Alien vs. Predator 2

1 / 10

A visual mess combined with an outrageous ultima ratio

Based upon the hideous ending of Alien vs. Predator, the sequel feels like a gigantic mishap caused by the naivety of the predator folk with huge implications for the small town Gunnison in the state of Colorado. Like the previous film, the Brothers Strause treat the franchise joint venture like a giant checklist with the respective features, but they decide to throw these lists into the garbage bin midway through and put their focus on a standard horror flick with countless victims, monotonous gunfights and extra-terrestrial carnage which is hard to observe for the most part.

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem is an incomprehensible, visual disaster in every aspect. Scenes during daylight have a weird red color cast with an amped up color temperature and hue which unnecessarily impairs the visibility. Even more confusing are the night sequences, which drown in the black colors and harmonize very badly with the onslaught and an abominable usage of light. Somehow, the light has to blink on several occasions while artificial spotlights get refracted in the never-ending rainfall, resulting in a completely indistinguishable action with no sense of orientation inside any building. A warning of epileptic effects is apparently also not needed.

As the so-called “predalien” plows its way through the forests of Colorado, the emergency predator also marks its territory with his weapons, but its thermal and infrared vision has a weirdly lower resolution than a human night observation device. On a side note: Directors and sound supervisors don’t pay attention to the noise a predator makes. Does it sound like a distorted monkey, a lion or a grizzly bear? They don’t seem to care, as every version of it sounds acoustically inconsistent. Meanwhile, the main actors have a minimal backstory, which doesn’t need to be mentioned due to the end, and eventually gather together in the battle for survival which at least connects this film to the other Predator and Alien pictures. The presence of both extra-terrestrials attracts the attention of a non-transparent US government agent which worringly observes the ongoing massacre on the ground and guides the people of Gunnison to the center of the town.

Everything culminates in the nocturnal, rainy finale in which the predator and the predalien clash and fight across buildings and the streets. Both creatures make use of their repertoire of weapons and their epic fight becomes a stalemate, until the directors decide to make one of the dumbest shortcuts in cinema history in order to push the story to the end. A fighter jet lurking in the stormy sky drops a nuclear bomb. On a town. In their own country to wipe out the whole region. The ultima ratio to an out-of-control situation is a nuclear bomb? Are you out of your mind?

I don’t know what the Strause brothers or the writers were thinking, but this move evokes the worst nightmares from the nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and recaps the highest tensions between the United States and Russia during the Cold War, not to speak of the awful treatment of both creatures and the burial of the Predator formula. Political accountability and radioactive consequences are ignored, even with the short runtime of 94 minutes. The debacle ends with the secret interests and gatherings of the government intelligence group from this event which leaves the door open for a sequel, but for the sake of cinema, just don't do it.

This type of storytelling is criminal and infuriating and implies the following message of the film: The government doesn’t give the slightest damn for any region of their own country when it comes to technological interests and if you cannot solve a problem, just drop a freaking nuclear bomb to make your point of view clear to third parties! Parallels to Shane Black’s The Predator are obvious, but that’s the last film you want your work to be associated with. Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem euphemizes nuclear warfare, makes a travesty of both franchises for standard horror stuff and feels like a 40 million dollar-heavy cashgrab of an accident flickering in the dark.