Building upon the previous barely-watchable Alien vs. Predator film, one thing has become apparent: the science is out the window with this fiction.

At the end of the last so-so film, a predator was infected with the larva of an alien, hatching on board as the ship reached earth orbit. Because in the thousands of years that predators have been seeding planets with aliens that this has never, ever happened before, the hybrid creature gets loose and causes the spacecraft to plummet into North America. After infecting a couple of humans, continuity and reason go out the window as aliens pop out faster than gremlins in a swimming pool. Somewhere in all the carnage, a group of people are being picked off one by one for our amusement. As always, there’s a large explosion at the end along with some kind of epilogue to set up the next film.

First of all, in the first film of this squandered franchise, at least the story actually was about “aliens vs predators,” but not this time. The continuing battle between our favorite intergalactic killing machines takes a back seat to some ripoff plot stolen from Resident Evil: Apocalypse and some army chick wearing a wife beater trying to look like Sigourney Weaver. Worse yet, the aliens mysterious breed any way they like and grow to full size in (apparently) less than a minute, meaning that leaving the “predalien” alone for 10 minutes gives it time to leave 10 offspring behind. Faster than you can say “Planet Terror,” there are aliens crawling all over the place.

Sadly, the opening half hour isn’t even half as interesting. All of our future victims are introduced like some sad prime-time teen drama, something about the pizza delivery boy liking a rich girl who happens to be dating a guy that can kick pizza kid’s butt or something.. none of it matters. When the mayhem finally starts, we get a few nice kills but strictly everyone we expect. Speaking of gremlins and pools, even THAT epic scene gets ripped off in the film. The “predator planet” look eerily identical to the Star Wars planet Geonosis (and we’re pretty sure George Lucas called during filming to ask for his planet back). Requiem plays out more like a teen slasher film that anything resembling science fiction; just substitute aliens and predators for Jason or Mike Myers and (poof!) instant crap is served.

I thought I have to create a word to describe how bad the science is in this fiction, but it turns out to be a real word: misconceive. To use it effectively, I wrote this sentence: “Requiem’s scifi plot devices are so misconceivably bad that the breeding of aliens and predators must somehow result in pure f*cking magic.” I mean, at this point, why not just film an intergalactic reality show where eager young predators can prove their worth for fabulous prizes by surviving 24 hours on the alien homeworld? It would be far cooler, make more sense, and probably do decent business. Seriously, enough with using Earth as a battle ground… there’s a big universe out there, so use it. How about “Alien vs. Predator vs. Riddick?” (I’m sooooo gonna get email about that suggestion…)

(one skull recommendation out of four)