Imagine the scene. A lush, jungle landscape which see’s a bunch of blokes with guns and a woman get picked off one by one by some big ass alien called a Predator. As the movie thunders to its finale, our hero decides to get topless, cover himself in mud and wave a flaming torch around the place. Now, for any of you movie fans reading you will more or less think to yourself “Why in the hell is he talking about the original Predator movie, with a big Austrian bloke?” Actually, I’m not for the best part. I’m describing the Nimrod Antal directed Predators, which is classed as the official sequel to Predator from way back when.
I’m a huge Predator fan and after getting badly burned with the AvP series, I had my doubts about this movie. But I got my hopes up after it was announced that Robert Rodriguez was producing the thing. Predators starts with a ferocious pace which see’s our cast being dropped into a jungle, one by one. After a quick bout of introductions, one by way of gattling gun, they all stick together and wander off. One’s a doctor, some are military and so on. After a bit of wandering they quickly find out that they are on another planet and tussle with a few Predator style Jack Russell’s and then figure out they are in a game reserve and they are the game! And yes, the big game hunter’s are the Predators. Predictably, another few skirmishes happen and then there’s a relapse into AvP mode (which I won’t mention as it’s a spoiler) as our heroes (those that haven’t been killed) try and get back to planet earth.
There’s a half decent cast here with Laurance Fishburne giving a completely bat shit crazy performance, but doesn’t really convince at the same time. Michelle Rodriguez is quite good and the rest of the cast do an average job of getting killed and spouting out cheesy dialogue, with one exception. Adrian Brody, who’s not your average action movie star, and boy does it show. His dialogue, which is delivered in a Batman like tone, is horrendous. Cheesy one liner’s which abounded in the original, abound here too. But in the original Predator movie, they worked whilst here they seemed forced and just for the sake of it. And his Arnie impression in the finale, is really cringe worthy and almost had me wishing I had walked out 20 minutes previous.
Pacing wise, as mentioned, the movie starts running on all fours, but quickly slows down and then, tries to build the pace again, but doesn’t quite pull it off. Some of the special effects leave the movie down, in particular the fire laced explosions, which look incredibly cheap. Other than that, the Predators look like Predators and some are of a new style, but that’s not exactly going to get your pulse racing. The set pieces, are fine but are overshadowed by the fact that this is almost a retelling of the original story right down to a reimagining of the Billy scene in the original. On a positive note, the soundtrack is superb and does add tension in all the right places and at times it does draw you into the movie, and you can’t help but wonder what it must be like to be hunted by the most bad ass SOB in the galaxy.
I’m a huge Rodriguez fan, a huge Predator fan and I wanted to love this movie so badly. But for me, it just didn’t deliver. While it start’s well, it goes into cheesy territory in the second half, and while there is enough action to keep plenty entertained, overall Predators doesn’t deliver and is a huge missed opportunity. Even the gore is completely turned down. I can’t remember the last time I felt so left down by a movie as by the end I felt completely frustrated with the whole thing, and just had my head tilted to one side, waiting for the credits to roll !!! I’ll certainly give it a second viewing, but I think ultimately, the fans will be let down.
