AVP-R's starting point is its predecessor's joke ending. The new Predator/Alien hybrid kills the departing ship's crew, causing it to crash back to Earth near a mid-West American town. The hybrid survives to escape the wreckage. On the home planet, a Predator remotely watching events unfold heads for Earth to hunt its new prey. Their battle soon engulfs the town.
Unfortunately instead of checking the taps before leaving our sentient interstellar warrior forgets to pack weapons, giving the filmmakers an opportunity to pad time and relive one of many AVP scenes as it arms itself from the crashed ship. Fans of the original Predator administering field medical and trailing phosphorescent green blood get the chance to see it again verbatim too. Maybe enjoyed the discarding of armor and face shield to fight Arnold man-to-bug? You're in luck, it's here too. Skinned soldiers? At first diligent to destroy any evidence of an alien presence with a bottomless bottle of phosphorescent blue 'acid', this Predator couldn't resist taking one human trophy and leaving the carcass hung like a big neon sign. Nor could the film makers. Unbelievable plot elements and scenes lifted wholesale from previous installments prove central motifs for AVP-R.
That is until the writers tire of stealing from earlier films and start mining stock clichés. Teen angst, teen romance, teen rivalry, big brother back in town fresh from prison and 'cigarette man' conniving government officials all do duty. The few novelties are often repugnant and adolescent; lurid close-up broods of screeching aliens bursting from bellies of hospitalized expectant mothers for example. Lovingly rendered in Walmart CGI, AVP-R stands low as the uncontested worst of either franchise and arguably the nail in this offshoot's coffin. One can only hope it proves so to the careers of those who dropped this cynical by-the-numbers bomb on the public.
Unfortunately instead of checking the taps before leaving our sentient interstellar warrior forgets to pack weapons, giving the filmmakers an opportunity to pad time and relive one of many AVP scenes as it arms itself from the crashed ship. Fans of the original Predator administering field medical and trailing phosphorescent green blood get the chance to see it again verbatim too. Maybe enjoyed the discarding of armor and face shield to fight Arnold man-to-bug? You're in luck, it's here too. Skinned soldiers? At first diligent to destroy any evidence of an alien presence with a bottomless bottle of phosphorescent blue 'acid', this Predator couldn't resist taking one human trophy and leaving the carcass hung like a big neon sign. Nor could the film makers. Unbelievable plot elements and scenes lifted wholesale from previous installments prove central motifs for AVP-R.
That is until the writers tire of stealing from earlier films and start mining stock clichés. Teen angst, teen romance, teen rivalry, big brother back in town fresh from prison and 'cigarette man' conniving government officials all do duty. The few novelties are often repugnant and adolescent; lurid close-up broods of screeching aliens bursting from bellies of hospitalized expectant mothers for example. Lovingly rendered in Walmart CGI, AVP-R stands low as the uncontested worst of either franchise and arguably the nail in this offshoot's coffin. One can only hope it proves so to the careers of those who dropped this cynical by-the-numbers bomb on the public.