When I first heard about a Predator sequel being made, it seemed like there were daily updates for the members of production, the cast, and then the release date approximately two weeks later. I may be truncating the timeframe a bit but it came together rather quickly in my swiss-cheese-like memory. The concept had promise with the predator foe, hunting in groups, having the homefield advantage against a rag-tag gang of militants and ne’er-do-wells. Sadly, while that premise is accurate, the final product, or at least half of it, leaves much to be desired. At least, until you watch the original Predator.
In his recent Monster Scum marathon, Digger proclaimed Predator to be “one of the greatest action movies of all time.” While it has been far too long since seeing the original to agree or disagree, Predators however follows its source material far too closely. Straight down to the music by John Debney which is almost a carbon-copy of Alan Silvestri’s great score from the original, I felt a great sense of deja vu while watching Predators, either to the original or to any other generic action movie. We start with Royce (Adrien Brody) free-falling into a jungle only to run into other people of varying ethnicities and backgrounds as they try to figure out where they are and why they are there.
It doesn’t take long for standard action tentpoles to come in effect as the group is hunted by the trio of Predator-folk. From being split up during an attack by weird alien dog-things, a trap being set for the humans in which Classic Predator™ appears, and the group being picked off one by one, I was completely detached from the first half of the movie. It literally feels like the original Predator with just a modicum of tweaking to avoid outright plagiarism. When the group meets up with Nolan (Laurence Fishburne), a previous victim stranded on the world, it gets on track with a bit more originality. It helps that Nolan is almost completely insane from being stuck on the alien planet for so long that he has concocted an imaginary friend to combat the loneliness.
The back half of the movie turns around as the human prey decide to turn tables on the Predators led by Brody. When it was first announced, I had my doubts about Brody as an action hero but it works here with Royce being rather cunning in the thick of it and pretty much an ass to boot. Royce’s main concern is survival and getting to the aliens’ ship and if things are not conducive to his plan (mainly Topher Grace) he is more than willing to cut ties and move on. The rest of the humans are pretty flimsy in the characterization department but certain things can be overlooked as Yakusa-member Hanzo (Louis Ozawa Changchien) and Russian Nikolai (Oleg Taktarov) are pretty bad ass in their respective ways. Even though Walton Goggins’ death-row inmate Stans does not offer much assistance in the kick-assery, he gets a few good lines in as comic relief. Topher Grace annoys the shit out of me for some reason and I cannot buy him as a doctor in any capacity so his Edwin did nothing for me. And Alice Braga is pretty enough but does not come off as a hardened Israeli sniper.
For as interesting as it was to set the movie on an alien planet, it added little to the story that could not have been accomplished on earth. Early on as the characters are trying to figure out their location, Braga’s Isabelle remarks that she has seen many jungles but not this one. Problem is, even with the beautiful cinematography, it still looks like any jungle we’ve seen before. Other than the Predator’s dogs and the other creatures that are dropped on the planet with the humans, it is just a bunch of people running around in the woods that could as much be in my backyard as it is elsewhere in the galaxy. And even though there are three predators (not the dozen or so that the trailer would make you think) they mostly play tag team with only one going after the group at a time.
I expected more from this being produced by Robert Rodiguez and directed by Nimród Antal who was hand-picked based on his previous works. It’s competently produced, beautifully shot, and the cardboard cutout characters do their part in the story. But I would recommend seeing the classic original instead. It has a bit more heart and originality and without Topher Grace.
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