Predators

Predators (2010)

64% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 162 reviews)

Runtime: 107 minutes

Directed by: Nimrod Antal (apparently pronounced “Neemrode”, not like how it looks)

Starring: Adrien Brody, Topher Grace, Alice Braga, Laurence Fishburne (happy birthday to him… although I doubt it’ll be too happy for him given the horrifying news involving his daughter and pornography!), Mahershalalhashbaz Ali (I mention him rather than any of his other co-stars mainly so that I could write out the name “Mahershalalhashbaz Ali“)

From: 20th Century Fox/Troublemaker Studios

I realize that this month of me reviewing films has become an unintended action month but that’s just how it worked out. I wasn’t even planning on reviewing this until early August, even though I finally saw it yesterday evening, as I realized the sameness to the past few reviews. It’s just that this got me fired up so I figured I should do it now, and I mean “fired up” in a negative way. As I mentioned when I reviewed Predator 2, I appreciate that more now and the first movie is a classic, and the two Alien vs. Predator films are abominations that should never be seen. Sad to say, I’d also put this movie in the “not to be seen” category, and I didn’t even have high expectations for it. Hell, that’s why I didn’t see it until last night.

Basically, the story is that some random badasses from various fields around the world are kidnapped somehow and are strapped to parachutes and are thrown out and land on an alien planet. It turns out that the Predators took those guys and did all that. I wish that we could have seen footage of a Predator raiding an Army/Navy surplus store for parachutes while he’s down there kidnapping people… and how exactly DID they know that those guys were badass soldier types or in some cases, serial killers? One of many stupid things with the movie, I say. Literally, the movie starts with Brody falling out of the plane. What a cold opening. It’s obvious to anyone who hasn’t even seen any advertising beforehand that those dudes were on an alien planet, but it takes an awful long time for the characters to figure it out, and it’s a boring process and that turned me off of the movie right then and there. They don’t even act like badasses nor are you given many reasons to care about them, which is drastically different from the first two movies, which are filled with memorable characters and dialogue that is still quoted in some circles today. Most of the dialogue here is turgid and boring, just like the movie.

To try and not to spoil anything, they’re on an alien planet and they’re being hunted by several different Predators. For various reasons that I can’t get into without spoiling anything, the Predators look like total incompetent bitches here. They’re far from the lethal hunters you saw in the first two films. Hardly any of their cool weapons are even used! I guess I expected too much from a Predator movie to want to see Predator action… and boy are there some real stupid plot twists in the last third of the movie and the movie stops rather than ends. Sure, the action we get to see is mostly shot well with no shaky-cam crap or quick editing nonsense, but when you don’t care about the characters and you’re mad that the Predators are made to look like buffoons, it doesn’t matter too much. The fact that much of it looks to be filmed in someone’s backyard in Hawaii (i.e. very cheap) definitely doesn’t help out. Finding out afterwards that producer Robert Rodriguez basically is planning all along to spend the big bucks and unveil the hottest shit for a possible sequel AND his dislike of Predator 2 (that movie totally got ignored here, while this movie was basically a crappy homage/remake of the Arnold classic…) just makes my blood boil. What a hack attitude! No wonder why many Hollywood movies are total wastes of time.

By the way, I do have to spoil one thing, but it’s to show what kind of movie this is. A Predator with a long retractable blade on his hand has a *sword duel* with a Yakuza guy! I kid you not. I could NOT believe I saw something that stupid, and it wasn’t even shot well and the end result was insulting.

So basically, it’s boring, you don’t care about the characters, it’s totally predictable, and the Predators are made to look awful. It’s not as bad as the Alien vs. Predator movies, sure, but it’s not much better. What a massive disappointment given some of the talent involved. They might as well give up on making any further Predator motion pictures given that they’ve screwed up the past three offerings, I say; the fact that this film is getting rave reviews and it's rated relatively highly on IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes is totally baffling to me. It's incomprehensible as while there wasn't too much in the way of CGI (which is fine and all... although fire effects are laughable), there isn't too much to compliment and overall I think it's an awful film. Sigh...

I'll be back on Monday night with a new film, and I promise it will be in another genre.