Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem

My mom summed it up with a pretty accurate statement: “They messed up the whole thing with those people." And I agree with her (it reminded me of those two episodes of General Hospital I saw), and I just want to add that they messed up a lot more things. To start off I would add a little more light. Just remember the first or the second Predator, which played out during the day for the most part. Well it is what it is. The main Predator is a nice guy as always and the aliens are revoltingly revolting as usual. The problem is in the Strause brothers’ directing, because they didn’t manage to create the right atmosphere. The plus is, that they fulfill some fans’ fantasies. The Predator planet and children used as incubators are probably the most interesting ones. And for that its three stars. (2008-02-08)

Another lobotomy of the alien race, accompanied this time by exquisitely bad performances from the people of Earth. The creative duo of Greg and Colin Strause deserves respect for not restarting anything and dutifully picking up where Paul W.S. Anderson so haltingly left off, but apart from the impressive Predalien, nothing of what they do is entertaining. The respectable gaming and comic book series remains cursed in terms of film. (2013-01-20)

What bothers me most about this crossover series is the fact that the creators have sucked the soul out of two icons of horror sci-fi, leaving us with only a marketing product. It’s dressed up and packaged to attract the masses and neutered enough to hurt anyone drawn to the series with any sort of sympathy. The Brothers Strause understood the task perfectly, but in looking at the individual parts, they didn't understand a single one. And so they ride a wave of references (mostly to Cameron), which they intersperse with fashionable zigzags between the boundaries of correctness (dead children and pregnant women, an interesting kill list). The result is an unwanted B-movie dominated by... the Predator. His sovereign hunting instincts entertain about as much as the Aliens have been relegated to the role of expendable insects. I’d say that kids would be entertained, but my 13-year-old brother told me that it would be better to adapt the game than to create this... shit (I added). (2009-08-08)

The start-up of this B-movie is great. Beginning on a predator ship, a crash, alien "face-huggers" rampaging through the forests, a predator planet, a predator who goes to Earth to find out what happened. Seriously, the film is not flawed up to this point. But then it starts to run out of breath, the atmosphere ceases to build up in any way, and most importantly - night comes and the power goes out in the city. The darkness annoyed me to no end. Everything that took place in it was unclear - especially the predator-alien fights, which were also confusingly edited. What follows is boredom interspersed with occasional eating, shooting, skinning someone (it's spectacularly filmed, yes), which culminates in a fairly decent scene at a hospital. Towards the end, the film picks up again, but to be honest, I wasn't in the mood for it after an hour and a bit. So I give both stars to the great beginning and the decent ending... (2010-02-21)

I didn't expect anything extraordinary from this, yet the result negatively surprised me. Even in the context of the genre, it's a desperately clichéd spectacle that resigns to nothing more than a run-of-the-mill shooter that steals from the sci-fi genre. It is definitely not a horror or sci-fi, just a cheap action movie. I don't know the budget they had, but the majority of the film is drowned in darkness, and such poor lighting is quite rare - only a total blackout at the production site could excuse this. The editing is chaotic, at times the viewer has no idea who is shooting at whom, who is screaming, and whose blood is splattering everywhere. I haven't seen the first film, and after watching this, I have no desire to. I get the feeling that after this discrediting of the subject matter, no one will ever make Alien 5... Overall impression: 10%. (2009-01-20)