[Movie Review] ALIEN Vs. PREDATOR: REQUIEM
AN OPEN LETTER TO 20th CENTURY FOX EXECUTIVES:
Dear Sir / Madam
Let me help you out as best I can with something that I cannot believe is escaping your attention thus far. You’re trying (and two failed attempts would very much define the term “trying”) to make a cross-over franchise out of the remains of two much-loved sci-fi properties that you’ve, at best, mishandled and, at worst, completely destroyed. Your Predator releases are only two movies deep but with an iconic vintage masterpiece and a bloated mediocre sequel, they’re not strong foundations. Your Alien franchise is one you clearly don’t respect so why should we? You have two solid vintage masterpieces, a mutated and messed up third movie and a disaster of a fourth. And your intention is to build a new franchise out of the marriage of both of these properties?
Having encountered both the laughable ineptitude that was Alien Vs. Predator and now the shockingly ridiculous Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem, I have to question what the hell you are playing at. You’re clearly greenlighting these crossover movies as rush jobs designed to clean up on the DVD market – where, according to one of your marketing bodies within your own studio’s DVD distribution arm, “you make yourself the cheapest new release of that week and you’re guaranteed to pick up an extra percentage of purchases just from people looking to pick up new titles but who don’t have a lot to spend!” (Wah Da Fuh?!?) – with little to no respect for the fans of either or both franchises and the properties themselves.
First of all, you’re two movies in and you don’t know who you’re making these films for. They’re certainly not for young teens and you had to come to realise that when you but a spin-off of R-rated (18 certificated) movies out as a PG-13 (12 certificated) first time round. You recognised this second time out the gate so clearly you’re open to learning from your mistakes, would that be fair to say?
If so, why have you delivered a sequel to a horrifyingly poor movie that all put apes everything that is wrong with its predecessor? You’ve made the action incoherent and uninteresting. You’ve shot ninety percent of these aforementioned incoherent and uninteresting action sequences in pitch-blackness with heavy rain and yet again you’ve made exotic, beautifully designed iconic creatures like Gieger’s Alien or Winston’s Predator secondary bloody characters… secondary characters in a film called Alien Vs Predator: Requiem. You’ve got to understand why you’re causing huge levels of upset amongst die hard fans of these franchises. Imagine if you desperately wanted to see a movie version of Winston Churchill: His Life Story and you turned up to see this three hour epic, only to find that Churchill had only fifteen minutes of screen time in his own movie and the rest of it covered the husband of the woman who lived next door to Churchill when he was an eleven year old boy. You’d feel more than short-changed wouldn’t you? Well now you’re feeling what audience members to these god awful AvP movies are feeling.
It would be fair enough if you had a stellar story structure that required these iconic characters to be only background “threats” in their own movie (Hell, Steven Spielberg’s Jaws is a lofty example you could call upon!) or characters you genuinely were excited to be around or intrigued to watch, a la Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Major Alan “Dutch” Schaefer in Predator or Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley in Alien or Aliens. But you have neither. Your crossover movies have ridiculously rushed, contrived storylines and casting that shows you’ve dregged the very barrels of every daytime TV soap or extras roll-calls from big Hollywood movies.
You’ve got no interest or real respect in the Alien or Predator franchises so how can we possibly expect you to show respect for a crossover movie? It’s common knowledge that an Alien 5 script exists that is “so good” that not only does iconic franchise figure Sigourney Weaver state she is willing to return for an attractive pay day, but original Alien director, Ridley Scott, state he is willing to produce and original Aliens director, James Cameron, said he’d be willing to direct. But you’re too selfish and tight with the purse strings on guaranteed “gold” (it has to be for such established and respected talent to be willing to return to a ‘spent’ franchise and attach their credibility) to press the green light.
The same problem exists with the script for Predator 3. Only one was ever commissioned by your studio. Its writer was Robert Rodriguez (yes, he who has done remarkably well for himself since he handed said script in back in 1996) and it’s pretty much readily available around the power that is the “inter-web” for anyone with the time and energy to search for it. Now there was a motherfucker (pardon the French) of a high concept piece of blockbuster sequel filmmaking… and its third act crossed over into the Alien franchise! There you go, there’s your money-printing machine right there huh? It had Spanish Galleons getting attacked by Predators. It had Nazis getting obliterated by Predators within the trenches of WWII. It had iconic heroes of war (including a returning role for Mr Schwarzenegger) getting captured and spirited away to the Predator home planet to be put into gladiatorial battles against Predators to see which team could last the longest against Alien queens. It was a fantastic read and would have made a fantastically visual, expensive and glorious piece of popcorn cinema. The rumour mill on the internet back in 1996 was that Arnie, Sly and Brucie were going to team up for the first time in this very movie and, back before I realised how full of shit the internet was, I remember being over the fucking edge with excitement about such a notion.
You bottled out of paying what was needed to make a great Predator movie too. Instead you’re hiring unestablished music video directors looking to try their hand in the “features” or tried-and-tested bad directors who’ve failed so many times they’re practically unhirable but dirt cheap if you do (Hello To You Mr PW Anderson!), to make quick brainless knock-offs of films that deserve more money and respect then you’re willing to make. It’s obvious now. It was a worry back with the first AvP movie but it’s a fully realised notion now that the sequel is out there for all to see.
So let’s stop now eh? Don’t throw another, third, entry out into the public domain. If you absolutely feel you have to because of the fantastical (non) story you’ve been (not) building over the previous two movies, then just make it animated on the cheap straight to DVD or something so we can pretend it doesn’t exist like we did with that silly Riddick/Pitch Black “thing”. Just leave both franchises as they are. No Predator movies or Alien movies or movies with both of them in. Give us a third entry in your Hills Have Eyes (remake) line, even though the second one was questionable at best. Give us 28 Months Later! I know a lot of people who are screaming for that to happen. Give us Die Hard 5 even (I could dig out my college test script, a spec’ screenplay called Die Hard: Lockdown if you’re interested?) or push forward with all those Cedric The Entertainer driven remakes of old Rodney Dangerfield comedies you keep announcing but then never going anywhere with. Just walk away from anything with Aliens or Predators in it!
The Brothers Strause, the morons behind this latest celluloid reel of regurgitated nonsensical bile, are quoted as saying plans are afoot for a third “completely space set” AvP movie and that they’ve impressed you so much you want them back to direct that too. Fuck no! Please stop. You lot over there must be the most easily pleased motherfuckers on the planet. Your wives most love one inch penises (if this sporadic piece of guess work turns out to be true, tell them to call me!). Seriously though, no more. Listen to your fans, we technically pay your wages. We’re telling you we’ve had enough and we don’t want anymore of these horrendous films. Listen to us!
And please, when the DVD of this monstrosity is released and you shift a load in the first week, acknowledge that these are brainless 13 year old boys sneakily buying copies because they couldn’t get in to see this shite at the cinema. Don’t think it is a “new audience embracing the film”. Write it off. ‘Requiem’ translates as “funeral song, elegy, lament or final hymn” anyway so treat this latest abomination with that word as its subheader as exactly that – the end! The big farewell handwave. Don’t just think because Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade had the word “Last” in it but there’s a fourth movie out in two months, that you can pull some surprise revelation out the bag and come at us with more of this drivel.
You had your chance to do something interesting with a marriage of two of the most iconic properties any one studio could own. You blew it. Twice.
Enough is enough!
Yours in disgust
GAZZ
PS
Do you have any footage of Jessica Alba in her trailer or changing room during the making of Fantastic Four or Fantastic Four: The Shit Sequel With The Long Subheader? You know the sort of footage I’m talking about right? Naked, getting fucked, in any state of undress. Be reasonable. I sat through AvP. You owe me. Okay, so I watched it on a DVD screener… that I didn’t pay for… and I read a newspaper through the last forty minutes… so you owe me nothing except my time… but… you know where to reach me if you find anything right?
NO ‘POPCORNS’
4 Responses to “[Movie Review] ALIEN Vs. PREDATOR: REQUIEM”
So you weren’t keen then?
great blog, very interesting information.
Shit, a no popcorns from Gazz? I’m checking this out tonight!
lol. just playing, gazz.
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