MOVIE REVIEW: PREDATORS

PREDATORS (English/18+)

Genre: Action/Thriller/Science Fiction

Release Date: 08 July 2010

Distributor: 20th Century Fox

Running Time: 107 minutes

Director: Nimrod Antal

Producers: Robert Rodriguez, John Davis, Elizabeth Avellan

Writers: Michael Finch, Alex Litvak; Jim and John Thomas (characters)

Casts: Adrien Brody, Laurence Fishburne, Topher Grace, Alice Braga, Danny Trejo

Plot: Royce (Adrien Brody) is a mercenary who wakes up on a strange planet along with a ragtag band of killers and warriors who slowly realise that they've been kidnapped for a reason - the planet they're on is an alien hunting ground, and a bunch of Predators want to use them as prey. As a new breed of alien hunters hunts these aliens down, they have to use their collective effort to survive through the tough environment.

THE VERDICT

Predators comes in this summer as the new-age refresh look on the classic action combat between human and the alien race known only to us a the Predators. Once upon a time, Arnold Schwarzenegger helmed the extra-terrestrial to a critical success back in 1987. Predators comes in pretty handy in the time of struggle to the franchise following the several bad sequels. So, did the Robert Rodriguez-produced and Nimrod Antal-directed Predators got anywhere near the original with much sense of the nostlagic? Or did it succumbed flat like any other sequel-wannabees?

Predators bring the audiences to the journey of a merchant solider, Royce (Adrien Brody) awakens from unconsciousness to find himself parachuting into an unfamiliar jungle. He meets several others who have arrived there in the same manner. None of them know where they are or how they arrived there. Royce speculates that they have been brought to the jungle for a reason, since with the exception of Edwin they are all armed and lethal killers. But little that they know that they are involved in a hunting game with the extra-terrestrial species on a foreign planet.

Predators is surprisingly a good reboot that goes back into the realm path of the cult horror. Predators borrowed a lot of elements from the 1987's predecessor and at the same time distancing itself from the misfire Predator 2 and other AvP movies. No more 'cartoonish' Predators, no more ridiculous story to fill in the franchise and no colossal CGIs - just a pure prosthetic of make up and effects. A script in which Robert Rodriguez has wrote and kept for 15 years tells you how much closer is this movie to the first one. The brilliant ideas took so long to launch but when it did, director Nimrod Antal transforms it into a pure satisfying, edgier and gore action flick.


One can notice how the story been kept at minimal volume, consistent pace and simple to follow. Other wise, the movie paid homage to several scenes and elements fromt he first one. For instance, putting mud all over you will hide the signature body heat - that was Schwarzenegger's idea. The whole story structure resembles the first Predator, albeit that this happen in a foreign planet and involves a group of human killers. For that Antal pumps in a number of great actions and intensity into the film while making much exploitation on sight. The built-in action driven scenes are pretty quick and indulging where some of the earlier combat scenes are exciting.

While Predators comes in pretty good, there are several complaints in the movie. Predators lacks the power to drive the story more with its characters. Like many other horrors where we watched characters checked out or get killed one by one throughout the movie, this makes no exception at all. Don't get me wrong because it ain't taht boring after all to see that happening around. Here's the problem - acting is good, but the question behind it is how much do we really care about the characters at all in the end! What starts to be an interesting movie ends up been a predictable cat and mouse game and the ending is not the quite of thing that I like either.

IN SHORT

In sum, Predators successfully does what it promises from the trailer. More gore blood actions and staying closer to the one that Schwarzenegger managed to do years back. It is not a perfect one but it helds largely a satisfying adventure between human and the Predator. It lacks some grandstand fighting scene at the end to complete its awesomeness. Predators comes just in time to save the franchise from the ridiculous AvP films that becomes the joke. The ending Antal provides, give a large room for more sequels. So, do we need more from the franchise?
(image sources: IGN)

THE RATING

Story - 3.5 stars

Casts - 3.5 stars

Cinematography - 4.0 stars

Effects - 3.5 stars

OVERALL - 3.5 stars

GREEN-TEA-O-METER: 14.3