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I found my curiosity piqued this morning by a story on Bureau 42 describing the trailer for the new Aliens vs. Predator sequel as “amazing” and “adult.” I’ve made no secret of the fact that I consider the first AvP to be an unwatchable piece of garbage — bad enough to make Alien: Resurrection look like a masterpiece of restraint and nuance. “Amazing” is a pretty strong word, and I’ve always been fond of Bureau 42, so I hopped over to IGN and checked out the R-rated trailer. I thought to myself: “Could Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem actually be good?”

The short answer: no. No, it can’t.

Strong female characters now come with rain-hardened action nipples!

Hope soon gave way to disappointment and despair: this looks like the same sort of garbage that characterized the first AvP, except with more gore. In fact, that’s about the only discernible difference. There’s another ripped, sweaty female lead in a a skimpy top shooting things, pretty much indistinguishable from the last one. There’s no futuristic setting or science-fiction backdrop; the Aliens and Predators are once again snacking on random idiots, with the occasional side salad of suburbanites, teenagers and ineffectual army guys. In essence, AvP: Requiem apparently manages what was once thought impossible — it reduces both franchises to the level of a teen slasher film.

Adding to the bleakness is this article from Dark Horizons:

MTV News has posted a very in-depth interview with “Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem” directors Greg and Colin Strause, one filled with lots of spoilers and talk of a possible sequel.

Most interesting is that the pair distance themselves from the original AVP - “The studio knew that, although the last movie made a lot of money, it didn’t really resonate solidly with the fans. To get the same people back into the theater a second time, it was gonna be a bit of an uphill battle.” says Greg.

That much is certainly true.

Colin confirms that neither he or his brother met with AVP director Paul Anderson - “I don’t think anyone wanted us to talk to him. This movie works even if you didn’t see [Anderson's]… We really have to prove to the fans that this movie’s gonna be very different from the last one.”

Different in that it’s a whole new bunch of hapless civilians getting killed. Very fresh.

The pair also talk a lot about the R-rating, confirming a kid painfully and graphically dies onscreen via a chest burster alien.

Edgy. I’ve often thought, that’s what’s missing in the Alien series, some good old child-killing!

As for a sequel? “I’d like to do another one but I’d like to do it in space.”

How pioneering.

“The next one either has to be more of the bridge after this and before ‘Alien,’ or you could do something after ‘Aliens. We have a pretty finite ending to this, but we have a cliffhanger per se; it’s a setup” says Greg.

This doesn’t go far enough. How about a hilarious time travel adventure where a bunch of plucky teens arrive during the events of Aliens, but can only mug and caper in the background so they don’t ruin the timeline? That way, you could completely destroy all fond memories of the originals!

Without further ado, then, here are six reasons why AvP: Requiem will suck:

1. The Directors

First of all, there are two directors, Colin and Greg, the “Brothers Strause.” The Strauses are primarily visual effects supervisors whose recent credits include the Fantastic Four movies, 300, The Day After Tomorrow and X-Men: The Last Stand. Even putting aside the fact that these movies are all garbage (which, in all fairness, is probably not their fault), their most lofty directorial accomplishment previous to AvP 2 is a Nickelback video. Granted, the Aliens and Predator franchises were both fueled heavily by visuals, but at least Ridley Scott and James Cameron had something else going for them. Putting visual effects guys in charge of a major motion picture usually means you get visual effects and nothing else. If the trailer is any indication, that will hold true here.

A powerful visual metaphor for the Alien and Predator franchises.

2. The Writer

Shane Salerno, one of the gargantuan talents behind Armageddon and author of the Shaft remake. Also, he looks like Corey Feldmans’s gay younger brother. Although, in his favor, he also script-doctored Ghost Rider, which theoretically means he made that piece of garbage more watchable than it had been previously. I suppose we can all thank him for that. Actually, I’m sure Shane Salerno’s a very successful, wealthy, attractive fellow. I just happen to hate everything he’s produced so far.

Won’t it be totally k-rad to see this little girl die screaming? Awesome!

3. Let’s Go Back in Time!

One of my biggest problems with the current crop of “reboots” and loose sequels is that they’re all going backwards. Granted, this is not always a bad thing; Batman Begins, for example, elegantly revisited a franchise in sore need of rethinking, and I think it’s safe to say Raimi’s Spider-Man features are the best take yet on the character. Other examples are less encouraging: Star Trek is apparently set on dead-ending itself again by revisiting L’il Kirk and Spock (meaning we’ll probably be seeing Shia LeBoeuf as Khan sometime in 2013), and the Aliens vs. Predator series seems bent on retconning the entire series by basically having the aliens show up in cheaper, blander environs.

So the Predators created Mayan civilization, and the aliens have been around basically forever? Kind of makes that whole “first contact” scenario in Ridley Scott’s original film pretty damn unlikely, doesn’t it? Why are we constantly going backwards? Will we eventually go forward far enough to see one of the Fanning sisters as young Ripley, fighting aliens in a crop-top and hot pants? If the current trend is any indication, yes we will.

Hell, why not have the Aliens and Predators show up in Dallas in 1963 and kill Kennedy –or, for that matter, Christ? Man, how awesome will it be when Aliens crucify him with their mandibles? “Eloi, eloi, cockjuggling thundercunt!”

Billy Bob Thornton! NO!

4. Aliens Vs. Hillbillies: Requiem

Alien was scary because no one on the spaceship was prepared to deal with an alien threat. The crew had improvised weapons ,but were essentially just truckers in space. Aliens ramped up the tension by bringing in a load of badass space marines, and then having the Aliens kick all their asses anyway. The third and fourth installments pretty much covered the same ground, although placing the alien in a prison full of hard-boiled inmates was a nice touch in Alien 3, and Resurrection added something new by making the protagonists every bit as unappealing as the Aliens themselves.

One of the major problems I had with the first AvP is that it undermined the entire idea of the Predators, which was that they hunted human prey for sport. In all fairness, this isn’t a terribly complex sci-fi conceit, but shouldn’t that make it all the easier to stick to? Is there really any sport to murdering an overweight seismologist as he cowers in the corner, or capping an unarmed Lance Henriksen as he stands there bewildered? AvP certainly seemed to think so. The Predators of Paul W.S. Anderson’s world are no longer hunters — they’re generic slasher psychos, and therefore astonishingly dull. AvP 2 looks like more of the same, except now it’s not even seismologists getting murdered, but the kids at 7-11.

Doh, I guess she wasn’t a virgin. Or maybe she smoked some marijuana earlier.

5. Saw V With Heat-Seeking Throwing Stars

Now, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that the original Alien movies aren’t gory films. The chest-burster sequence from Alien is one of the most seminal scenes in all of goredom — but it’s by far the most extreme sequence in the film, and the rest of the action is essentially off-screen. Subsequent entries actually ramped the gore down instead of up; Aliens was mostly a blur of mustard-colored Alien blood and muzzle flare, Alien 3 and Resurrection had relatively little graphic bloodletting, and AvP was PG-13, so there was pretty much nothing.

But that will no longer fly in the post-Saw and Hostel world, where audiences apparently want to see children dying violently and people screaming in agony as acid slowly drips onto their face. If the trailer is any indication, AvP2 takes the torture-porn route to storytelling, focusing on impalements, oceans of blood, and lots of suffering. It should satisfy the bloodthirsty thirteen-year-olds who will no doubt be the core audience for this film. Again, I’m not arguing that the original Alien films were high art — Predator even less so — but they weren’t all about achieving the “quality kills” Final Destination-style, as AvP 2 appears to be.

6. No Ripley

Enough said.

I realize this comes off as very curmudgeonly, and I’ll also admit that I’m making a lot of blanket assumptions based on the trailer — assumptions I feel pretty confident about, having seen the first one. I’ll admit there might be a chance that AvP 2 will be good, but I think it’s far more likely that it will be another brainless, ADD-addled sequel marketed towards teenage gorehounds. I’m also keenly aware of the fact that despite my fanboy bitching, AvP 2 will also probably make a billion dollars. Such is life. It just makes me sad to see one of my favorite franchises (Alien) brought down to the level of torture porn.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 13th, 2007 at 7:00 am and is filed under Movie News, Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.