Around a town in Colorado, a spaceship carrying some Predators returning from Antarctica crashes in the surrounding forest. The spaceship was sabotaged by a disgusting hybrid born from the corpse of a Predator, now free to roam the town along with some other Aliens who were prisoners on the spaceship. A Predator intercepts the distress signal sent by the spaceship before the collision and heads to Earth to destroy the aliens. The inhabitants of the town thus find themselves in the middle of a deadly feud between two alien species, and an incredible battle for survival awaits them.
"In space no one can hear you scream...", threatened the slogan of the now legendary "Alien", directed by Ridley Scott in 1979, "...on Earth everyone will hear you!" completes the slogan of "Aliens vs. Predator 2", the sequel to the crossover between the two most famous post-modern fantasy-horror film sagas that in 2004 achieved notable success worldwide. This sequel takes the charismatic launch phrase displayed on posters and trailers literally, creating a rowdy and frenetic b-movie in which screams, blood, and deaths abound as never before in the two sagas.
"Aliens vs. Predator 2" begins right where the 2004 film ended, with the small hybrid (baptized PredAlien by the production) emerging from the chest of the Predator's corpse on its way back to its planet. As per the 1950s sci-fi tradition, a hunter and his son see a flaming object fall from the sky and go to investigate, becoming the first victims of the aliens and also the host body for a new lethal progeny. Winking at a vintage genre production, the film continues on very familiar tracks for the horror cinema fan, building an atmosphere that oscillates between Cold War fantasy-horror and 1980s horror-splatter, without, of course, omitting characteristics of the more modern Hollywood horror marked by spectacularity. The result is certainly satisfying for those who do not demand more than a tasty and rowdy horror for entertainment, in which the intellectual quotient of the human protagonists is sacrificed to the need to entertain and disgust the viewer with increasingly suggestive ideas. Already, because never as in this case are the human characters simply meat in the clutches of the Aliens' toothed tongue and the Predator's laser cannons; small standardized humans to the classic "horror film protagonists" line who, although intent on surviving, do nothing but continuously put themselves in danger.
If in "Alien vs. Predator" the latter played the leading role, benefiting from a (re)writing of the character that insisted a lot on the nobility and loyalty of its species, in this sequel we do not return to explore the character's mythology but try to give more space to the Aliens, bringing them on stage in increasingly large numbers and making them even more lethal and aggressive. Although the character on which the production has undoubtedly focused the most is the PredAlien, which represents the greatest threat to all the species that crowd the screen.
"Aliens vs. Predator 2" is directed by the Strause brothers, making their cinematic debut after a decade-long apprenticeship as visual effects specialists in blockbusters like "Titanic", "Terminator 3", and "300". The work done by the Strause brothers is mere routine, as little impactful as the screenplay by Shane Salerno ("Armageddon - Judgment Day") in which everything is subordinate to entertainment, but there is a great merit to recognize for the directors, namely having wanted to boycott the current trend of dazzling action that many billion-dollar horrors of recent years follow, to go back in time and build a genuine b-movie in which there is little space for digital effects and sound track shifts. The numerous monsters present on the screen are realized almost exclusively with the old dear mechanical effects and costumes and are wisely shown as little as possible, i.e., under unfavorable lighting conditions or in passing, so that the viewer has the sensation of having seen much more than they actually saw.
Suspense, unfortunately, is little present, compensated by a massive dose of gore and splatter that makes "Aliens vs. Predator 2" the most "horror" chapter of the two sagas, also showing a certain meanness that earned the film an 18-rated ban in Italy.
In short, "Aliens vs. Predator 2" will not be a must-see film but it does its job well, managing to entertain and amuse the viewer looking for strong emotions, carrying forward in a most dignified way two sagas that so far have never shown real signs of weakening.
Now the bets are open: will "Alien 5", "Predator 3", or "Alien vs. Predator 3" hit the screens first?
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