Criticult.Com

Man, I love seeing a good movie. Which makes it all the more disappointing that I was unable to see Aliens vs Predator: Requiem. Oh, I was able to rent it. And my DVD player ran it just fine. But the movie was so dark I had to turn off all my lights, unplug the clocks, cover the windows with trashbags, and duct tape over the readouts on my electronics just so I could darken the room enough to get from "I can't see shit." to "Is that a Predator or a lamp?"

Aliens vs Predator: Requiem (referred to with the oh-so-hip moniker AVP:R from here on out) takes place directly after the original AVP ended. If I remember correctly, the lead Predator had just finished killing a bunch of aliens in a Mayan temple in Antartica when his buddies showed up and he died. Or something. Then he was impregnanted with an alien.

Well, I hate to keep you in suspense any longer but at the very beginning of this movies the alien pops out, grows to about 10 feet tall in 45 seconds, and wipes out the rest of the Predators. Luckily this spaceship comes equipped with an "Eject Infected Pod to Earth" option and half the ship breaks off and goes back to Earth from somewhere near one of the ringed planets.

There is no explanation for why this happens and if you expect one you haven't been paying attention to the AVP series. You just go with the flow and hope for some good alien carnage to soothe the migraine you are getting from your brain trying to skip over the continuity and logic issues.

So the ship crashes, facehuggers poor out and proceed to wipe out a town in Colorado. Some humans get together to fight the aliens, another Predator arrives to clean up the mess, and lots of shooting and "homages" to the earlier films fill out the screenplay.

This is all well and good. I knew what I was getting in to here. To be fair, the
plot wasn't awful and the effects were decent. If I could see anything I'm sure I would have enjoyed it. As it stands, AVP:R may be the worst shot theatrically released movie in history. I know Fox long ago gave up on giving a shit about the Alien franchise but was the budget so tight they couldn't hire a goddamn lighting person?

You can have your own AVP:R experience without renting the movie. Just put in any flick of your choosing, turn off all your lights, turn the brightness down to zero on your TV and try to discern what is happening on screen at any given moment. You can even turn it into a game! First person who says "This is unwatchable." wins! It's fun for the whole family!

1/5

Labels: movie review