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AVPR: Aliens vs Predator - Requiem (2007) More at IMDbPro »

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852 comments in total

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548 out of 897 people found the following comment useful :-
The Looney Tunes of the Alien and Predator franchises., 26 December 2007

Author: Caustic Pulp from Antioch, CA

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

9 stars out of 10 seems pretty ridiculous for a movie that has the most threadbare of plots and the most two-dimensional of characters. Make no mistake: AvP:R is a terrible, terrible film.

But it is an AWESOME movie. Anyone who goes to this expecting anything other than absolute, mindless, relentless carnage deserves what they get. Those of you who really just wanted to see a movie with aliens and predators wrecking crap and each other will have a blast.

The movie is a checklist of clichés, gimmicks, and devices. But more than that, it's a checklist of all the superficial crap fans want to see. Ever wonder if an alien's retractable jaws can punch through a safety helmet? NOW YOU KNOW! There is no logic or sense, rhyme or reason to this movie. But it IS loaded to the gills with violence. It's ridiculously, over-the-top, gloriously violent. Every time you get sick of the plot or characters, something dies. Even if you count JUST kids in the movie, there are still five kills (counting kids in utero at least) alone. Let me be clear: they killed pregnant women and children. It is hilariously, cartoonishly violent.

This is the Looney Tunes of the Alien and Predator franchises. It is modern grand guignol. It is GLORIOUS.

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196 out of 239 people found the following comment useful :-
Brilliant, Mind-Bending Storytelling, 31 December 2007

Author: call_me_grudge from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

From what I understand, Fox was embarrassed they released a PG-13 Alien/Predator movie not so long ago. It was not well received by any means.

Not exactly sure where to go next, seeing as they thought Anderson was the best director for the franchise and they had produced a true sci-fi gem, Fox turned to it's small, but knowledgeable group of monkeys for answers.

These monkeys were by no means veterans of writing sci-fi flicks, but had seen Burton's Planet of the Apes remake and House of the Dead.

Their first task: hire actors. Fox gave them a reasonable budget but the monkeys wanted to save the money. They hired fifteen TV actors shortly after.

Now, the script. The monkeys wanted to save more of the budget so they wrote the movie themselves. Leaving out important aspects of the two franchises was the easy part. Thinking of great new lines for the general audience to remember years down the line - that was more difficult. They butted heads awhile and came up with a truly award-winning screenplay equipped with cliché characters, idiotic decisions an gaping plot holes.

Fox was pleased thus far with the results but wanted to see what was to become of the centerpieces to the film - the aliens and predators. The monkeys again wanted to save money in the budget so they decided to trash the great robotics used in the otherwise terrible AvP original and go with the man-in-the-suit Alien seen in the old films. The actors playing the aliens had trouble fitting into the suits as they weren't properly sized by the monkeys so they jiggled their plastic heads throughout the film with honor. As for the predators, the monkeys decided one predator was enough this time around (again, saving budget) to fight the hordes of aliens that seemingly come out of nowhere.

But what about the effects, you ask? Come on now, people. They may be monkeys but they clearly knew CGI would play a key role in the film. Without diving into the budget, the monkeys used a standard Final Cut program and cut and pasted some very nice fire and spark effects throughout. Putting red and green filters over the camera lens provided some excellent Predator visions.

The setting was something the monkeys thought long and hard about. If this was to be on Earth, in Colorado of all places, they needed to make it realistic. This was where they admitted they might have made a mistake. See, the monkeys didn't have proper training in this department so they thought turning the lights off in the city and having the movie play out in the dead of night and in the rain was the right thing to do. They simply forgot people like to see the creatures instead of looking at shadows and rain the whole film. To add insult to injury, the monkeys accidentally filmed all the fight scenes incredibly close so no one could see what was fighting or who it was. But again, rookie mistake.

The rating. Fox told the monkeys to make the movie R-rated. That was easy. Without showing how many of the injuries or deaths actually happened, the monkeys made a habit of showing the carnage after the fact. It was simple: the viewers got the gore they desired and the monkeys didn't have to film the majority of action shots involving that violence.

Some of the actors originally had questions concerning the screenplay. Why does a blue liquid the Predator has endless amounts of magically disintegrate whatever he wants it to and nothing more than that? Why is an ex-convict driving around in a police car the entire movie? Why did the monkeys forget to show a full body shot of the Aliens? Why does a clock play a more memorable role than any of the main characters? The list of questions just kept growing but the monkeys ignored them and finished their masterpiece.

Fox was thrilled with their work. So thrilled that they opened the movie nationwide on Christmas Day and even spent a few bucks advertising it the week before it came out. The monkeys had successfully made another installment in these cherished franchises.

But some ask, what ever happened to the budget the monkeys forgot to use? They put it towards their next film: Aliens vs. Predator vs. Hulk Hogan. They knew the general public would be upset with the title but they have since released this statement:

"To the people- do not worry about our upcoming film. It will be rated R and will have violence."

And everyone lived happily ever after. The end.

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264 out of 405 people found the following comment useful :-
Blood and Guts, 26 December 2007

Author: ignorepeter from United States

I was psyched to go see this movie. I was not a fan of the first AvP and I like so many others, chalked its awfulness up to being rated PG 13 and focusing on the human side of the story. Once I saw that red R glistening after the AvP, I was excited. As it turns out, I was wrong. Certainly there is a good amount of gore in AvPR, melting limbs, dismemberments, even some violence against children. The Predator is once again, the most bad-ass extraterrestrial on Earth, and it was fun to see the infamous predalien. But the movie just sucks. I tried really hard to look past its gaping plot holes, inane dialogue, and vapid characters, and I pretty much succeeded in not letting those inadequacies bother me. It was the pacing and the lack of tension that killed the movie for me. There was no sense of dread in the flick, no impending doom or even a sense of diabolical hunt. It just, sort of, happened, and then was over. Some fun homages to the originals: amongst them the return of the all-time great line: "Get to the chopper!" And again, some fun blood and executions, but no tension, no dread, no guts in the otherwise bloody film.

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173 out of 235 people found the following comment useful :-
B movie, 10 January 2008

Author: (nadjadiamond) from United States

I love B movies, but I like to be aware from the beginning that I'm watching one. I can't believe someone could mess up a movie about aliens and predators so bad.

Aliens and Predator are AWESOME. This movie made a big joke out of them. The creators didn't take this movie seriously at all. I am throughly disappointed in how the Strauss jerks handled this film. They made a mockery of amazing characters. It's like they were trying to be serious in the beginning, then their writers got high and gave up. Almost nothing was continuous, the main characters were awful and were NOT Aliens or Predators. I am so ridiculously sad that no one takes Alien and Predators seriously anymore. These characters are icons of American pop culture and the creators of this movie showed no respect to the original films. They should not be allowed to cash in on the names of the previous films and they should be ashamed of themselves

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272 out of 440 people found the following comment useful :-
plain awful, 1 January 2008

Author: matches81 from Germany

I really, really don't understand how that movie could get a rating bigger than 4 here on IMDb. It's simply a huge mess, and I have to admit that I actually liked AvP 1: Close to no story, okay, I can live with that, but at least they got to the point pretty much at once. AvP 2 does not. After the stupid premise has been presented there is well over half an hour of stupid and unfitting teenager clichés, dumb as hell dialog and close to nothing else, except for a few Alien scenes that feel like an excuse to have that first half of the movie and Predator scenes that make you ask yourself whether those guys making the film even watched any other Predator movie or just didn't care enough to be bothered.

After that, that crap-fest finally gets to the point where the Predator starts attacking the Aliens, or at least pretends doing so. And boy, is that Predator stupid, blind and deaf. It's awful. How he even managed to earn that stuff he has is beyond me. He misses with almost every shot, only notices Aliens when they're right in his face or if it's absolutely necessary for the script, so that he can move where he has to be. He even gets caught on surprise by puny human teenagers and deputies all of the time. What's that guy supposed to be? After the first hour of that abomination I was more or less constantly shaking my head at every scene. Close to no scene in this movie passes by without unbelievably stupid dialogs, stupid Predator actions or stupid lack there-of or stupid actions from our "heroes".

Then, that thing finally ended. To my surprise not only me and my friends didn't know whether to laugh or to cry, but everybody I overheard leaving the room was half-crying, half-laughing about those 1 1/2 hours they just wasted.

Don't watch. Never.

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123 out of 180 people found the following comment useful :-
waste your time and money on something else (spoilers), 26 December 2007

Author: frich71-1 from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

The review on the main page admits that the movie is horrible but that you should forgive it because it is nicely violent. No you shouldn't. There are spoilers at the end of this review but how I can "spoil" this rotten movie I have no idea. Even if you are a die hard Alien/Pred fan like I am wait for the DVD. It isn't worth a 3.99 rental either but you'll be much less inclined to truly hate this film if you pay that than 12 bucks or better per person plus concession purchases at a theater.

In the theater I watched AVPr there were exactly two laughs, both by a girl sitting next to me. Other than that there was total silence throughout. No ooohs, or "that was bad ass!", nothing. Imagine being a patient on an operating table and just being given the anesthetic. Now you know what you'll feel like in the theater after the opening scene of AVPr.

What was the budget on this movie? Like War of the Worlds, MI 3, and other f/x driven movies the director seems far more involved in what the CGI people can come up with than developing characters or a plot. Spielberg has tried and failed at this several times, usually with Tom Cruise. Sure the movies make money but should they? War of the Worlds and Minority Report had the budget to pay for a decent script, Tom Cruise et al, and SS himself but were still awful. I'm sure AVP wasted 90% of their budget on CG and had no choice but to hire any actor that would say yes even though the casting agent would have done better by going to the supermarket and picking actors at random.

There is no tension developed in any scene so we are never close to being surprised. Who cares who gets killed? We didn't know any of them, we all know what happens when the lil aliens make their corporeal exit, we all know the blood is acid. In Alien, Aliens, 3, Resurrection, and even AVP the directors make use of the fact that the Aliens can think, can hide and can lay traps. This director decided that the Ridley Scott, James Cameron, and others were idiots for developing characters you actually want to see either live or get killed. In this installment you will never care who lives or dies, not a kid, a parent, a pregnant woman. The characters serve only one purpose in this movie, to die. The opening scenes establish the fact that the movie is going to be a predictable joke. The character development scenes mix clichés, bad humor, and bad acting and numb the viewer to the point where we really don't care if they get killed so long as they die in never before seen ways. But they don't. The director tried to make something different from those who preceded him in the Alien franchise but only succeeded in discarding the good parts of the first films, the human protagonists, and stealing the rest from other recent sci-fi films.

There is not one original use of the either the Alien or Pred characters. The Pred actually has little trouble killing Aliens by the dozen even though the last movie led us to believe that Pred revered the Aliens as such a deadly foe that they used the killing of one as Rite of Passage. The AlienPred is never really developed as a fearsome creature. Its ability to inject parasites into a host is ripped from several different movies most recently probably was Hellboy where Samiel's dismembered tongue injected eggs into Hellboy or Doom where the mutated creatures would leave their tongues behind after they speared a victim's throat.

Simply put we aren't given reason to care about anything in this movie. There is violence but it doesn't shock or surprise and is nothing that hasn't been seen in any of a hundred slasher flicks. The CG is OK and both species of alien are made to look and move as they have in movies past. But since the characters are never developed and the acting is so bad we kind of hope that they all die. The little girl was probably the best actor of the bunch but sadly we aren't made to care whether or not kids, women, or anyone else lives or dies. We just want the movie to end. Eventually it does but not before another stolen plot line from Resident Evil 2 has a nuke aim Gunnison's way to wipe out the "infection". And not before yet another stupid scene that is supposed to open the door for further sequels but does it? In a movie filled with bad scenes the worst may have been saved for last.

Sorry for the repetition but everything bears repeating: bad script, no plot, unoriginal action scenes, uninspired direction, abysmal acting, decent f/x that were wasted because of the many flaws.

I don't mind going to an indie film and being disappointed. The actors and directors and crew are probably getting their careers going and working on a shoestring budget. For a movie with this type of budget and hype I feel cheated along with disappointed. This movie is a painfully boring waste of time from the opening scene to closing credits. Sad to say that a preview of Hellboy 2 was the best part of AVPr and HB2 didn't even look that good.

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123 out of 193 people found the following comment useful :-
The worst Alien or Predator experience so far..., 2 January 2008

Author: mik30 from Germany

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

The production value of AvP2 can be described by one adjective: AWFUL

The script is ridiculous, even in the fictional area of AvP: What are the facehuggers good for on the Predator's ship? Why is the Predator cleaning up all signs of his influence and than wasting precious time with eviscerating and even presenting the body of an insignificant human cop? Why is the Predator alone? Why is the Predator equipping himself only on earth but on his home planet? Why does the Predator make his job so uneasy for himself by hunting down the Aliens rather than bombing the whole countryside like the humans do in the end? Why is the Predator dropping more & more of his few weapons rather than collecting them to keep them together after using one. In the end he is even dropping his armor before fighting the Predalien in hand to hand combat: what a bad plagiarism of the first predators final fight between Arny and the Predator. The Predator's gestures are so exaggerated that he is moving more like a Japanese sumo than like highly skilled extraterrestrial-safari-hunter. As one can see immediately the whole story is a mess. But it gets even worse because this botched-up job is filled up with boring patchwork of senseless interludes like a lengthy pizza ordering episode or some detailed information about the criminal past of the two brothers (Dallas & Ricky). The Sheriff is of course the friend of these two criminals who he puts regularly behind bars. (not convincing & absolutely superfluous for the plot).

In addition to that the cast of actors is horrible. Compared to the high class of directors & actors of the former Aliens or Predator movies AvP2 is an embarrassingly bad piece of crap.

At last the action of the movie is really poor. There is not a single scene of action combat in which the audience can see the whole set. Each and every fight is filmed in short & shaky bursts with close up zoom at nearly full darkness. That results in an atrocious experience for the audience because one can mostly see nothing but a dark shaky screen.

I suggest the two directing brothers Strause to buy themselves a steadycam and get a lesson in modern CG so that the next film contains some visible action of visible figures and might not need to disguise their bad directing abilities in such a manner.

I would advise anybody (even die hard AvP fans) against watching this film: prefer the first one or the original Aliens or the original Predator films but avoid disappointing yourself by wasting your precious time on this failure.

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201 out of 349 people found the following comment useful :-
Where's the suspense?, 29 December 2007

Author: pmaglinger from United States

This entry doesn't contain a spoiler. It doesn't have to. The movie is as predictable as the sunrise. The element in the first Alien movies was the suspense that something COULD happen. This was so in the first two Predator movies, though less prevalent. Requiem has totally removed the element of suspense and replaced it with blood and gore. You know people are going to die (well duh, it is a AvsP movie), but you know WHO is going to die and WHEN they are going to die, AND WHERE they are going to die before it happens. The directors should take a lesson from Hitchcock who said, "Suspense is not a time bomb going off under a table. Suspense is a bomb NOT going off under the table". What's the sense in going to a movie when you know exactly what is going to happen and when? If you really, really want to watch this movie, wait until it comes out on video and then RENT IT, but by no means would I ever buy it.

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93 out of 145 people found the following comment useful :-
By the Numbers, Watch the Trailer Instead, 25 December 2007

Author: Joshy-3 from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I'm sorry to say that this movies was one of the biggest disappointments of the year. Following one of the biggest disappointments in movie monster match up history you would think that they would learn from the mistakes of the previous incarnation. The sequel falls into many of the same traps, the plot line was completely forced, the dialog was so bad that the film might be better on mute, and the action was contrived and far from the heart pounding brilliance of each monsters original films. The best part of AVP-Requiem is in fact the trailer, which as you go through the movie end up realizing that almost every single death and every really cool shot in the movie was already shown in the trailer which leaves little to be revealed and little to be excited about. I gave the movie an extra star for letting see the extra hot female in the almost nude. the movie played out like a color-by-number sci-fi monster fest which also played into the fact that nothing was a surprise when it happened, because you'd seen it a thousand times before. the main failing with both these movies is that the creators thought that setting the films in our time would make us be interested in the story more as if it may one day happen to us. but what drew people in when they released the arcade game back in the day was that it kinda took place within an over the top futuristic version of the ALIEN trilogy time line which allowed more of a suspension of disbelief. this is where the future movies need to draw inspiration from. because to be honest, seeing a waitress killed by the ALIEN we all have feared since childhood just really doesn't do it for us. lets take the series back to its roots. learn from the former masters and don't mess with a winning formula by trying to make a 'bold new vision' we liked the originals for a reason, we want to see that again. Lastly, the ending is the real WTF moment of the whole film, *SPOILER* after the big climax, the survivors are ambushed by Special-Ops soldiers who justify their horrific actions by saying 'we were following orders' and then turn on a dime and start acting all nice and are turned into saviors. then after the long pull back with one of the survivors looking ominously into the heavens, we cut to the most bizarre cliffhanger I've ever seen, with characters you never saw in the rest of the movie (Save the Government Dude) then with all the subtlety of a punch to the face they reveal that there will be yet another film with the hint of a plot line that would make a sci-fi channel original movie blush and turn up its nose. So, in summation, if you have to choose between this movie and doing any other activity on the face of the Earth, skip the movie and do the other thing instead.

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49 out of 62 people found the following comment useful :-
Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop making anymore now!!!, 13 February 2008

Author: Luke Bone from United Kingdom

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

There was a time when the Alien series was a success with even the third installment, Alien 3, showing promise under the guild of a fresh and young David Fincher. The first Predator was a box office hit mainly due to its story, "in peak" star Arnold Schwarzenegger and director John McTiernan (Die Hard). The films Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 and Predator were all highly successful and created massive followings among general film fans and science fiction fans alike. Arguably Predator 2 and Alien Resurrection should have signaled the end for both franchises, but studios were undeterred and saw the opportunity to pander to the rumours among fans and combine the two. Step in Paul W.S Anderson, Alien Vs Predator, and now the Brothers Strauss (visual effects graduates, not even directors or writers). The problem was that by allowing such profound and revolutionary creations of the Sci-Fi genre to fall into the hands of firstly a mediocre director and now directorial newbie's has led to nothing more than profanity, epitomised by incompetence. Upon witnessing Alien Vs Predator Requiem (AVPR) die-hard fans will feel sick to their stomachs that this series could have got any worse.

One example of the cinematic deterioration of this franchise is in the opening scene and is likely to cause nausea among fans. The film begins with an Alien making its way onto the Predator ship, spurting from the predators chest, growing in to a full grown Predalien and bringing down the Predator craft (which now seems to have far less Predators on it than it did at the end of Alien Vs Predator) and all this occurs with the ship still in Earths atmosphere. Once the ship has crashed AVPR quickly resorts to cheap plot methods and basic narrative conventions, it makes no venture at utilizing any of the twists or subversions served up in the two original films. The wearisome plot progresses with tedious pace, punctuated only by the near rousing conflicts of Alien and Predator and when that runs the risk of boring us we are treated to either an alluring blonde in a bikini or rapid gunfire. AVPR is plagued by an endless array of continuity errors and plot holes with little or no narrative elucidation i.e. members of the public outwitting an elite military unit or the Predator not adhering to laws established in previous editions. This is a film that has a complete disregard for its predecessors, it breaks some of the most fundamental rules of a sequel and in doing so one gets the feeling that it is trying to set itself up as a stand alone feature. Independently the film has no heart, no conviction and no soul and with reference to the other films lacks even the most basic continuity. This is exemplified by the over arching narrative of the film as it undermines the basic premise of the first Alien. Because if the species had been encountered before then those in the first Alien film would have been more proficient and not so ill prepared when encountering them.

On a cinematic note the film is close to being dire, I felt urged at some points to shine a torch at the screen, the lighting was so bad. Through utilizing such gloomy and dark effects the audience may feel as though they are being cheated out of some the action – which is ironically its purpose and also indicates the films lack of budget. As with all science fiction one scene normally surfaces as being the most memorable, in this instance it is probably the hospital impregnation scene as it ever so tenuously draws on the themes of the original Alien by literalizing it. The directing is poor, performances weak and the script rotten. AVPR is the product of a conveyor belt system of film-making in which ideas and techniques are assembled by ineffective people and then the finished product distributed among cinemas. This is personified by the absence of gory death scenes and drawn out blood battles because the certification will not allow it – a lower certification achieving a larger target audience. AVPR was purely a business venture and nothing more.

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