Review: "Aliens vs Predator - Requiem"

As is usual on Christmas nights, after the activity of the holiday season is finally over, I partook of a movie yesterday at a local megaplex. The title I pick each year depends on my mood; last night, I was in the mood for sci-fi insanity.

So off to ”Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem” I went, expecting little for my entertainment buck. And boy, was I right.

Packing a script filled with unremarkable characters—although I must admit, most who die deserve it for sheer stupidity—“Requiem” involves a Predator ship orbiting Earth as it is sabotaged by the Pred-Alien hybrid of the first “AVP” movie. Crash landing in Colorado, the ship breaks apart and releases the Pred-Alien and a cache of facehuggers into the local woods, where they immediately set about impregnating humans with Alien spawn.

Meanwhile, in the ship’s wreckage, an FYI signal is sent to the Predator homeworld altering them of the disaster, prompting a lone Predator to strike out to Earth to clean up the mess – as the Aliens quickly begin making their mark on a local town.

So where to start on all this?

Truthfully, although its script is a mess, there are little glimmers of promise in “Requiem” – in truth, however, most (e.g. art direction, music, sound) are taken from previous “Alien” and “Predator” films by freshman directors Colin and Greg Strauss who show little innovation — but plenty of shaky camera work during what would otherwise be decent fight scenes. The Strauss boys also take shortcuts with their plot’s timeline – for example, as in the previous “AVP,” chestbursters seem to mature into adult Aliens within minutes. So as a result, it is unclear how many Aliens are creeping about, but the lone Predator does eviscerate several in exotic ways.

As for “Requiem’s” cast, most are unknowns – the only recognizable faces being the lovely Reiko Aylesworth (“24”) as a US Army soldier, and little Ariel Gade who was marvelous in 2005’s “Dark Water” but has little to do here but mutter insipid lines like “Mommy, are the monsters gone?”

Both would have been wiser to pass on this project, which is not a horrible movie per se – just a frantic mess.