Alien vs Predator: Requiem by
 |
A butterfly flaps its wings in Central Park and there's a tsunami in Tokyo. So goes Chaos Theory, the mathematical belief that everything in the world is so closely interconnected that a seemingly insignificant action in one place can have massive repercussions somewhere else. In 1990, a prop master on Predator 2 unwittingly put this theory to the test by inserting a disembodied Alien skull into the Predator trophy room briefly glimpsed at the end of the Danny Glover-starring sequel. Eager geeks spotted the gag, exhibited their enthusiasm and eventually their passion encouraged the powers that be to turn the concept into a computer game, and later a Paul WS Anderson film which has, in turn, led us to Alien vs. Predator: Requiem, or AVPR as it’s bafflingly abbreviated to.
Picking up directly after the events of Anderson’s film, AVPR (Film title? Hospital super bug? Line on an opticians chart?) begins aboard a Predator warship. Amid the rows of technological hardware and tubes containing face huggers (nonsensically shoehorned in for later plot developments), there’s a dead Predator who, unbeknownst to his beastly Rastafarian buddies, has been impregnated with one of their biggest foes. Soon, a ‘Predalien’ hybrid with the hair and mouth of the Predator, body of the Alien and temper of a particularly pissed off Gordon Ramsay is stalking around the ship, killing anyone in sight and causing the vessel to crash in sleepy American town Gunnison, where it’s joined by a purebreed Predator, a bunch of purebreed Aliens, and a motley crew of hapless humans. And - who’da thunk it - they all get into one big fight.
Having the human characters be a group of normal schlubs with no special talent is a neat idea. It’s easy to forget how revolutionary this tactic was in Alien and replicating it takes the franchise back to its roots. Had the film been in the hands of, say, David Koepp you could see it becoming a neat slice of guilty pleasure hokum, especially as the idea of the Alien on Earth has been mooted and eagerly anticipated since 1992‘s Alien 3. But screenwriter Shane Salerno is no Koepp, and the early promise is soon replaced by lazy horror tropes (dark sewers, moonlit forests, scantily clad teens) and stereotypical character work. There’s the rough and ready hero, his slacker brother, the hot girl he’s not-so-secretly in love with, an out-of-his-depth cop, a female marine returning home but struggling to connect with her distant daughter…Amazingly, there are more, but there’s no point in going into further detail. Basically, Gunnison has entered a Biggest Cliché competition. And the whole town is currently tied for first place.
Salerno hardly fares any better with his plot. Logic has never been either franchises strongest suit, but the writer abandons the concept altogether. His script is teeming with absurd flaws, which make the original‘s tale of moving pyramid mazes look like Schindler‘s List. Paramount in this is why the Predator comes to earth in the first place? Is he angry his species’ gene pool has been sullied by the Predalien? Looking to clean up a mess made his mates? Trying to find a good plastic surgeon? If he’s a cleaner-upper (as his tendency to erase the Alien‘s victims with a blue acidic liquid would suggest), why does he a) never use this super-liquid to quickly and simply do away with his foes and b) skin alive and then hang from a tree a cop he kills, thus blowing his incognito schtick? AVPR (Secret codeword? Countdown conundrum? Alphabetty Spaghetti?) starts with that hilarious Predalien baby and somehow gets stupider as it goes on.
To it’s credit though, there are some nice, fan-pleasing touches added by directors The Brothers Strouse (as they are grandly dubbed in the credits). One of the heroes is called Dallas, Brian Tyler manages to nicely blend the eerie clanks of Jerry Goldsmith and driving urgency of James Horner in his score to evoke a film that effectively blends Alien and Aliens in its tone, and there are some scenes which fans will immediately recognise as direct references to AVPR’s (Mathematical formula? PR company? Audio Visual group?) predecessors. However, these are nothing but geek pleasing in-jokes made by a pair of fanboys who have been given free reign to act out all their fan-fiction dreams, no matter how inappropriate (as witnessed in the wildly insensitive maternity ward sequence). There’s no originality, no tension and, bizarrely considering the film’s heritage, no scares whatsoever. Well, apart from the thuddingly unsubtle sequel-setting cliff-hanger at the end. Watch out Tokyo, that tsunami’s getting closer…
|
