Suddenly the Asian guy, who has spoken maybe 2 lines throughout the entire movie stops and settles himself. Looking back the team wonders why he hesitated and he motions them to keep moving… they do so without anyone caring to question his suicidal motives. Not even the pragmatic but empathetic Isabelle (Alice Braga) gives a thought to saving Hanzo the Yakuza (Louis Ozawa Changchien). I thought to myself, here we go again, the sole Asian, a Japanese equipped with a katana, stoic, suicidal and prepped to take on a Predator… solo. I tend to believe that I may have been the only one in my theater that was bothered by this all too familiar scene.
Predators manages to channel James Cameron’s Aliens with the feeling of dread and fear placed upon a team of military people placed within the habitat of a superior and mysterious enemy. Much homage is paid to the original Predator as we get people from different walks of life being hunted by the alien(s) and a familiar jungle backdrop unlike the recent installments which had the fighting within city limits. Predators was refreshingly good and will become a favorite for fans of the series, comics and older movies. In terms of this year and the horrible run of pictures that have been bombing in the Box Office, Sci-Fi has been holding up and with this being the second Brody helmed movie this year, I can safely say that the nose plays.
Adrian Brody, an actor that I have followed closely since the Pianist, has his share of negative critics (myself not being one of them) but manages to stay busy with a broad variety of roles. I really appreciate his character acting and this movie really sells him well as a hardened military badass. Alongside Brody are a few familiar faces like Topher Grace (Spiderman 3), Alice Braga (Repo Men) who I teasingly refer to as the bootleg Michelle Rodriguez, Danny Trejo (Machete) and Laurence Fishburne (Matrix).
The cinematography left much to desire as I hoped for the beautiful, lush forests of the original Predator but was made to settle on a nastier rain forest with the one shot of the horizon appearing more Boris Vallejo backdrop than exotic, alien landscape. The music was reminiscent of the original however the tune at the beginning when the shock and awe of dropping on the planet was presented did not fit at all. To be honest the score was more distracting than complimentary and it took me watching till near the end to warm up to the soundtrack.
Plot-wise it was no Sixth Sense (this is my attempt to uplift the beaten down M. Night) but it is a Predator movie, seriously it is what it is. The same story as always without spoilers is that you have a collective of military talents scattered on a planet as prey for a group of Predators to hunt and prove themselves. These Predators are intriguing and after seeing this movie I would love for them to make a movie that shows us their civilization and methodology so that we can understand why it is they setup these hunting grounds. AVP gave us some insight into this with the ascension of proven warriors to lordship but we still don’t know these aliens and why hunting is even important.
Nolan (Laurence Fishburne) and Stans (Walton Goggins) were my favorite in terms of acting out their respective parts and Nikolai (Oleg Taktarov) gets the badass award for the movie. This is a must-watch folks, and a necessary boost for those of you who have wasted money to see bad movies this year. Support Sci-Fi, Predators did not disappoint and I look forward to owning it on Blu-Ray.
Written by Greg Dragon – who has written 365 reviews on Spicy Movie Dogs.
Cinephile and opinion writer, Greg Dragon has been a fan of movies since the 80's when Kung Fu theater was all the rage and Roger Moore was James Bond. As an opinion writer that has reviewed Box Office releases on a number of prominent websites, Greg is the founder and lead critic of Spicy Movie Dogs.
