Predators was always a weird project to me since it was first announced. It wasn't quite a sequel to Predator 2 and it wasn't quite a reboot of the entire franchise. It existed as Nimrod Antel's and Robert Rodriguez's need to make a sequel to the original Predator and pretend that the AvP abominations and Predator 2 which had a "too old for this shit" Danny Glover do what Arnold could not, kill a Predator. While you struggle to wrap your head around that logic know that Predators has no xenomorphs, no limp and unlikable young actors running around the movie, and no group of space marines to kick ass with their "state of the bad-ass art" weapons. Just a motley assortment of deadly men and women, who quickly realize that they are just a bunch of animals waiting to get hunted and slaughtered. They are the goat from Jurassic Park and the big bad T-Rex is just as menacing plus two. Usually one predator is enough to take on an entire well-armed platoon of special forces soldiers, on this planet there are three of them, and they want human skulls and spines, fresh from their human prey.
Predators is very much like the original Predator. A group of deadly men (and women) each specializing in a different way of delivering death with an assortment of fire arms and blades straight out of Call of Duty. They soon realize that something is awry and that they are not on their own planet. Soon they are running for their lives as predator dogs begin to attack and the predator themselves make themselves known and begin ripping spines and stabbing people from behind invisible cloaking devices. The humans keep running, someone who has their own motives makes themselves known and a mano-e-mano fight ensues near the conclusion. If all this sounds familiar to you you're not alone, the plot is very similar to the original and in this case rather as come off as a display of plagiarism, but as a homage to the original. The original worked as a sci fi variation on the classic Most Dangerous Game. That feeling of being pursued, being hunted, hiding from the hunter is present here. It was the strongest aspect of the original and it translates very well here.
Each of the actors plays their part well. Adrian Brody doesn't attempt to channel Arnold or out bad-ass anyone, but rather takes a familiar trope from action movies and makes it his own. He is a man of few words, but from his weathered looks and small tidbits he reveals about his past shows that he can hold his own in a fight. he's the silent bad-ass and he plays it well. This is a movie filled with many silent-but-deadly bad-asses from a Yakuza enforcer to a Russian special ops soldier and nearly none of them are a wasted opportunity. They may get taken down, but they won't go down like a horror movie trope, they cause some damage along the way and don't make it easy for the predators to do their job. The most vocal ones are played by Alice Braga and Topher Grace. Braga playing a black ops sniper who proves to be just as tough and perceptive as the guys, without relying on sex appeal or being a helpless female who is little more than eye candy. Grace plays a sniveling, conniving disgraced psychologist who comes across as pitiful as he is scrawny compared to the rest of the cast.
This movie isn't perfect. There are lots of little things which kept this from being a perfect follow up to the original Predator. The Predators, as deadly and as familiar as they are, are kind of tame compared to past Predators. Even though I didn't particularly enjoy Predator 2, one of the best things about the movies was the inventive kills and tools used to take down human prey. You see none of that in here, besides one moment of gory Predator 1-esque kill, the methods to hunt down the humans are weak and each of their deaths are even weaker. Most often a stab to the abdomen or a shot to the back brings down their prey. I'm not saying that they should be elaborate "Saw" kills but they're the Predators damn it! Killing is their specialty! They should put a little more pizazz into it. Second, Laurence Fishburn's role in Predators is out of place and over as abruptly as it began. He exists in this movie for little more than 10 minutes and his role he plays to the plot has no effect on the movie and instead serves to slow down the pacing and just make an awkward point in the movie. His character tried to come across as Colonel Kutz from Apocalypse Now but in the end failed to accomplish anything.
Predators was a fun movie to watch and a worthy follow up to the original. It wasn't as good as the original and had some issues but overall it was everything I wanted it to be. Thrilling, action-packed, and filled with bad-asses running and fighting alien creatures in the jungle. Predators delivered this in spades and I hope to see more like this in the future.
I hope Ridley Scott's Alien prequel is this good as well. He's a good director but did you see Robin Hood? Yeesh!
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