Also known as: AvP2, Alien vs. Predator: Survival of the Fittest (working titles), Colorado Nights (fake working title), AvPR (short title)
Release Date: December 25th, 2007
Directed by: The Brothers Strause
Written by: Shane Salerno
Based on: characters by Dan O’Bannon & Ronald Shusett and Jim Thomas & John Thomas
Music by: Brian Tyler
Cast: Steven Pasquale, Reiko Aylesworth, John Ortiz, Johnny Lewis, Ariel Gade, Sam Trammell, Robert Joy
Davis Entertainment, Dune Entertainment, Brandywine Productions, 20th Century Fox, 94 Minutes, 102 Minutes (Unrated Version)
Review:
“This plan is stupid. Let’s just leave town now.” – Dale
The quote I used above is the same thing I said to my friends when they planned to see this movie. No, really… it is.
I wasn’t too enthused about going to this picture because I wasn’t much of a fan of its predecessor. Being that this was a sequel to that, I figured it’d be even worse. It was.
Granted, I did like the setting and what this film could have been.
It didn’t take place inside of some subterranean bullshit temple under Antarctica. This was set in small town Colorado and featured forests and an environment similar to the original Predator while also having a feeling similar to First Blood, the greatest of all Rambo movies.
Additionally, this film gave us the Predalien, a hybrid of both ultraviolent alien species, which on paper, should have been an incredibly formidable beast that upped the ante, threw this thing into high gear and pretty much should have been able to rule the world with its minions and babies.
What we got though was a dull movie where the filmmakers didn’t seem to care too much about the Alien and Predator franchises and really just wanted to make a gore filled slasher flick with aliens. And not even a good slasher flick, which are really hard to screw up because slasher fans have such a low bar and really just want to see a cool monster and a lot of creative yet violent killing. These directors were handed two of the absolute coolest monsters in motion picture history and they still couldn’t make it work.
The biggest blight on this film is the cast. Pretty much everyone is horrible in this. Not a single character is remotely likable and you certainly don’t care when their life is in danger.
The incapable cast and aimless direction made this a spectacle of violence where there was no tension and no real drama. No one mattered, therefore it didn’t matter that the whole town was essentially just a meat processing plant for the monsters to tear through. When the whole town gets nuked at the end, you don’t give a single, solitary shit about it. You also don’t care whether or not the helicopter carrying the heroes is going to outrun the blast.
Why was this so bad? How was it so carelessly crafted?
At least it was rated R and had some solid gory bits but that certainly doesn’t give this thing the license to suck complete ass.
Rating: 4.5/10
Pairs well with: The other films from the Alien and Predator franchises but this is the worst so any other film in the pairing would be a step up.
Talking Pulp 