Directd by Nimrod Antal
Starring Adrien Brody, Topher Grace, Alice Braga, Walton Goggins, Laurence Fishburne and Danny Trejo
Now we're talking. We're away from Joss Whedon, away from Paul W.S. Anderson and away from whatever the f**k that last movie that I reviewed was, and right back into my wheelhouse - more pure Predator action. Released in 2010 and with the backing of Robert Rodriguez' production company, Predators was exactly what we needed from this whole subsection of the horror/sci-fi genre. At the time, anyway.
I remember absolutely loving this flick when I saw it in theaters back then. It had been such a long time since I'd seen a good Predator movie, and this one had everything going for it. It also had a director with the single greatest name I've ever seen - Nimrod. I'm sure that it's not pronounced how it's spelled, but man, that is awesome. So, I watched this movie, adored it...and then never watched it again until just a few days ago for the extensive amount of homework that goes into these reviews for YOU PEOPLE (pro wrestling heel mode). What that means, good folks, is that I didn't like this movie quite as much as I thought if I could go three-quarters of a decade without watching it a second time. It's got some flaws, yes, but overall it's still a fun little movie that once again managed to make a pretty nice profit off of a modest-by-2010-standards budget. Introductory paragraph designed to make me sound like some sort of actual reviewer completed. On with the plot.
There's a pretty big cast of characters in Predators, and the thing that I remembered really well about the movie from that initial viewing was that we needed to get to the action. Thus, everyone essentially gets introduced in just a scene or two, but amazingly the script manages to pull it off pretty well. Our main character is Royce, and I swear to you that Adrien Brody actually managed to pull off a badass role. They say that acting ability > looks the part, and this performance is the f**kin' truth. Our other star is Alice Braga as Isabelle, a sniper from the Israeli Defense Forces who has the added emotional layer of believing that a big mistake she made in the field is resulting in her punishment in the movie. There's also Danny Trejo playing Danny Trejo (read: a beast), Topher Grace as a seemingly innocent medic, Oleg Taktarov as a Spetsnaz agent, and, amazingly, several others. So how are all these characters together?
Well, as the flick opens, all of them have just been parachuted down into a jungle that none of them recognize. All of them are armed, all of them are dangerous, and all of them have no earthly idea how they got into this predicament. Good ol' director Nimrod does a great job setting up the atmosphere in the early goings here, but the movie spends little time giving us hidden character depth or dwelling on the cinematography before someone gets killed. From there, we get a great sequence as said person who just GOT killed appears later on calling for help in a scene that goes on JUST long enough to clue us in that not all is as it seems with the situation. This is what I came for with a brand-new Predator movie, as the familiar score, setting, creature and gut-wrenching sense of tension were well on display from the word-go.
I figured out pretty quickly what the gist of this whole plot was, so I don't think it's spoilerish to spell it out for 'ya (/Enzo Amore). The jungle that all of these characters are on is, of course, another planet, and all of them were abducted from their lives in order to serve as new prey for this particular round of Predator-a-Go-Go. There's four of them this time (although only three of them are actually out hunting for reasons that I won't get into in this review), with Derek Mears, Carey Jones and Brian Steele being the guys behind the alien suits. There's also a curious subplot involving Laurence Fishburne's character Noland, a survivor of a previous edition of Predator Running Man. I remember not finding Noland particularly captivating then, and time has not done this aspect of the movie any favors. Not because of Fishburne; the dude was appropriately warped and crazy considering who Noland is, but it gives us this forced plot twist that anyone can see coming a mile away. I think the script could have done without it and just stuck with the cat-and-mouse game.
Fortunately, that's an aspect of the movie that works really well. In a decision that was nothing short of glorious, Predators was rated R, and the movie doesn't wuss out with its violent quota. A lot of the stuff people dug about the original movie were here, with those slasher-movie-esque "slow pursuit" scenes being perfectly effective. We get ANOTHER plot twist involving one of the hunted characters that actually managed to shock me the first time I saw this movie and that, weirdly enough, I completely forgot about until re-watching it. We've actually gotten a few scenes of character development with Brody and Braga that manage to get a genuine emotional investment, so that when the ending comes with Brody showing up covered in mud holding a machete it manages to not be laughable. I mean...Adrien Brody covered in mud holding a machete. I just typed that sentence, and I just saw it in a film, and it actually WORKED. Think about that for a second.
According to the ever-accurate Wikipedia, Topher Grace was reluctant to appear in this movie because he felt that none of the Predator sequels had done the original justice but reading this script changed his mind. I concur with his assessment, but I will also levy that not EVERYTHING in this movie is good. While the movie works extraordinarily well with the bread-and-butter stuff, it's also a pretty good case of "more is not always better." The movie seemed like it was about 15 minutes longer than it should have been, mainly because of two subplots that could have been scrapped - the aforementioned story of Noland and the sad tale of the bullied Predator being held captive by the three skilled hunters that Brody and crew try to cut loose from its makeshift prison. Longtime readers know that I'm all about "less is more," and I'm nothing if not consistent. Probably to the point of being mind-numbingly boring.
Fortunately, what this movie does well, it does really well. Brody, Braga, Trejo and Grace were all simply aces in their roles. The concept of the movie could not have been better, giving us the logical next step in terms of how this society of hunters carries out their designated purpose in life. Good sequels find ways to tell us a similar story in a different way, and much like James Cameron did with Aliens, that's what we get here.
Rating time. Predators gets a good solid *** out of ****. Yes, that's the same rating as Predator 2, and while I acknowledge that this movie is technically way better, this one doesn't have Bill Paxton acting like a douche. Nobody said these reviews followed the scientific method. At any rate, check this one out...and I can't wait for the upcoming prequel!
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