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Alien Vs. Predator - Requiem is directed by Colin and
Greg Strause. The film stars Steven Pasquale (Rescue Me),
Reiko Aylesworth (The Killing Floor), and John Ortiz (Carlito's
Way.) The musical score is contributed by Brian Tyler. This
is the second film in the Alien Vs. Predator spin-off series.
***
The second film in the Alien Vs. Predator series revolves
around numerous people who are forced to band together,
following a ship crashing on Earth. It isn't long before
the crashed ship's inhabitants begin attacking humans, and
there's an all-out battle between Aliens and Predators on
the Earth - with humans caught up in the midst of the deadly
conflict. ***
The first two films in the Alien series were undisputed
masterpieces of cinema. But from there it's all been downhill.
As if the latter two installments in the Alien series weren't
weak enough, the Alien Vs. Predator multimedia franchise
fails to make a successful transition to film. It took this
spin-off franchise nearly 15 years to spawn a feature film,
and the end result was a disaster. Regretfully, the sequel
doesn't fare a whole lot better. ***
One thing I will give the film credit for, though -
It's rated R. The first Alien Vs. Predator film was edited
severely to get a PG-13, in an effort to appeal to a widespread
audience. But as a result the film took a few hits in its
overall quality. But the filmmakers pulled out the stops
here and made this one rated R - the way any Alien or Predator
film should be. ***
The biggest problem with the film is that the entire
first half of the movie focuses too much on the people of
Earth and their individual lives. I don't know about you,
but I didn't come to this movie looking for teen drama!
If you've seen Transformers, you'll have a pretty good idea
what to expect in the former portion of the film - and I
DO NOT mean that in a good way. ***
Even when the film gets down to the action (which it
took long enough to get to), it still fails to please. Poor
pacing, direction, a weak script, and a number of other
problems drag this movie down so much, ensuring that it
never gets off the ground. ***
The DVD features an unrated presentation that expands
the film's length, but most of the added scenes are worthless
and were rightfully omitted from the film to begin with.
Most of what gets added into the film are dialogue scenes
- something this movie had too much of to begin with. ***
If you want to see Alien and Predator films done right,
go watch the first two films in the Alien series, and the
first Predator film. This spin-off series fails to make
a successful leap to the big screen. And while it goes all-out
for an R rating unlike its predecessor, this certainly doesn't
save the film. ---
Image And Sound:
For the most part, this is a solid transfer. The level
of detail and clarity in the images are very impressive,
and there are very few flaws to speak of. Likewise, the
audio quality is terrific, with no major issues - and sounds
especially good in the action sequences. ---
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