I have been saying that in other AVP orientated threads such as the "which Predator is most bada**", a lot of folk are naming Wolf as most bada** for some reason, though it is is their choice but in my opinion Wolf was not bada**, his foes were useless. If he had been up against actual Aliens instead of those weird bobbing head cannon fodder in Requiem, he would either be seriously injured ten times over or just plain dead. If you were to define someone by the quality of their enemies then Wolf would be found wanting.
As for why the movies failed in my opinion;
First film
*The characters were not developed enough though I agree Weyland was interesting. One or two characters could have been interesting but were killed off too soon.
*pg-13 (gore is not everything but if you are going to have two R rated franchise monsters duking it out then the tone of where they come from needs to be respected, the rating also meant that you don't really see any good deaths as it either cuts away, is too close to see anything or bloodless.)
*Poor battles. Personally I expected more than a wrestling match.
*Life-cycle speed.
*Unnaturally long tail for Grid when he killed Gill.
*Predator design was too bulky and the Aliens were not that much better.
I found the ADR to be a little off putting as well, sometimes everyone's voices just stands out too much, like the scene where Sebastien tells Lex about the hunter's moon.
There is also an inconsistency in slow mo; Just something that I have noticed recently actually.
To elaborate, Rousseau had her gun out ready and in proper safety position, all she had to do was raise her hands, aim and shoot but she fails because the facehugger is apparently too fast, but then we get Miller who is cocooned and is struggling to get Verheiden's gun, the facehugger actually leaps into the air
before he can pull the gun from the holster yet he somewho has time to get proper grip (as he was pulling the gun by the trigger) and shoot it. The egg was also closer to him whereas the egg that got Rousseau was across the chamber so Miller should have had less time. Its not really an issue but its something I have noticed now and it stands out for me because it seems to me that a trained person should have had better luck than Miller who managed to shoot it out of the air in what is essentially "firing from the hip" with his eyes closed too.
I will say this for AVP, it had good concepts and it could have been a decent film. At least its more enjoyable that Requiem.
The second film...(sigh) where to start?
*Dumb Predators
*New life-cycle.
*Characters
*Dialogue
*Ironically too much gore. This film really over-compensated.
*Useless Aliens.
Wolf looked good but he was incompetent.
They should have kept this film small in terms of Alien threat, just have the four adult Aliens and a Predalien, it would given them more focus and they would have to be made a better threat otherwise they would all be gone too soon.