Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (also known as AVP: R) is a 2007 American science fiction horror film directed by the Brothers Strause (Colin and Greg Strause) in their directorial debut, written by Shane Salerno, and starring Steven Pasquale, Reiko Aylesworth, John Ortiz, Johnny Lewis and Ariel Gade. It is a sequel to Alien vs. Predator (2004) and the second and latest installment in the Alien vs. Predator franchise, continuing the crossover of the Alien and Predator franchises. The film was released on December 25, 2007. It has an 11% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and grossed $129 million, behind the predecessor, which grossed $172 million.

Plot
Following the events of the previous film, a Predator ship leaves Earth carrying Alien facehuggers, and the body of Scar, the Predator that defeated the Alien Queen. A chestburster with traits of both species erupts from Scar's body. It quickly matures into an adult Predalien, makes its way onto a scout ship that is then detached from the Mothership, and starts killing the Predators on board. A Predator's weapon punctures the hull and the scout ship crashes in the forest outside of Gunnison, Colorado, injuring or killing most of the Predators.

The Predalien and several facehuggers escape, implanting embryos into a nearby father and son who are out hunting in the forest, as well as several homeless people that live in the sewers. An injured Predator sends a distress signal before being killed by the Predalien. On the Predator homeworld, a skilled veteran Predator, Wolf, receives the signal and takes it upon himself to travel to Earth to hunt and kill the Aliens. He arrives at the crashed Predator ship, uses a blue acid-like liquid to dissolve and erase evidence of the Aliens' presence, and triggers an explosion to further destroy the vessel.

Meanwhile, ex-convict Dallas Howard has just returned to Gunnison after serving time in prison. He is greeted by Sheriff Eddie Morales and reunites with his younger brother Ricky. Ricky has a romantic interest in his classmate Jesse, but is constantly harassed by her boyfriend Dale and his two friends. Kelly O'Brien has also just returned to Gunnison after serving in the military, and reunites with her husband Tim and daughter Molly. Darcy Benson, the wife of the murdered father, begins her search for her missing husband and son. Meanwhile, local waitress Carrie Adams discovers she is pregnant, but her police officer husband, Ray, is killed by Wolf after witnessing him dissolving the bodies of Darcy's husband and son while he was searching for them in the forest.

Wolf tracks several Aliens in the sewer and defeats many of them, and as the battle reaches the surface, several of them disperse into the town. Wolf pursues some to the power plant, where collateral damage from his plasma caster weapon causes a citywide power outage. Ricky and Jesse meet at the high school swimming pool, but are interrupted by Dale and his cohorts just as the power goes out and an Alien enters the pool, killing Dale's friends. Another Alien invades the O'Brien home, killing Tim while Kelly escapes with Molly. After the fry cook at the local diner where Carrie works is attacked by the Aliens, Carrie is also attacked after hearing the cook's screams and is impregnated by the Predalien with bellybusters. Darcy discovers her body in horror but Sheriff Morales arrives and brings her with him.

Kelly, Molly, Ricky, Jesse, Dale, Dallas, and Sheriff Morales gather at a sporting goods store to collect weapons. Troops from the Colorado Army National Guard arrive, but are quickly killed by the Aliens. Wolf briefly captures Dallas inside the store to use as bait to lure the Aliens, but Dallas escapes. Several Aliens arrive and Wolf handily defeats them. Dale is killed by an Alien during the battle and one of Wolf's shoulder plasma casters is damaged. He removes his remaining one and modifies it into a hand-held blaster.

As the survivors attempt to escape Gunnison, they make radio contact with Colonel Stevens and are told that an air evacuation is being staged at the center of town. Dallas and Kelly are skeptical, as going to the center of town would cause them to become surrounded by the Aliens, and they along with Ricky, Jesse, Molly and a few others, go for the helicopter at the hospital to get out of town while Sheriff Morales and Darcy head to the evacuation zone. However, the hospital has been invaded and overrun by the Aliens and the Predalien, who has impregnated some pregnant women to breed more Aliens. Wolf soon arrives at the hospital where he dispatches more Aliens and during the battle, the Predator accidentally impales Jesse with one of his Shuriken weapons; distraught, Ricky rushes Wolf with his rifle fire only to be injured by the Predalien. The Predator is attacked by an Alien, and both tumble down an elevator shaft. Dallas takes possession of Wolf's plasma blaster.

Dallas, Ricky, Kelly and Molly reach the roof and fight off several Aliens before escaping in the helicopter, while Wolf, having survived the fall, battles the Predalien on the roof in hand-to-hand combat. Wolf and the Predalien mortally wound each other just as a military jet arrives. Rather than a rescue airlift, it executes a tactical nuclear strike that levels the entire city. The shock wave causes the fleeing helicopter to crash in a clearing, where the survivors are rescued by the military. Wolf's plasma blaster is confiscated, and Colonel Stevens presents it to Ms. Yutani. Yutani tells him that the world is not yet ready for this kind of advanced technology.

Cast

 * Steven Pasquale as Dallas Howard, a recently released convict, Ricky's brother.
 * Reiko Aylesworth as Kelly O'Brien, a soldier returning to her family.
 * John Ortiz as Eddie Morales, the sheriff of Gunnison.
 * Johnny Lewis as Ricky Howard, student and younger brother of Dallas.
 * Sam Trammell as Tim O'Brien, husband to Kelly and father of Molly.
 * Ariel Gade as Molly O'Brien, daughter of Kelly and Tim O'Brien.
 * Robert Joy as Colonel Stevens, commander of the military forces.
 * Kristen Hager as Jesse Salinger, love interest of Ricky, angering her boyfriend, Dale.
 * David Paetkau as Dale Collins, Jesse's boyfriend who bullies Ricky.
 * Matt Ward as Mark, one of Dale's friends
 * Michal Suchánek as Nick, one of Dale's friends
 * David Hornsby as Drew Roberts, a pizza parlor supervisor.
 * Gina Holden as Carrie Adams, a pregnant waitress married to Deputy Ray Adams
 * Chelah Horsdal as Darcy Benson, a mother searching for her son and husband
 * Chris William Martin as Deputy Ray Adams, Carrie's husband
 * Liam James as Sam Benson
 * Kurt Max Runte as Buddy Benson
 * James Chutter as Deputy Joe
 * Tim Henry as Dr. Lennon
 * Tom McBeath as Karl
 * Ty Olsson as Nathan
 * Rainbow Sun Francks as Earl
 * Juan Riedinger as Scotty
 * Dalias Blake as Lt. Peter Wood
 * Curtis Caravaggio as Special Forces Commander
 * Françoise Yip as Ms. Yutani, the CEO of the Yutani Corporation.

Aliens

 * Tom Woodruff Jr. as the Aliens and the Predalien. Having previously portrayed the Aliens in Alien 3, Alien Resurrection and Alien vs. Predator. Woodruff reprised the role for the film.

Predators

 * Ian Whyte as The Predator / "Wolf", the main Predator who arrived on Earth to eliminate the Aliens and all traces of their presence. Nicknamed "Wolf" by the production team, after Harvey Keitel's character in Pulp Fiction whose role is also that of a "cleaner." Matthew Charles Santoro portrayed the voice of Wolf. Whyte had previously portrayed the four Predators in the previous film.

Bobby "Slim" Jones ("Bull") and Ian Feuer ("Atomic") as the additional Predators.

Production
Inspired by Terminator 2: Judgment Day, brothers Colin and Greg Strause moved to Los Angeles to break into the film business. After an unsuccessful attempt to find employment at Industrial Light & Magic, the brothers worked on The X-Files film in 1998 and founded their own special effects company, Hydraulx. The company produced special effects for films such as Volcano, Titanic, The Day After Tomorrow, Poseidon and 300 and the brothers began a career directing commercials and music videos. Colin believes Hydraulx secured a strong relationship with 20th Century Fox, which owns the Alien and Predator franchises.

The brothers unsuccessfully pitched an idea for the first Alien vs. Predator film and Fox almost bought a film titled Wolfenstein suggested by the brothers, "When the script came up for this movie, they thought we'd be perfect for it because it's an ambitious movie for the budget that they had and they knew that having our visual effects background was going to be a huge thing." The brothers were hired to direct the sequel to Alien vs. Predator in late spring 2006 and had limited time to start filming in the fall. The film's original title was Alien vs. Predator: Survival of the Fittest, but was later dropped.

Filming on Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem on September 25, 2006 in Vancouver, Canada. on a 52-day schedule. During filming breaks, the brothers supervised visual effects work on 300, Shooter and The Invasion by using in-house supervisors and a system called Mavis and Lucy, which let the brothers track, view and approve dailies. Colin estimates Hydraulx produced 460 of the 500 visual effects shots including the nuclear explosion which was created using Maya fluids and BA Volume Shader. The interior of the Predator ship was created using CGI, as the brothers felt it would be more cost effective than building a set. The visual effects team peaked at 110 people for several months and averaged 70, almost all of the entire Hydraulx staff.

Using their knowledge in visual effects and making use of principal photography, the brothers tried to film as much as they could on camera without resorting to CGI, Colin said "other than the exterior spaceship shots, there are no pure CG shots." CGI was used for the Alien tails and inner jaws, whereas they required puppeteers and wire removal on previous films. The main visual effects of the film included set design, a nuclear explosion, the Predator's ship crashing and the Predator cloak, about which Colin stated "We wanted to make sure it didn't look too digital."

As a side-note, in the DVD commentary the brothers explained that they want actor Adam Baldwin to reprise his role as Garber in Predator 2, but unable to do so, instead using Robert Joy as a new character. Additionally, while the previous installment attracted casual moviegoers as well as fans of the franchises, the film catered exclusively to Alien and Predator fans with many references to the previous films appearing in the film.

Music
Composer Brian Tyler, was hired to the score for the film. The film's main theme track is a clash of two main themes, one consisting of the Predator type theme (bongos and basses) and the second of the Aliens (high pitched violins, violas and flutes). The directors Colin and Greg Strause wanted to take a new direction from Harald Kloser's Alien vs. Predator score and wanted Tyler to use some reference to the three films' original score pieces, such as the horrific violas and percussion from James Horner's Aliens and the primitive tribal percussion from Alan Silvestri's Predator and Predator 2. Tyler also referenced composer John Frizzel's Alien: Resurrection into the score, in the tracks of "Down to Earth" and "Taking Sides". The soundtrack album was released on December 11, 2007 by Varèse Sarabande. "Grim Discovery" and "The Chopper", the two tracks from Predator was listed in the film's end credits, both written and composed by Silvestri. They were never included in the Predator soundtrack and the film's soundtrack, but can be found on YouTube.

Promotion
In August 2007, the first theatrical trailer was released, with the full theatrical trailer in October.

Box office
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem  was released in the United States on Christmas Day 2007, in 2,563 theaters. It was rated R for violence, gore and language, unlike its predecessor, which was given a PG-13 rating. The BBFC's classification decision for the film is the same as the original (Rated 15), whilst the Australian ACB rated the film MA15+, up from the original's M rating.

The film grossed $9,515,615 on its opening day for an average of $3,707 per theater and was number six at the box office. It grossed $5 million in Australia, $9 million in Japan and the United Kingdom and $7 million in Russia, and had an international total of $86,288,761. As of February 24, 2009, the film had taken in a domestic gross of $41,797,066 and an international gross of $87,087,428, bringing it to a total of $128,884,494. It is the lowest grossing Alien film in the domestic box office and is the second lowest grossing Alien film worldwide, next to the original Alien, and the lowest overall in either series when inflation is considered.

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 11% based on reviews from 70 critics. The site's consensus states: "The increased gore and violence over the first Alien vs. Predator can't excuse Requiem ' s disorienting editing, excessively murky lighting, and lack of new ideas." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 29 out of 100, based on reviews from 14 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale.

A few critics called the film "a fun B movie." Josh Rosenblatt of The Austin Chronicle dismissed the film stating it was "An orgy of mindless violence, a random collection of bloody bodies, alien misanthropy and slobbering carnage designed to bore straight into the pleasure centers of 13-year-old boys and leave the rest of us wondering when the movies got so damn loud."

Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly felt it was a "B movie that truly earns its B," and gave it a grading of "B" on an A to F scale. Variety contributor Joe Leydon said it "Provides enough cheap thrills and modest suspense to shake a few shekels from genre fans before really blasting off as homevid product," and Ryan Stewart of Cinematical said he "can't recommend it as a good movie on its own merits, stocked as it is with cardboard cutout characters and a barely coherent plot, but it's miles more interesting than the last Alien vs. Predator film."

There was the occasional positive review; Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times stated "It may not be classic sci-fi like the original Alien, which it has in its DNA, but it's a perfectly respectable next step in the series." Daily Variety called it "Slam-Bang-Horror Action!" and MovieWeb.com said "A cool new monster...over-the-top violence...AVP-R is a lot of fun!"

Accolades
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem was nominated for two Golden Raspberry awards in the fields of Worst Excuse for a Horror Movie and Worst Prequel or Sequel. The awards went to I Know Who Killed Me and Daddy Day Camp, respectively.

On May 8, 2008, the film was nominated for an MTV Movie Award for Best Fight Sequence, but lost to Never Back Down.

Home media
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on April 15, 2008 in North America and May 12, 2008 in the United Kingdom by Fox Home Entertainment. It was released in three versions: a single-disc, R-rated version of the 94-minute theatrical presentation, a single-disc unrated version extended to 101 minutes and a two-disc unrated version with the 101 minute film and a second disc of special features. Extra features on the single-disc editions include two audio commentary tracks: one by the directors and producer John Davis and a second by creature effects designers and creators Tom Woodruff Jr. and Alec Gillis.

Disc one of the two-disc unrated edition includes both commentary tracks as well as both cuts of the film seamlessly branched and an exclusive "Weyland-Yutani archives" picture-in-picture reference guide to the warring alien races; five behind-the-scenes featurettes: Prepare for War: Development & Production, Fight to the Finish, The Nightmare Returns: Creating the Aliens, Crossbreed: The Predalien and Building the Predator Homeworld; multiple galleries of still photos showing the creature designs and sets; and the film's theatrical trailer. The second disc includes a "digital copy" download feature.

In its first week of release, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem debuted at number two on the DVD charts, earning $7.7 million and number one on the Blu-ray charts. The film has made $27,403,705 in DVD sales in the United States.

Video game
A tie-in video game for the film was released on November 13, 2007 in North America, November 30 in Europe and December 6 in Australia. The game, developed by Rebellion Developments and published by Sierra Entertainment, was a third-person action-adventure game, allowing players to take the role of the Predator from the film. The game received generally negative reviews from the gaming press.