Tuesday, January 01, 2008

AVP Requiem

The first movie I watched this year is the one I've been anticipating for a long time: Aliens versus Predator: Requiem.


For those who are worried that Requiem will be like the first AVP, worry not! There's plenty of action in this second installment. As a matter of fact, there's so much action it's almost excessive ^^; No more fancy sword-play by the Predator, as his sole objective is to eliminate all Aliens he can find with his twin shoulder cannons; and no more solo action by the Alien Warriors either, they move and kill in pack; while the human in the movie are responsible to supply all the mortar for the fight.

With that said, I think the story of Requiem is much better this time, as it's so easy to follow than the archaeological expedition in the first AVP. Don't get me wrong, I do give credit to the writing crew of AVP for their effort to set up the best and somewhat 'reasonable' setting for the two dueling races to fight on Earth, but the result from the first movie was too much time was spent on explaining how the two races mingled from the beginning, and how us human became involved. Sadly, this cut down too much on the action and I believe typical audience (including me) might find that quite disappointing. In Requiem, the story is focused on the fight between the two species, while the unfortunate town folks who are stuck in between tried to fight back and survive. It's just that simple.

Some might not like such simplicity, since it might seems too commercial and even 'pointless'. I can't really deny that, but there's very little ground for the two sci-fi franchises to be in the same movie anyway. Also, if you keep on looking for some sort of 'reasonable explanations' for the entire movie, you might walk out the cinema disappointed again ^^

One thing I don't like about the movie is how the director tried to add some elements from the previous Aliens and Predator movies here and there in Requiem. For example, part of the music, several scenes and even lines by the casts. I think Requiem belongs to a totally different category of movie and can't be compared to either one of the two franchises. If you've watched all the four Alien the two Predators movies, you'll be able to spot the 'trivia' easily.

Plenty of gore and violence as well. Human blood, Alien carcasses, Facehuggers, gory Predator weapon effect are everywhere. So be warned: those who are expecting the 'lightweight' gore in AVP, you might get nightmares after watching this one, or maybe you're expecting something like this? o_0


















No spoiler needed actually, these are actually screen shots from the first trailer of the movie from IGN Movie.