The Film
After the first Alien vs. Predator (AVP) movie came out, the seventh film to include either an "Alien" or a "Predator," I formed a very clear opinion - they should have stopped at three. Alien and Aliens were both great films – Ridley Scott's film a masterpiece of Science Fiction horror and James Cameron's movie an action-packed extravaganza. But the franchise went downhill quickly after those two. And while the original Predator provided some good old-fashioned shoot-em-up action-oriented entertainment, the first meeting of the two franchises didn't deliver on its promise.
While a smack-down grudge match between the aliens from Alien and the aliens from Predator looked good on paper, the story, acting and film-making behind the first AVP movie never captured the excitement and bone-chilling dread of those earliest movies in each respective series. So when Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem came to theaters, my expectations were so low I didn't bother to go see it. And perhaps that was for the best because now, seeing the film for the first time on Blu-ray Disc in its unrated extended director's cut, the second AVP film is actually fairly enjoyable.
The AVP series is based on a simple and obvious premise: put an Alien and a Predator in a room - who wins? The answer is, inevitably, definitely not the humans caught in the middle. As in the first Alien vs. Predator film, (and the individual Alien and Predator films), homo sapiens are ill-equipped for hand to hand combat against either species, and our weapons technology doesn't hold up well either. Although the human characters in Requiem are not much better fleshed out than the alien ones, the latest AVP film includes enough cool ideas, well-developed and believable technology and back-story, over-the-top gore (noth human and alien), excellent makeup and special effects and exciting action and battle sequences. It's enough to provide a good solid thrill ride and give us some hope that there may be some life left in this struggling series of films.
Need a second opinion? See Joe Lozito's review of AVP:Requiem.
The Picture
AVP:Requiem is presented in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.4:1 in 1080p resolution with AVC encoding. I would expect the AVC encoding, ample capacity of the dual layer 50GB disc and average bitrate of 29 MBPS to be up to the task of encoding the film. The few bright daylit scenes are represented well, with excellent detail and natural colors. And the effects and make-up hold up well in the transfer - even under close scrutiny on a 92-inch screen - something that can't be said for some other recent CGI-heavy films. But in the many darker scenes, such as those in the forest at night, or deep in the bowels of the sewer system, fine details are impossible to make out, even on a well-calibrated projector in a darkened home theater environment.
AVP is a dark film (perhaps intentionally so) and, as such, is difficult to reproduce in a home theater environment. The Blu-ray Disc does a better job of this than the DVD (or the standard def digital copy of the film, included on disc 2) but it isn't perfect.
The Sound
Presented in lossless DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio, the soundtrack on AVP: Requiem is top-notch. Yes, it's an aggressive mix with an eerie, punchy neo-classical score, a generous bottom end (I'm talking low bass here), and liberal use of surround effects to immerse the audience in the action, but the sound is clean and free from digital artifacts. AVP:R is not a dialog-driven film (unless you consider the clicks and whirs of the Predator language and the death screams of the Aliens to be "dialog") but the human dialog that is in the film comes through clearly and intelligibly in the lossless DTS-HD soundtrack.
Extras:
The pop-up menu on the disc is well-done visually, floating on the screen with appropriately techno-metallic sound effects. Unfortunately it's a bit kludgey to navigate, but once you get the hang of it, you'll find some interesting extras and special features here. The disc comes with both the original R-Rated theatrical version and an unrated extended cut. These are presented using Blu-ray's seamless branching feature to save storage space and prevent the need for an additional Blu-ray Disc. You can enable or disable an on-screen "extended footage marker" which illuminates during the added or extended scenes. I found the marker distracting so I left it off.
Whether you watch the original or the extended cut, you can choose to listen to the original soundtrack or one of two commentary tracks - one from the producer and directors, talking about the trials and tribulations of making the film, the other from the film's lead creature effects team, getting into the nitty gritty details of what it takes to make believable aliens and predators for film.
Also included are the requisite featurettes detailing the challenges faced when making the film, from envisioning the Predator home world, to creating the hybrid PredAlien itself (lovingly referred to as "Chet"). When discussing the slight variations of appearance of the Alien and Predator beings over the course of the various films, footage and stills from earlier films are included for reference, which brings us to what I think is the coolest of the extras, the "Weyland-Yutani Archive."
Weyland-Yutani is, of course, the mega-corporation that sent the human colonists into harm's way in Aliens, and has permeated Alien lore ever since. We saw Lance Henriksen in the first AVP movie as Charles Bishop Weyland (the corporate mogul and model for the "Bishop" android in Aliens). And now in AVP:R we see the Predator's gun delivered to Ms. Yutani at the end of the film. The implication being that this advanced alien weapon enables the Weyland-Yutani Corporation to develop the space travel and other advanced technology that will allow the events in the earlier Alien films to unfold.
The Weyland-Yutani Archive is a sort of multimedia Encyclopedia - a catalog of entries on what the Company knows about each alien species, the Xenomorph (Alien) and Yautja (Predator). It covers bits about their culture, weaponry and biology with text entries, some 3D visual models and snippets of video footage culled from previous films (e.g., the egg-hatching scene from Aliens and the original chest-burster scene from Alien). This archive is well-designed and will provide additional insight into the aliens for series newbies and die-hard fans alike.
As the archive application itself is built in BD-Java, it requires Bonus View capabilities in your Blu-ray Player (a.k.a. "BD-ROM Profile 1.1"). First generation standalone BD players need not apply, but the PlayStation 3 cruises through it with no problems.
There are theatrical trailers for AVP:R and other Fox titles as well as behind-the-scenes photo galleries. The second disc in the set is a standard DVD data disc with the film's portable "digital copy" on it, for use on a computer or on a portable media player such as an iPod. I like this feature - if I buy a movie, I want to be able to watch it wherever and whenever I like, and the digital copy of the film allows me to do this.
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem is available as a stand-alone 2 disc Blu-ray Disc set (One Blu-ray, one DVD data disc) as well as in an "Unrated Two-Pack" which includes unrated extended versions of both the first and second Alien vs. Predator films.
Final Thoughts
Although Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem is not high art, it isn't meant to be. Character development of the humans in the film leaves a bit to be desired with trite dialog and stilted interpersonal interactions. In fact, the righteous wrath and anger of the Predator who finds his fellow Predators' discarded remains after an Alien attack is one of the more powerful emotional moments in the film. But the film-makers have clearly spent considerable effort and attention on getting the Alien and Predator characters right, and creating a reasonably compelling story to frame the Alien/human/Predator showdown.
With some excellent effects work and remarkable technological achievements, as well as great action and epic battle sequences, AVP: Requiem leaves its immediate predecessor in the dust and gives us something to look forward to in the inevitable AVP:3 (C'mon, you know you want to see it). The Blu-ray version makes good use of the format, with a detailed (if somewhat shadow detail-challenged) video transfer, excellent audio and a nice selection of extras. Fans will certainly find something here to like.
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