
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Language: English
Subtitles: English, Spanish
Region: All
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Number of discs: 1
Studio: 20th Century Fox
DVD Release Date: April 15, 2008
Run Time: 101 minutes

Movie: * *
Disc: * * ½

Listening to an audio commentary track on this “unrated” version of Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (AVP:R) one realizes what went wrong with the film: they let some novice fan boys make it for next to nothing.

The movie is directed by the latest Hollywood brother directing team, namely the “Brothers Krause.” Colin and Greg Krause however had no directing experience outside a few music videos. They share their commentary track with producer John Davis (a veteran who worked on many of the previous film in the franchise). On it the terms “homage” and “tribute” get thrown around a lot. In this case they are both short-hand for "unimaginative.” Also the directors seem most obsessed with the graphic gore sequences in which amongst others children and pregnant women get killed off in sadistic ways. Somehow it is difficult to imagine a consummate professional such as Ridley Scott or James Cameron chuckling about how their favorite scene is one in which a young boy watches his father die before dying himself . . .

The script is like a piece of fan fiction instead of the genuine article itself, filled with in-jokes only obsessives would spot and nasty, mean-spirited gore. Their commentary track gives all this away (don’t bother with the second audio commentary by the make-up guys — too many dead silences).

Marketed as Aliens vs. Predator 2 outside the States, AVP:R follows up on the 2004 Alien vs. Predator directed by Resident Evil-director Paul W.S. Anderson. As promised by the Brothers Krause, AVP:R boasts much more blood and gore than that film. But that is somehow missing the point: it is rather difficult to care for any of the bland by-the-numbers characters in the movie. It also lacks the strong central protagonist that Sigourney Weaver provided to the previous Alien films. Instead the Brothers Krause’s favorite film in the two franchises seem to be one of the weakest ones, the Arnie-free Predator 2 which practically killed that franchise off for most of a decade.

To recap: when a Predator/Alien hybrid runs amuck on a Predator spaceship, the ship crash-lands near a small town in Colorado. Soon the townsfolk are stuck in the middle of a battle between the aliens and the predator sent to clean up their mess. The other phrase thrown about a lot in the director’s commentary is “the best we can do”, which obviously refers to the limited budget the film-makers had to work with. Filmed in Vancouver, Canada to save on costs with a cast of unknowns, AVP:R indeed does the best it can under the circumstances. Production values aren’t that bad (although it doesn’t always translate that well to the confines of the small screen) and there is loads of mindless action.

THE DISCS: The “unrated” moniker may lead you to believe that there is a whole lot of extra gore in this DVD version as opposed to the theatrical cut. This is however not the case. Sure, there is some extra gore, but the few minutes of extra footage added to this version are tiny scenes mostly deleted for reasons of pacing. Altogether they don’t add that much to the movie — they aren’t, let’s say, scenes in which characters are better developed so that you may actually care what is happening to them or anything. Some of the making-of featurettes are worth checking out, especially the one dealing with costume design, pointing out how the design of the alien creature differed in the various Alien movies throughout the years.

WORTH IT? AVP:R is the sort of the movie that goes down better as a rental than it does as an evening at the movies. It’ll please undiscerning teenaged viewers (mostly male), but long-time fans will be sorely disappointed. Word has it that a third Alien vs. Predator movie is in the works, one which will be set in outer space this time. Point is that unless they spend more money on it and give someone genuinely talented (such as David Slade who re-invented the vampire legend with 30 Days of Night perhaps) a stab at it, we won’t be willing to spend even the price of a rental on it . . .

RECOMMENDATION: There are better horror flicks out there now such as The Mist or 30 Days of Night. Only rent this one when they are out and you absolutely must watch a cheapo horror DVD.