Predators
July 11, 2010
Director: Nimrod Antal
Starring: Adrien Brody, Topher Grace
Release Date: July 9, 2010
So, You Cooked Up a Story and Dropped us Into the Meat Grinder
***WARNING: Minor Spoilers Below***
Predator is one of my favorite sci-fi thrillers. I wouldn’t say it’s flawless, but it’s certainly smart, well paced, and filled with relentless tension. The ruthless intergalactic hunter the film’s named after is, of course, central to the story, but the plot thrives (and is memorable) because of the commanding performance given by none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger, the undisputed king of 80’s shoot-em-ups. It also doesn’t hurt that he’s accompanied by one of the best action movie ensembles of the past thirty years, with the likes of Bill Duke, Carl Weathers, and Jesse Ventura rounding out the posse of hardened special ops vets who are “the best of the best.”
I know we’re not here to talk about Predator, but I think it’s important that I clarify my (and many other peoples’) love for the movie. As a member of a dedicated fan-base that has had to endure its fair share of ups and downs within the franchise, I went into the latest sequel—which has been widely billed as the hardcore follow-up that the original never received—with extremely heightened expectations. The verdict I now must deliver pains me, but I have to say it anyway: Predators is a disappointment. It’s a movie brimming with fresh ideas, almost none of which are able to gel into something truly memorable.
Things start out well enough. A mercenary named Royce (Brody) awakens to find he is plummeting through the sky at terminal velocity. Something (the predators, of course) has strapped a parachute-on-a-timer to his person and dropped him into a foreign jungle. Once he’s on solid ground, he’s greeted by a gritty group comprised of a deathrow inmate, a Yakuza clan member, a Mexican drug-runner, etc. They’re all “predators” of our contemporary society—a fact that’s spelled out for the audience with a bit of heavy-handed dialogue identifying them as such—and they soon discover the severity of their plight. 
These murderous renegades were abducted and marooned on an alien planet so they could be hunted by an extra-terrestrial race whose existence and stature is defined by the amount of trophies (i.e., skulls, spinal columns, etc.) they’re able to collect.
That’s the plot, and it’s a brilliant setup.
Robert Rodriguez obviously went to a lot of trouble to try and generate an atmosphere that accurately mimics what we see in the original Predator, and he’s able to nail many of the elements necessary to do this. For example, the soundtrack is an exact replica of what we experienced in 1987, complete with the familiar tribal (yet brooding) orchestral notes. There’s an effort made to duplicate the dialogue too, and at one point Brody directly quotes Mr. Schwarzenegger when he shouts, “Kill me! I’m here!” This is a bit of a nitpick, but Rodriguez also seems to have made the decision to liberally utilize “F-bombs,” incorporating the expletive into every other instance of macho banter. What he seems to have missed, though, is that that sort of language was actually sparingly used in the original. Really, it doesn’t appear with any sort of authority until Arnold uses it for one of the funniest, most unforgettable lines in movie history (which also appears only in the last moments of the original): “You are one ugly motherf***er.”
So, in all, Rodriguez is able to sporadically bottle a little of the magic found in the original, though this tactic eventually starts to feel more like a rip-off than anything else.
Also much like its predecessor, it’s quite a while before we even see any of the predators themselves. Everyone going to see Predators knows who the real stars should be, so there’s no discernible reason to withhold them from our view for a solid twenty-plus minutes. I understand that Rodriguez and Antal were trying to build tension the old-fashioned way, but delaying their arrival with that of predator “hounds” felt a little hokey.
But let me get to my real beef with the film—that of squandered potential—by giving you two examples.
The first deals with Hanzo, the aforementioned Yakuza member. Much like Billy in the first film, he decides to do battle with a predator one-on-one. Drawing a centuries old samurai sword, the two duel under moonlight in a clearing featuring waist-high grass that’s fluttering in the breeze. This battle lasts for no more than two minutes (that’s being generous), and it’s horribly choreographed. In fact, the predator in this scene looks goofy as he assumes a ninja stance, waiting patiently for his enemy to charge. How much better would it have been if, you know, a credible stunt person (or someone who’s able to coordinate such maneuvers) developed a five-minute clash that really tested the mettle of these two warriors? Instead of this, we’re given three stunted “hee-yaw!”s and are made to cringe as the two run past each other and prepare for another passive charge. The concept of this sequence is a great idea, but it never gets off the ground.
In another instance, our collection of anti-heroes is chased by an alien that appears to be intelligent and is not one of the predators. After a brief scuffle, they gather around its corpse and muse, “Hm, it was being hunted too.” This is the only instance in the film where we see that humans are not the only species being treated as game on this inhospitable planet—a fact that’s alluded to in the extraordinarily underrated Predator 2. How cool would it have been if even a small sampling of the various creatures trapped in this particular scenario managed to team up and work together? How much more would this have highlighted the dominance of the predators as the ultimate alien killing machines? And how much more character development would this have provided for our leads?
That brings me to another problem with the film. Though the predators are obviously what we’re here to see, none of the protagonists are memorable. Really, the most interesting is a nutty fella named Noland (Laurence Fishburne), but he’s underutilized in the most disgraceful ways. He’s best compared to Tim Robbins’ character in Spielberg’s re-imagining of War of the Worlds, though he’s not nearly as interesting.
I haven’t even touched on the lack of truly disturbing gore in Predators (think of the scene in the original film where Hawkins is gutted and his bowels are visible only for a split-second) or how unsatisfying the conclusion is—or how much of it reminds me of certain elements found in the first AvP offering—but you get the picture. In all honesty, I’ll probably buy Predators when it’s released on Blu-ray simply because I’m a completionist, but its seeming inability to fully take advantage of the otherwise clever plot ideas contained therein will forever relegate it to the maddening status of a decent movie that should have been truly great.
out of 5
–Chris Flowers
Rated R.
Check out a trailer for Predators:
