Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem
File:Avpredatorr.jpg Official poster for the film
Directed by	Colin Strause Greg Strause
Written by	Characters: Dan O'Bannon Ronald Shusett Jim Thomas John Thomas Screenplay: Shane Salerno
Produced by	John Davis Wyck Godfrey
Starring	Steven Pasquale Reiko Aylesworth John Ortiz
Cinematography	Daniel C. Pearl
Music by	Brian Tyler
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release dates	December 25, 2007 December 26, 2007 January 18, 2008
Running time	94 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$40,000,000

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (also known as AVP-R), is the sequel to 2004's Alien vs. Predator film. Filming began on September 25, 2006 in Vancouver with Tom Woodruff, Jr. and Alec Gillis from Amalgamated Dynamics handling the special effects (as they did for the previous installment) and Daniel Pearl as director of photography. The Brothers Strause (Colin and Greg Strause) directed the movie from a script by Shane Salerno. Actors Steven Pasquale and Reiko Aylesworth play leading roles in the film.

Unlike the PG-13 rating of the original, which garnered some criticism, the film is rated R for violence, gore and language. The BBFC's classification decision for the movie is the same as the original, whilst the Australian OFLC rated the film MA, up on the original's M rating.

A game has also recently been released for the PlayStation Portable. The game centers on the lone Predator cleaning up the mess left by a crashed ship.

Plot

The film picks up immediately after the events of Alien vs. Predator. The Predator ("Scar"), who was impregnated by a face hugger before being killed by an Alien Queen at the end of the first film, gives birth to a Predalien on board his clan's ship, which then sneaks aboard a scout craft headed for Earth and runs amok. As the Predalien rampages through the ship, a Predator attempts to kill it with his plasma caster and inadvertently shoots a hole through the ship's hull, causing it to crash in the forests outside of Gunnison, Colorado. The ship's crew dies either upon the crash or by the Predalien, which escapes. A boy and his father who are deer hunting see the crash and go to check it out. Both of them come across the wreckage of the ship-on board, and several face huggers escape from the damaged containment tubes and quickly impregnate them both.

Meanwhile, ex-con Dallas Howard has returned to Gunnison after time served in prison. He is greeted by his best friend and the town's sheriff Eddie Morales. Ricky Howard, who is Dallas' brother, delivers a pizza to his love interest Jesse; a fight between him and her boyfriend, Dale Collins, causes him to lose the keys to his truck, forcing Rick and Dallas to look for them in the sewers. Ricky catches sight of a chestburster, and both leave rattled after hearing a series of hissing and screeching. At this point, the hunting pair give birth to their chestbursters, and a few more facehuggers impregnate several homeless people in the sewers. Kelly O'Brien comes home after serving her time in the Army, to an estranged daughter and waiting husband.

Elsewhere, a distress signal sent by one of the dying predators reaches the Predator homeworld, contacting a veteran hunter, (identified in the credits as "Wolf"). He arrives on Earth hours later to eliminate the Aliens and destroy any evidence of the incident, while the community searches in earnest for the father/son hunting pair. At this point, Wolf has used a vial of corrosive liquid to remove all traces of the pair. One of the officers looking for the pair comes across the Predator, but is quickly tracked down and killed, he is skinned and found the next morning by Sheriff Morales.

Wolf locates the nearest area of possible contamination, the city sewer near the forest- after removing a few traces of evidence, he is ambushed by several aliens. After a brief fight in which Wolf encounters the new Predalien (apparently the dominant alien of the infestation), the Aliens spread throughout the city through a hole in the sewers leading up into the streets, starting a rampage that eventually leads to the destruction of the power plant and forcing the city into darkness.

After barely escaping the local swimming pool with their lives, Ricky, Jesse and Dale manage to meet up with Eddie and Dallas. They head to a sporting shop, contacting the incoming National Guard; within minutes, however, the entire force is decimated. Kelly, having lost her husband and barely escaping an Alien, arrives with her daughter Molly. They are forced to flee when the Predator arrives, attempting to destroy as many aliens as he can, and Dale is killed when a dead Alien's acidic blood burns through his face, brutally decapitating his head. Wolf's shoulder cannons are damaged in the attack, and he is forced to use them as a makeshift pistol.

Meanwhile, as the small group attempts to escape the city, they are contacted by Colonel Stevens, who radios that air evacuation will arrive at the town's center within a half-hour. Kelly is unconvinced, believing that they will bomb the center of town for the best effect at both destroying and covering up the infestation. Eddie breaks from the group to join a small collection of fighting survivors who plan to wait at the center of town, while the remainder of them make for the hospital, where a helicopter is known to be. Unknown to them, the hospital has already been attacked and has become a hive for the infestation. When the group comes under attack, Jesse flees and unwittingly runs into the path of Wolf's flying shuriken and is brutally dismembered as a result. Ricky attacks the Predator out of anger, and causes Wolf to lose the plasma pistol it was wielding. The Predalien impales Ricky with its tail moments later, but he manages to stay alive. Dallas picks up the energy weapon as the group continues towards the helipad, chased by the hostile hive. At this point, the infestation is out of control and Wolf seems to give up eliminating the evidence.

On the roof, Dallas stays behind briefly to fight off their pursuers with the plasma pistol, until he is cornered by an alien. Wolf appears only a moment later to brawl against the creature, allowing Dallas to escape, just as the Predalien arrives and attacks Wolf. As the two extraterrestrials battle, the helicopter lifts off, carrying an injured Ricky, Dallas, Kelly and her daughter, just as the Air Force arrives. Wolf's armour is damaged, and he resorts to removing most of his gear to battle the Predalien hand to hand. The two creatures mortally wound each other, just as a nuclear device lands in the middle of town, killing the remaining survivors and destroying the infestation, but also causing the chopper to lose control and crash land in a clearing.

Dallas wakes to find Kelly, Molly and Ricky still alive and outside the crashed craft. After hearing threatening noises, they find themselves surrounded by camouflaged soldiers. Dallas gives up the plasma pistol, while med-evac tends to his still injured brother; Kelly reassures her daughter that the monsters are finally gone.

The scene shifts elsewhere, to a corporate building in the U.S., where Colonel Stevens approaches an Asian female. He opens his briefcase, revealing the plasma caster. The woman, Ms. Yutani (of the future corporation Weyland-Yutani), states that the world is not ready for the new technology, but Colonel Stevens replies that the technology is "not for our world".

Cast

Actor	Role
Steven Pasquale	Dallas Howard
Reiko Aylesworth	Kelly O'Brien
John Ortiz	Eddie Morales
Johnny Lewis	Ricky Howard
Ariel Gade	Molly O'Brien
Kristen Hager	Jesse
Sam Trammell	Tim O'Brien
Robert Joy	Col. Stevens
David Paetkau	Dale Collins
Tom Woodruff, Jr.	Alien Predalien
Ian Whyte	Predator, Wolf

Reception

So far, AVP-R has earned mixed reviews from critics with a 17% on Rotten Tomatoes, 5 positive to 24 negative with an average of 3.2 out of 10 and a user rating of 5.7 out of 10, a 3.5 out of 5 on Moviehole and a 3.5 out of 5 on IGN. So far, the film has grossed over $16.8 million domestically. As of December 28th, IMDb has the film rating at 6.4/10 from over 3,391 votes.

Creatures

Images have surfaced showing that both creatures have gone through design changes since Paul W. S. Anderson directed the original Alien vs. Predator. These include a return to the ridge-headed aliens last seen in Aliens (though not to the same extreme) and a slimmer, more athletic Predator, nicknamed Wolf, as seen in Predator and Predator 2. The Predator's weapons have been somewhat modified for the new film. The Predator now carries two plasma casters, after taking one from the body of a deceased predator, and uses a bladed disk as seen in the second film, as well as multiple Predator shurikens. The Predator has received a new weapon, a whip, made from Alien teeth which is able to wrap around an Alien numerous times and slice it into several pieces, as seen in the trailer. And of course, the Predator CombiStick (spear) makes a return. The predator also uses one of his plasma casters in a handheld manner, which is used by a human later on in the film. The Predator also has a blue liquid, possibly the same as the one briefly seen during the bathroom scene in Predator 2. This liquid is poured on organic matter, such as corpses. The liquid then causes them to rapidly dissolve. This liquid is used as a weapon as it is poured down an alien's mouth and throat, killing it.

This film was the first in the series to show a glimpse of a Predator city. Early in the film, when Wolf receives the distress call, the audience is show Wolf's chambers. Inside is seen many Predator masks, weapons, and a large viewing screen. As Wolf leaves his chambers, he is shown flying over a large city. Several ships can be seen in the background taking off. The film also shows the best view of the inside of a Predator ship. Before the ship crashes the audience can see several trophy walls, facehugger storage areas, and a Predator "skinning" a defeated Xenomorph.

File:Alienvspredator-2-d-1.jpg

The Predalien

The trailer shows the Predator variant of the Alien, the PredAlien, will appear in the film, after being set up prior in Paul Anderson's Alien vs. Predator. The inclusion of the Predalien was confirmed when IGN released an image showing Wolf and the Predalien fighting. The Predalien as shown in early production stills, released by Twentieth Century Fox, has a large tail, several times larger than that of normal aliens and with several barbs, ending in a heavy club. Though it is not explained how, the creature has the ability to produce and spread Alien eggs to human victims through a similar process as the facehugger, but it does not die once passing on the eggs. In the one instance when it was shown doing this, it passes four eggs into a woman. The directors stated that this is a new feature in the mythos that they have invented; a young Queen does not lay eggs but directly implants embryos into hosts so it can quickly establish a new hive.

References

http://www.substance001.net/avp2_trailer/avp2_trailer_850k.wvx

External links

• Official Website
• Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem at IMDb
• Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem at Rotten Tomatoes
• Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem at Metacritic
• Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem at Box Office Mojo
• DVD Talk discusses the R-rating of AVP-R