Avp-r

[Attila_the_Hun*S2C*]

AVP Requiem! Who's going?:D

[Irrylath]

I'll go!

[DylanDog]

I went last night. I thought it was pretty average. Honestly, I can't remember the last time I felt so totally non-affected by a movie. It was really pretty much just pure middle of the road entertainment. Neither great nor terrible. Of course, I never saw the first one, but I'm told that that's a massive improvement.

I thought it was going to be much gorier than it was, judging by the trailer that came out. But there really wasn't much to see. Not much skin to speak up either. Honestly, these days, I think they could show this on TV. I went with a friend who's a bit sensitive to racism so we had a laugh about how there was one black character who's killed before saying a line, in order to make room for another black character who gets to speak, but dies almost right away.

There is some unintentionally funny moments ("People are dying!") and one plus is that you have the setup for the item (some night vision-y goggle things) that saves the day, but really plays no major role in the story. It would have been quite obvious.

Overall, sure, if you like either franchise, it's a decent enough way to kill some time. It moves along at a brisk pace and doesn't overstay it's welcome.

[MuC]

saw it...liked it...leaps and bounds better then the first one...

[MetalGoddess]

AVP Requiem! Who's going?:D

I'll go!

So when and where are we going to see it?

I'm a huge fan of both franchises, and I was pleasantly surprised by the first AVP.

[skankdrummer]

what a stupid movie!

[Remo D]

Worked for me!

Just to recap--I'm a huge fan of the entire ALIEN series--the four REAL ones, that is--each one so different from the last.

PREDATOR? Never profound, but always enjoyable.

The first ALIEN VS. PREDATOR comic series? I agreed with the letter-writer who asked why they didn't just call it "Humans." And that explains a lot of my reaction to the first AvP movie.

Almost none of it applies here--this is the REAL movie and we can forget the first one ever happened. It will be quite easy enough to dream up your own backstory as to how an Alien/Predator hybrid got created in the first place and crash-landed on Earth.

No pyramid. No alternate-universe attempts to tie in to the actual ALIEN series when it couldn't possibly work--such as Lance Henriksen as how-the-hell-can-this-be-Bishop-in-this-century--though I can live with a character named "Dallas," I guess. (I'm just going to pretend that the epilogue didn't happen, okay?) NO Predator/human alliance. And no PG-13 approach.

ALIENS VS. PREDATOR: REQUIEM concludes the 2007 horror year theme of "let's off the kids!" This previously "taboo" device has now become the norm, and this one starts right off the bat with "not only will we kill children, we'll tear them apart in front of you!" Hell, they even turn a monster loose in a maternity ward for the ultimate "don't go there." DO they "go there?" Well... there are still SOME things best left to the imagination, let's put it that way. But make no mistake--this is one of the ultimate Joe-Bob Briggs drive-in standard bearers, fulfilling the golden rule "Anyone can die at any moment" and providing plenty of enjoyable shocks along the way.

Oh, yes--there are humans. Plenty of them. Many of them cliched, but most of them watchable. The exception in my book? The jock bully who keeps showing up to pummel the timid pizza guy whenever things look up for him in the 'girlfriend' department. I am sick to DEATH of this character, no matter WHAT kind of movie it is. And I don't want to wait through half the movie for the pleasure of seeing him receive his inevitable grisly demise. I want him to take a baseball bat to the face ten minutes in and stay the hell out of the rest of the movie. No such luck here.

But at least the cast is comprised of just-plain-folk thrown together from all over town in a crisis. Thank goodness it's not "the archaeological team" or "the elite military unit" or "the scientists in a bunker" all waiting for a chance to take advantage of their training and deploy their goodies. Sure, there's the military angle, and Reiko Aylesworth just happens to show up with a gift of night-vision binoculars for her little daughter, can fly a helicopter and knows how to use weapons--gotta have some way for survivors to make it as far as they do, so I can live with that.

Here's the real point--the movie is called ALIENS VS. PREDATOR. And this time, that's EXACTLY what it's about. You get the ruthless Predator tracking his quarry to Earth and scything his way through any hapless humanfolk who happen to get in his way. You get face-huggers, chest-bursters and full-blown Aliens doing their thing all over a populated section of Earth (to hell with isolating them in Antarctica--isn't it about time that this scenario was finally REALIZED?). This thing moves like a firecracker fuse, has plenty of splatter and boasts a rather ferocious in-your-face attitude. It's a monster movie in which the monsters are the stars, while the townsfolk score whatever pathetic licks they can get in and say things like "The government wouldn't lie to us!"

As with the first AvP, I will never consider this an official part of the series that Ridley Scott started. But it's everything I wanted from AvP the FIRST time around. Enjoy.