AVPR - Alien Vs. Predator Requiem

The sequel to Alien Vs. Predator, AVPR, was surprisingly good for what it was. The first movie was poorly written even for a mindless action Sci-Fi flick and it lacked any real interaction between the two warring species apart from the occasional fight scene. AVPR not only had tons of action, but stuck more to the original premise of the comic series, Aliens are a dangerous form of intelligent big game and the Predators are intergalactic Hunters that have a long time standing rivalry with them. This film was ably directed by the brother pair of Colin and Greg Strauss, this being their first major film outside of direct to video. One of the few objections I had to this flick other than the churned out plot, was that most of the scenes were excessively dark. The lighting actually took away from some of the more intense action scenes because it was literally impossible to see what was happening. This film is not for the little ones because of it's graphic nature, but refreshingly enough there was no nudity or excessive language. The special effects were first rate which also added to the movies over all good execution. The characters, the human ones anyway, were pretty much one dimensional and easily tossed aside or rather ripped limb from limb as fodder for both the many Aliens and the Predator hunting them. One pretty cool aspect other than the over whelming number of Aliens running loose maiming towns folk, was some of the new aliens, a throw back from the third movie. Apparently in Alien 3 the writers felt that all Aliens would take on certain attributes of there original host from which they were spawned. In this movie, the second in the AVP series or sixth overall in the Alien saga, we are introduced to a new Alien/Predator mutation with the partial mandibles of the predator race and a mixed body of the two species, that not only can lay eggs through it's esophagus but kick ass while doing it. I recommend this movie as a decent Sci-Fi action film with enough scare factor in it to get your girlfriend, wife or significant other to grab on tight to you during the more "jumpy" scenes. This was one of the more pleasant rentals I have come across in the last several months of a "cinematic dry spell."