“Alien vs. Predator: Requiem” is Rated (R) for a lot of gore and violent images, and stars Steven Pasquale, Reiko Aylesworth, and John Ortiz. This film is directed by The Brothers Strause.

Let me just start by saying that it’s very difficult to meet the expectations of fans with any sequel, especially when dealing with the Alien or Predator franchises. As we’ve seen with Star Wars and the Matrix movies, sometimes the fans have expectations that are above and beyond what can be accomplished in a 2 hour movie. “AvP:R” isn’t any different, many fans are going to be disappointed in the movie because they might expect a little more than what they get, especially on the acting side of things. Overall, “AvP:R” is better than I thought it would be, and maybe even a little better than the first.

This movie begins where the first one left off, we see a Predator lying at the back of a ship with his chest ripped wide open from a new “Predator-Alien” crossbreed having freshly burst out. There are face-huggers in vats of fluid (designed for testing I imagine) all over the ship along with the Pred-alien creature now on the loose, and growing rapidly. The lone, live Predator on the ship is unable to maintain control of the situation and is killed almost immediately while trying to pilot the ship and send out a distress signal to his homebase. Ultimately, the unmanned ship ends up crashing back on on earth in a small Colorado town called Gunnison. There, a father and son are out hunting in the woods and see the ship crash and rush off through the forest to find it. Soon after locating it, they realize that they are in way over their heads and leave the ship to try to contact the local sheriff for help. But as it turns out, some of the face-huggers have survived the crash, escaped the containment vats, and have scampered into the woods in pursuit of the hunters. Eventually the face-huggers manage to catch and impregnate them both after a small skirmish in the woods. This would be the start of the infestation of Aliens.

We also meet most of the other main characters early in the movie. The local sheriff named Eddie (John Ortiz), his old buddy Dallas (Steven Paquale) who took a different path in life as a career criminal, Dallas’ younger brother Ricky (Johnny Lewis), who is a love-stricken, outcast teenager, and Kelly (Reiko Ayelsworth), a newly returned war veteran. Kelly is an Army pilot just home from active duty in Iraq, greeting her wayward daughter Molly (Ariel Gade), and her estranged husband.

It seemed to me that the directors tried a lot harder in this movie to pay homage to the original Alien and Predator films than the first Avp film, while also trying to put a new, more raw twist on it. It was as if they almost could have cut out most of the human dialogue and just stuck to the vengeful, war-like, battle ridden Predator on a lone mission to kill everything (especially Aliens) in his path to get to the Pred-alien that has killed his fellow Predator brethren.

In general, the Alien scenes in the film are pretty terrifying and brutal as usual, but the first time the Predator drops into the screen with his invisible body armor active, and all his weapons battle ready and locked and loaded, you can almost feel the thunder of his landing, and his insatiable desire to destroy just about anything in his way. It certainly gives you perspective on how hell-bent he is for revenge. Meanwhile, amidst the bloody melee, the U.S. government has been alerted to the infestation of Aliens, and is hard at work conjuring up a sinister plan to eradicate the entire town and it’s visitors before an all out plague of Aliens is inevitable. This is a bloody, shoot-em-up with all of the violence, language and gore intact, lacking any gratuitous nudity, however. It is a competent rendering of the seemingly never ending Alien and Predator war.

If you are into Aliens getting the crap kicked out of them by a single Predator with humans merely incidental in the conflict, than this movie is for you. As I said, don’t expect too much out of the dialog or the actors, this movie isn’t so much about that. It’s more about focusing on the vicious war between the Aliens and the Predators, and how the humans (unfortunately) always find a way of getting caught in the middle of the deadly cross-fire. I consider it to be, along with it’s predecessor “Alien vs. Predator”, a hopeful set up for much better AvP movies in the future.

Not doing as well in the box office as it’s prequel “AvP”(which brought in roughly $85 million), “Avp:Requiem” only scored about $45 million, but it is still a heart-pounding, under-rated, action/gore thrill ride that I would definitely recommend.

I give it a 3.5 out of 5, and quite a bit of fun to watch.

Give me your feedback if you saw it, and lemme know what you thought.

Later,

L.I.

Hello Again,

I just wanted to share my sediments on the television of the now—HDTV.

So HDTV is obviously here to stay, at least for now until they come out with something bigger and better. But I must say, if you do not already have an HDTV or at least an HD converter box, you are really missing out on the brighter side of watching TV and movies (literally). The picture is unbelievable when you use HDTV’s for what they were actually designed to do, i.e. – watching HDTV channels, playing video games in HD, or watching DVD’s in HD, especially now that Sony has won the the HD DVD war with their Blu-Ray DVD’s, and will undoubtedly be pushing those hardcore very soon.

You should keep in mind that even though we have come a long way in the evolution of TVs, and they are slowly coming down in price, they can still be relatively expensive depending on what brand you buy. You can still spend upwards of 3,000 dollars for a higher end TV. That, and there are so many options and brands to choose from, it can drive you crazy trying to find the one that fits your wants and/or needs. I highly recommend researching any and all TV prospects before rushing out to buy one.

The highest level of resolution we have available to us at the current time is 1080p, which is unmatched in clarity, sound, and just the all around TV experience. I have a 2 year old Sharp Aquos, which only supports 1080i, but it is still awesome nonetheless. I am totally happy with my TV, and would highly recommend it to anyone looking to buy a new one. I just believe that Sharp’s LCD TVs have some of the most clear pictures that I have ever seen, and I looked at a lot of TVs for several months before I bought one. I just think Sharp has nailed it when it comes to HD, but there are lots of other brands out there that still make a really nice TV.

Most of the higher end TV’s sold now (Sharp, Sony, Samsung, Toshiba, Etc) usually cost between 900 and 2000 dollars for a 32 to 36 inch, and are mostly full HD compatible (1080p). But you can still find some lower end TVs (Polaroid, Vizio, Olevia, RCA, etc) that still look really good and usually only cost somewhere between 500 to 800 dollars for a 32 to a 36 inch, they just may not support full HD. But even though most of them may only have resolutions of up to 720p, it is hard for most people to spot the differences in quality, because the picture is still very good and is definitely far superior to the old conventional analog TV.

The bottom line is, if you don’t have something in your house that supports HD formatting by February 2009, and you live in America, you will not be watching TV at all. There will no longer be any analog output for television networks to broadcast (by law). And besides that, with so many HDTV’s so easily and readily available to purchase (if you can afford one), there should be no good reason that you would want to own or buy one of those old, outdated, antique, 100 pound dinosaur tube TV’s anyway. I am pretty sure at some point in the very near future they will just (hopefully) stop making the tube driven, non-HD TV’s all together, and focus all their efforts on LCD and Plasma TV’s, and even possibly newer technology than that, which is being experimented with currently. I highly suggest saving a few pennies and just sporting for an LCD or Plasma TV, rather than wasting money on buying an HD converter for that old pile of crap TV you may still have sitting in your living room right now.

Jump on board America (and soon the rest of the civilized world), and go HD! I can assure you as the proud LAZY IDIOT that I am, I love to watch my TV and movies, and I would not steer you wrong when it comes to this matter. If you wish to greatly improve your viewing experience, I highly suggest you get with the times and step up and do what is right, buy HD.

Feel free to give me some feedback, I am curious to see if there are any bad experiences or horror stories having to do with HD.

Later,

L.I.