Alien Vs Predator: Requiem is a spinoff with few redeeming qualities, but its odd connection to Quentin Tarantino’s iconic Pulp Fiction is one of the movie's better touches. Released in 2004 only a year after the arrival of the similarly long-awaited Freddy Vs Jason, Alien Vs Predator promised to be the sci-fi equivalent of that slasher face-off. However, a sanitized PG-13 rating, a slow set-up, and uninvolving characters ensured Alien Vs Predator underwhelmed audiences and critics and it's still considered one of the most disappointing entries in either series.
When an Alien Vs Predator sequel was released only three years later, embittered fans were at least glad to see the R-rating, and its attendant gore, reinstated. This made it all the more devastating when, despite boasting an adults-only rating, the long-promised Predalien hybrid that was tantalizingly glimpsed at the close for the first film, Alien Vs Predator: Requiem still somehow ruined both eponymous monsters with its boring story, needlessly bleak tone, and woeful cinematography.
However, one of the better parts of the much-maligned sequel was the Predator character Wolf, a hunter who is sent down to Earth to clean up the mess left in one unfortunate small town after a Predator craft crashes and unleashes the Prealien. In a surprising but fitting nod to Quentin Tarantino, Wolf is named after Harvey Keitel’s no-nonsense cleaner from 1994’s cult classic Pulp Fiction. Sent to earth remove all traces of Predator tech while hunting down and cleaning out Xenomorph hives, Wolf acts as a "cleaner" in much the same way Mean Streets star Keitel's stern, unflappable Winston Wolf is in Pulp Fiction.
Both characters are sent in to assess and clean up a bloody mess inside a limited time frame, and both movies prove the pair are impressively good at their jobs. As such, it is understandable the hunter was dubbed "Wolf" in an obvious homage to Keitel's character. However, not all of Wolf’s actions in the critically lambasted sequel fit this characterization so neatly.
For example, in a scene that probably could have been left on the cutting room floor, one gory Requiem moment sees Wolf make an uncharacteristic mess when he kills, skins, and hangs a police officer who discovers him. This gruesome act would surely go against the whole objective of his mission, but a lot of Alien Vs Predator: Requiem’s bleak, brutal action is more interested in gore for its own sake than any semblance of character continuity. Thus even one of the sequel’s more interesting figures falls victim to this, with Alien Vs Predator: Requiem’s Wolf being less consistent than Harvey Keitel’s Pulp Fiction namesake for the sake of a bloody shock that doesn’t quite fit the hunter's M.O.
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