There's a huge Predalien on the loose on the Predator's ship, it crashes on earth, and the Predalien escapes. One big bad mutha of a Predator notices this, and decides he wants to stop this rogue Predalien and so travels to earth. Oh and there's loads of humans that keep getting in the way of his business.
As a huge fan of all the Alien and Predator movies, I was a tad disappointed with Paul W.S. Anderson's entry into the series back in 2004, but I still quite enjoyed it. So when the news came about that a sequel was on the cards, I got really excited again, especially with the rumours it was going to be gorier, with more emphasis on the two title characters. Then the early reviews came and it didn't look good for fans of the two icons. But why were there so many bad reviews?
Well the beginning didn't give me too much hope for the rest of the film, with a rushed opening sequence and introductions to cheesy, clichéd characters. However, as the film progressed I found myself wondering why there were so many bad reviews, because it's not actually that bad. Ok so the characters are clichéd, the acting is average and the set up is not to original, but the film more than delivers on what it promised.
Compared with Paul W.S. Anderson's version, we get a lot more time dedicated to both the Aliens and the Predator, which I must say both look really impressive, especially the Predator, which looks a lot more like the one in the first Predator, really sleek, but still imposing. The weaponry it uses is also really ingenious and makes for some really interesting fight scenes, the Aliens all look amazing also, with the sight of loads of them climbing across the walls being really exciting and frightening.
 
This brings me to the Predalien, which was one of the main things that excited all the fanboys before the film was released. Well, it looks great but it's criminally underused and comes across seeming quite pointless as a result. This was a major disappointment as it could have been used to much greater effect as it really is an awesome creation. The effects all around are good, this was expected however as the directors the Brothers Strause are experts in the field of special effects. The other promise of more gore is also fulfilled, with this film being gorier than the first one, not too much gorier, but still gorier. For instance we get some awesome acid effects and the scene in the store where the Predator, Aliens and humans all meet shows off some great gore.
However, the main attraction of the original Aliens Vs Predator idea, was of course getting to see the Aliens and Predator duke it out big time and was also one of the main reasons that the first AVP was so disappointing. There are a lot of showdowns in this movie, and most of the time they are quite exciting, however for some reasons the Brothers Strause decided to film pretty much all of them either in the dark or coated in rain. For this reason, it's really difficult to tell what's going on and as a result, some of the battles fail. These fights are the reason that people want to watch Alien Vs Predator movies, and I believe that in some ways this is half the reason this film has garnered a lot of negative reviews.
In the film's defence however, I think the decision to film everything cloaked in darkness was an attempt at suspense, or merely a stylistic move, which worked on one level, because the shadows and silhouettes of both monsters do look pretty cool, it's just a shame that once they start facing off you can't see what's going on. The other reason I believe that the film got bad reviews was for the simple storyline and two-dimensional characters, but I really couldn't care less about that, all I wanted to see was two sweet monsters in a huge smack down, and this is pretty much what I got, which is why I enjoyed the film.
I think people give films like this bad reviews because there are so many fans and when a film doesn't get made exactly to their specific ideas of how it should be made, they don't like it. It's really quite hard to satisfy everyone, and that should be taken into account when watching this film. The film for me was an exciting ride from start to finish and kept me interested throughout and so for that reason I'm not going to give it a bad review. It may be flawed but it's still a fun hour and a half, so ignore the bad reviews and go and see this film!
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Alien vs. Predator: Survival of the Fittest, Aliens vs. Predator, AvP2, AvPR
MOVIE YEAR: 2007
DIRECTOR: Colin Strause, Greg Strause
WRITING CREDITS: Shane Salerno, Dan O'Bannon
GENRE: Action, Horror, Sci-Fi
CAST: Steven Pasquale, Reiko Aylesworth, John Ortiz
COUNTRY: USA
RUNTIME: 86 min
RATING: 6/10
Aliens vs Predator: Requiem Website/IMDB Click here
Aliens vs Predator: Requiem Trailer Click here
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