Predators - Movie Review

After two substandard attempts in bringing the biggest and baddest on-screen aliens together in Aliens vs. Predator and the worse Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, the attention finally shifts back solely to one of them – the Predator species.

Predators is an attempt to relaunch the franchise while serving as a sequel. This installment finds eight strangers of various military and socially violent backgrounds mysteriously transported to a planet. None of them aware how they arrived, simply awakening in freefall strapped to a parachute

After the awkward introductions and established suspicions of each others intentions, the group sees no choice other than to band together with Royce (Adrien Brody), a rogue mercenary leading the way, although he has no qualms over anyone not wanting to follow his command and are more than welcomed to go their own way.

During the trek trough the cryptic jungle, the group continues finding signs of life either long dead or on the prowl; totems, cages, but each clue leads only to further confusion. Once the crew makes it to an elevated mountain range it becomes evident that they are no longer on Earth. Then, after a brief skirmish with fierce alien beasts established in the role of hunting dogs, the group realizes that they are not lost, they are prey.

Predators takes its source material primarily from the first film, even directly acknowledging it at one point and then subtly in over a half-dozen shout outs within the script and scenes. The cast is made up of the usual filters for killing and the main players. The more notable names are Adrien Brody, the gorgeous Alice Braga (Redbelt, Repo Men), Topher Grace (best known for That 70’s Show, unfortunately known as Venom/Eddie Brock from Spiderman 3), Laurence Fishburne (Hoodlum, C.S.I.) who plays a survivor from a previous hunt, Danny Trejo, and the up and coming Walton Goggins who played Shane on The Shield and will be seen in more television shows and films in the months to come.

Predators tries to revive the magic that made the first film such a success, unfortunately it does not help that the movie travels like these lost, meandering killers – at a snail’s pace. The movie reestablishes what the Predators are and how they hunt, which may prove useful to newcomers to the series but for those of us that are already familiar with the creatures it can prove to be a drawback as it was for me. I nearly dozed off several times and even hoped that I would need to use the restroom soon.

There are only two new pieces of information about the Predators revealed in the film, one is a hunting tool and the other relates to the evolution and customs of their species; other than that, there is just a lot of empty space in between the limited, poorly filmed action sequences. There are some twists and turns amongst the relationships within the group but instead of building them up through character development, they are used simply as shock treatments and don’t really add any meat to a thin script.

With Robert Rodriguez putting only co-producing this movie and moving the production from Fox Studios to his own Troublemaker Studios to have more creative control, he may have been better off undertaking the film completely, which was the original plan back in the late-90’s. Ridley Scott is hoping to return glory to the Alien franchise with a couple of prequels. Here’s hoping for some light at the end of a continuously disappointing tunnel, and hoping there’s no parachute-less freefall at the end of it.