As long as there have been monsters in movies there's been a desire to see them fight each other to the death. Every bout from King Kong vs. Godzilla to Freddy vs. Jason has been explored through film, comics, geek conversation, and the mish-mash of the toys in a toy chest. When I was a kid I staged such improbable battles as He-Man vs. Transformers, Star Wars vs. G.I. Joe, and my sister's Holly Hobby vs. something I built with a Robotix set. I suppose then that it's only natural to match the Internecivus raptus from the "Alien" series against the Yautja from the "Predator" series but since "Internecivus raptus vs. Yautja" doesn't have much of a ring to it what we're left with is "Aliens vs. Predator". It saddens me to say that the ultimate battle between the Aliens and Predators onscreen remains elusive since "Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem" is a complete waste of time.

The Story

"AvPR" picks up right where "Aliens vs. Predator" left off with the birth of the "Predalien" aboard the Predator ship. The Predalien reaches maturity in approximately ten seconds and proceeds to wreak havoc on the ship causing it to crash back on earth and release all the face huggers into the Colorado woods. A distress signal reaches the Predator home world notifying "Rambo Predator" who packs his favorite guns and knives then jets off for earth to clean up the mess. The setup isn't that bad really. It has Aliens. It has Predators. It even has the Predalien. Unfortunately there are 45 minutes of worthless humans to wade through before we can get to a good fight.

Once "Rambo Predator" gets to earth there are some mediocre-to-good scenes with him hunting and killing Aliens but the direction and the lighting make sure that the action never delivers. The fights are staged in dark areas or in the rain and the quick cuts and close-ups make it very difficult to get a sense of what's happening. That kind of thing may work for the Bourne movies where two humans are fighting but when your combatants have extra mouths, tails and weird weapons it's hard to tell what's going on. From a fan standpoint it's hard to understand why this is such a difficult premise to execute on.

Expectations

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "No one in their right mind thought this movie would be good." While that's true I remain an optimist when it comes to these kinds of movies and I believe a lot of what you get out of a movie has to do with your expectations. Anyone who walks into a movie with this kind of title expecting "The Godfather" or "2001" is an idiot. The best you can hope for is a few good action scenes. I'm not a snooty film critic - I loved both "300" and "Transformers" - but I do expect you to deliver on the promise of your movie as best you can. When your title is "Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem"... let me interrupt myself here. Requiem? A requiem is a song you sing to honor a dead person. How is this a good title for an action/sci-fi/horror monster movie? You might as well call it "Aliens vs. Predator: Soliloquy". It's one of the many signs that the studios in charge of these movies have no idea what we, as fans, like about the monsters. I'll give you a hint: it isn't the singing.

But I digress. When your title is "Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem" I expect the movie to focus on Aliens and Predators fighting. What I absolutely don't care about are the trials and tribulations of being an awkward, high-school pizza delivery boy in small-town Colorado, or how rough it is finding a job when you get out of prison. Is it just me or should the movie open with a Predator punching an Alien in the face? Or even better, what about 10 Predators punching 20 Aliens in their faces? The point is we don't care about the people. This film, like its predecessor, wastes precious screen time introducing and building up the human characters in an attempt to get the audience to care for them. The people who are paying to see these movies are not the kind of people who are interested in human drama; at least not when they walk into this movie. Give the audience what they want and stop force-feeding me these terrible humans who are only in the story to suffer casualties from collateral damage. If you want to develop a character how about working on one whose name makes up the title?

The Predalien shares some characteristics with the Predator. Namely the mandible jaw and the "dreadlocks".

One of the other many things that annoyed me about this movie was the completely unnecessary tension and build-up through the first and second acts. Once again, know your audience. Do we really need to wait as the people figure out that extraterrestrials - the mean kind not that cute kind - are slaughtering their neighbors? There have been four "Alien" movies, two "Predator" movies and this isn't even the first "Aliens vs. Predator" movie yet still I have to endure these cliché moments of the human characters saying things like, "What could do this to a man?" or "I've never seen anything like this."

"But how could they know what's going on?" you might ask. How about we stop setting the movies in modern day and put them back in the future where they belong. Let's write the script so that the characters, like the audience, are pretty much fully briefed on everyone involved. There wasn't a character in "Return of the Jedi" who stoop up half-way through and said, "Whoa whoa whoa. Who the hell is this Darth Vader?"

"People are dying. We need guns."

I wish that wasn't a direct quote from the film but unfortunately it is. Normally I don't complain about script issues in action movies but the dialogue in "AvPR" aspires to new heights of "terrible". Shane Salerno, the writer of "AvPR", seems completely incapable of scripting a single convincing line of dialogue even when he's borrowing it from the other movies. Dallas - our stalwart, ex-con hero played by Steven Pasquale who also plays fireman Sean Garrity on the FX series "Rescue Me" - actually says, "Get to the chopper," at one point. It worked in "Predator"; not so much here though. It's bad enough that I have to sit through these useless character interactions without the dialogue sounding like it was written by a five-year old.

It's frustrating for a fan of the "Alien" and "Predator" movies to see both series diminished by these "versus" films. What makes it worse for me is that I still believe that they don't have to be bad. I still think there's a kick-ass "AvP" movie out there waiting to be made. What do I want from an "Aliens vs. Predator" movie? I want basically "Aliens" but all the space marines are Predators and all the whiny colonists are space marines. We've seen the lone-wolf Predator with his crazy wrist-knives enough now so show me the badass team of Predators armed with steady-cam guns who get in over their head on the Aliens' home world. Is that too much to ask? This is a technologically-advanced, aggressive, tribal, warlike, interstellar species. You mean to tell me they don't have a standing army ready in case the Klingons show up?

"Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem" is just awful and will only offend fans of both franchises. Your time and money would be much better spent enjoying Fox Interactive's excellent PC game "Aliens vs. Predator 2" from 2001. The only way a third movie could be worse is if the studio went the typical comic-book-versus route for a third "AvP" film where the Aliens and Predators have a fierce argument in the beginning but then cast their differences aside to take on a bigger threat... like maybe the Blob.

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