Review Detail

Watched the first half of Wraith's AvP: Outbreak. It's from 2009 so the quality isn*t the very best and the aspect ratio seems quite stretched.

The edit itself is alright (some transitions are kind of messy) but because a lot of scenes were removed from the movie, the plot feels rushed in my opinion. I really liked the extended opening with the footage from Apocalypto though. His aim was to put both AvP entries into one cohesive movie but after watching this edit I just don‘t think this is possible.

As the original Unrated version of the first AvP is quite alright in my book as well I think I'll just stick to the original.

Sadly the second half (AvP:R) hasn‘t received any kind of color correction or brightening (would've been a major task, I know) so it‘s still way too dark to make out what‘s happening on the screen. That isn‘t Wraith‘s fault in any kind of way but I will keep searching for a tightened and brightened edit of that movie.

Edit: Found one. 16 years after the initial release I finally found a brightened, contrast- and color-corrected edit of this film (truly amazing work, done by fan editor SpoRv) and was amazed how much of a difference it makes when you‘re finally able to see what the fuck is going on. It’s still dark and I’d still recommend to watch it at night but it fits the tone. The edit I watched „only“ tackled the visual issues (still a major task) and leaves all the rest as it is in the Unrated Version.

Don‘t get me wrong: the film is still dumb. Characters and plot are paper-thin, the direction is bad, the camera often shaky, actors & actresses mediocre at best and callback moments to both franchise‘s previous entries are executed terribly but my god do costumes & effects look great when you are finally able to fucking see them. They look so good, most of the time they made me forgot what kind of nonsense was happening on the screen. Might be a effect that wears off after the enlightenment of the first watch but we‘ll see (in the truest sense of word).

I always wondered why the Strouse brothers took the one thing they‘re really good at (and that‘s the visuals) and edited it in a way you can‘t see it. Supposedly they did it in post-production (as the set photos are well lit) because they didn‘t want people to see they used special effects. But why ever and however they did it, they certainly overdid it.

This version keeps me wishing that more people would‘ve or even could’ve seen it this way (you have to know about the existence of fanedits in the first place and even then it‘s kinda hard to get). Maybe Fox/Disney will release an official overhauled version one day (called Enlightenment instead of Requiem as that title makes no sense anyway) but I don‘t think there‘s much hope.

I will even go this far and say I‘d watch the sequel (if it looks like this one) that was hinted at at the end of the film but then abandoned. Let‘s be real, I‘d watch it anyway but so I might be able to enjoy it instead of squinting my eyes all the time and then roll them backwards.