When your studio has already made one of the most beloved sci-fi classics of all time and followed it up with a somewhat mediocre sequel - then over a decade later - joined their monster with an even more terrifying monster for two movies that didn’t hit the mark at the box-office; I’m sure that the right thing to do in order to keep the franchise alive is to make a new movie based on the elements of what made the original so great?
And that’s a good thing, because when you strip away the layers upon layers of homage [or rip off] from
Predators, the original ideas here wouldn’t have supported it’s weight – the weight of something this frikkin' cool! It has an air of familiarity despite having the concept turned on it's head. The
Pred's aren't coming to our world this time, they've grabbed some of us to bring to theirs, but it's still a jungle and the humans are still seemingly hopelessly outmatched and that's what makes it good - it's survival horror but with heavy weapons, an exploration of man's ultimate strengths, wits and fears!
The characters here are a far more diverse group then we've ever seen before. A mix of exceptional killers both criminals and professionals but all are different and unique in their own special way. They’re presumably abducted from Earth and sent to one of the
Predators’ hunting planets, where they’re parachute dropped and fully armed with their own specialist weapons with which to provide their abductors with suitable sport. At first they must overcome their own considerable differences and learn to work as closely as a team as possible rather than give into their more base instincts to kill each other outright; literally a world apart from
Major “Dutch” Shaffer and his close knit Spec Ops team of hard-core soldiers who would [and did] die for each other.
Adrien Brody [right] put on 25 pounds of muscle to prepare himself for the role of
Royce, the central character who adopts the mantle of leader as he's a former U.S. military officer and thus the only type of person capable of doing that despite being an amoral asshole [but the best of us are ;)]. The strange group also consists of such equally heavily armed individuals as Spetsnaz soldier,
Nikolai, (
Oleg Taktarov), a Mexican Los Zetas drug cartel enforcer,
Cuchillo, (
Danny Trejo), and an IDF black ops sniper,
Isabelle, (
Alice Braga). They encounter more people dropped from the sky, including a RUF officer,
Mombasa, (
Mahershalalhashbaz Ali), who is fighting with a Death Row inmate,
Stans, (
Walton Goggins). A silent Yakuza assassin,
Hanzo, (
Louis Ozawa Changchien) and an American doctor,
Edwin (
Topher Grace) round out the group. They discover that all of them have no idea of how they got to the jungle and deciding that they should all stick together [helped by the fact that they all inexplicably speak English], they venture in one direction to find possible aid.
But they only find
DEATH!!! - yes that's a spoiler sure, but only if you're a complete cretin.
Predators sticks so rigidly to the formula of the original, it leaves not only little to surprise but presents total predictability as long as several minutes before the event - and I mean total. Story aside, thankfully the scope of the acting on behalf of the players is above standard for the subject matter, there is a genuine sense of "what the fuck am I doing here?" that lasts a lenghty time and the characters discuss their predicament at length with perhaps a little too much dialog at times. There is little comic relief [sadly no genre-defining pussy-jokes] which is a blessing since it's not right that this group of people should be endeared to us in this fashion. But that could be considered a problem as well as we don't feel the loss of any of this cast as we did
Blain,
Mac or
Billy more than 20 years ago.
Iron Man 2 composer
John Debney wrote to
Predator composer
Alan Silvestri as Producer
Robert Rodriguez and Director
Nimród Antal wanted
Debney to use
Silvestri’s
Predator themes in
Predators.
Silvestri never got back to
Debney much to his disappointment but
Debney went ahead and recreated as much of
Silvestri’s score as possible and thus it adds to the sheer adrenaline rush of the whole experience. Musically,
Predators is a winner right up to the end credits where
Little Richard’s "
Long Tall Sally" has been grossly misplaced over the titles. While it was certainly fitting in a blacked out CIA chopper with a group of intence yet jovial Special Operators in Guatamala in ’87; is has absolutely no place here whatsoever.
The movie's flaws sadly hamstrings it from attaining anywhere near the status of the original. Having said that, few movies will ever top just how awesome
Predator is [everyone reading this blog has seen
Predator at least once so you know how awesome it is]. It's easily in the top 10 movies of the 80’s and in the top 50 movies of all time. I’m officially declaring
Predators better than
Predator 2, which despite having it’s moments, never captured the essence of the original [I actually gave my DVD away to someone].
Predators succeeds here in spades because it’s basically the first movie with a dose of weak crack, you'll get a high while watching it but that high won't last as long as the original's.
Final Verdict: Despite the unendearing characters, lack of plot and its bizarre predictibility; we have some incredible action sequences, superb acting and enough "essence" from the original transfused into this to make a solid cinematic experience. This is the true sequel we should have got much earlier, but better late than never. Bring on the sequels...
Colonel Creedon rating:
****
Vader didn't force-choke anyone but he did brandish an automatic pistol which he used in a threatening manner to ward off people laughing at him and demanded cash be placed in his "Yankees" backpack.
