Time: 94 Minutes
Age Rating: R16 – contains violence
Cast:
Steven Pasquale as Dallas Howard
Reiko Aylesworth as Kelly O’Brien
John Ortiz as Eddie Morales
Johnny Lewis as Ricky Howard
Sam Trammell as Tim O’Brien
Ariel Gade as Molly O’Brien
Director: Greg Strause, Colin Strause

A spacecraft brings a lethal alien to Earth, followed by another predator who aims to kill the former. Meanwhile, a bunch of survivors too split into two rivalling groups in a bid to save themselves.

Alien vs Predator released back in 2004 didn’t receive the most positive of reactions. Still, it has its fans, and I even liked it despite the flaws. However, I’ve heard nothing but bad things about its sequel titled Requiem. I was curious as to what could’ve been especially bad about it, considering it just seemed to be a bigger and bloodier sequel. Having seen it, I understand why now.

As expected, the plot once again boils down to Aliens and Predators fighting, with humans being caught in the middle of it. There are many ways to do this, but Requiem’s approach feels very generic and tired, resulting in a very dull and forgettable plot. It was just hard to care about anything happening in the movie, the stakes or the characters. There were some ideas that I liked; I enjoyed the main Predator story as he hunts down the aliens. There’s also the Predalien, a Predator and Alien hybrid which was teased at the end of the last AvP movie. This Predalien does at least add something different to this movie. On the whole though, the movie was just kind of boring, and for a 90 90-minute-longvie, it felt really long.

The performances are pretty flat, and it really doesn’t help that the characters are really boring. This is by far the worst cast of human characters in the franchise and while I get that in these movies, they aren’t really meant to be the highlight. But it made it even harder to be invested in what was going on with the story.

This movie is directed by Colin Strause and Greg Strause (also known as The Brothers Strause) and their work here is very uninspiring. It’s not without some good aspects; there are some impressive creature effects, mainly for the aliens and predators. The Predator and Predalien are particularly well designed. It is worth noting that from the previous movie to this one, the violence has been greatly increased from PG-13 level to R. To me it never made sense that the first movie was a PG-13 level movie considering that both franchises are rated R. So, Requiem does at least deliver on the increased gore, and the effects for those are pretty good. At the same time the violence does feel a little mindless and hollow, and didn’t really contribute a whole lot to the experience. One of the things I heard going in was that the lighting was absolutely terrible and its hard to watch anything that’s going on. I watched it on Disney+ and I didn’t find the visibility to be that bad, but the lighting definitely could’ve been better. Beyond the lighting, Requiem just isn’t a visually interesting movie to watch. The environments are limited to familiar locations in a standard town and doesn’t even make great use of those areas. The action setups are kind of basic, and while they can be mildly entertaining, they are rather under underwhelming, made worse by the jumpy editing. On a more positive note, the score from Brian Tyler is good.

While the increased violence is welcome and the effects are solid, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem is a misfire, with a forgettable and uninteresting plot, disappointing action, and bland performances and characters. I think it just manages to beat out Alien: Resurrection as the worst movie from both franchises. Perhaps check it out if you’re curious enough, but if you didn’t like the first AvP, it’s unlikely that you’ll like this one.