Alien VS Predator: Requiem Review

Written by: cronenbergfan   

It's boxing day, and I awoke to the sounds of my little boy screeching with delight at the sound of his new toy, much to the delight of his hung-over father!  Anyhow, today is the day I check out AVP-R! I will shy away from writing anything spoiler related so those of you who have yet to view it can still do so without having any plot lines or "key kills" revealed.

First off, I was ecstatic that this film was rated R; as the previous installment left me wanting more; not just gore, for Anderson's version was poorly written and seemed to just crawl along.  For Requiem, with the plethora of trailers out there, I knew exactly what was in store for me when I paid my admission...or so I thought.

I'll begin with my likes or the pros of this film.  The picture wastes NO time in getting down to business.  Within the opening frame, the stage is set and a small Denver town has NO idea what fate awaits it.  The filmmakers pace the film well for the most part and being a horror film aside, the script wasn't too bad and even a newbie to the franchise could be well versed with the events quite quickly.

The effects were remarkable really, and I personally was longing to see the "hybrid" for quite some time and this beast gets quite a bit of screen time.  The action doesn't really let up and the usual corny dialogue of the US armed forces being evil and such is not overkilled in this one.

Now, the cons.  I was slightly miffed at the #'s.  Without spoiling anything, thats about all I can say, but I was hoping for more in terms of alien and Predator warfare.  I felt the film was somewhat one-sided, you can judge that for yourselves.

Also, in terms of the R rating and seeing quite a few bloodsoaked trailers, I am not a newbie to this genre or others like it.  In fact, my wife is quite certain I've been severely desensitized, and she's probably right; however, there were a few kills in this film that kind of stuck with me, and not in a "holy-shit-that-was-freakin'-amazing" kind of way unfortunately.  Those of you who have seen this may well know to what I am referring to, and I am not complaining so please don't get me wrong.  Nobody loves a good ol' bloodbath than yours truly; i just felt that one or two scenes in particular struck an unpleasant chord with me. 

All in all, I did enjoy this outing MUCH better than the previous installment, and I'm sure there will be another entry soon, at least I hope so.  I gave this a 7 because there was, and usually always is, the potential to do more and better things with it, but this film does accomplish to entertain and even thrill us with yet another chapter in an ever-intriguing saga.