Verdict:
It has been ages since the first Predator movie – ages full of sequels of exponentially worsening quality. After the initial popularity of Predator, people tried mixing it with the Alien franchise several times, but that concept proved to work a lot better in video games than on the silver screen.
With Predators, The producer Robert Rodriguez and Director Nimrod Antal are going back to the roots, to what made the original movie popular…in fact we are going back to the same premise as in the first movie: a group of folks are stuck together in the hot jungle, with the Predator hunting them.
But then within that premise, the writers take the opportunity to throw some fairly silly ideas at the wall and see what sticks. We have multiple predators, some of whom have a feud with others. We have a katana-wielding yakuza. Without spoiling too much, the story takes a very absurd turn with one of its characters, which was funny to behold.
The first victim of this new hunt is pacing. The characters awaken on an alien planet completely clueless and thus have a lot of discovering to do. Such an extreme drop requires a long and thorough introduction, but the Director has a schedule to keep to and that results in some unnatural dialogue forced in to explain the situation to the viewer so that the movie can move forward. Then, after the first few action scenes, the whole thing suddenly slows down for a dark entr’acte, when our group meets Ronald Noland, a survivor from a previous hunt. Nolan becomes a convenient way of providing a whole exposition dump.
The dialogue is the second victim. It doesn’t help that half of the characters consist of mute monsters, of course, but it’s like the dialogue was written by two different writers who never met to discuss it: sometimes it’s ok and sometimes it consists of terrible one liners, to make everybody understand how cool or dangerous these characters are, or lines explaining the plot.
On the other hand the cast does well with what they are given. There is a bunch of interesting actors in this film, some of whom were going to go one to do greater things. The biggest name is probably Laurence Fishburne. Everyone gets some breathing space to give their performance and there is, overall, an interesting mismatch of people. You got a muscular commando right next to Topher Grace from “That 70s Show”. This variety gives the movie colour, and because the characters don’t get killed off too early, they end up being more than just faceless cannon fodder.
The people behind the camera are doing a good job, and surprisingly, computer generated effects take a back seat on this one. There is plenty of them, but more attention is given to the physical props. The visuals are purposefully trying to imitate the original movie from the 80s, and appear to be successful at that. The one thing this movie can never have, no matter how much the creators try, is the novelty factor. The 1987 movie was not wholly original or perfect. In fact, critics at the time complained that it was empty and derivative. However, it managed to combine all its ingredients into a cool-looking militarized sci-fi monster movie that had a unique look to it and won over people’s hearts. With Predators clearly being a spiritual remake of or sequal to the original, the understandable question is: what does it add exactly? Why not just watch the original? I am aware that such questions ignore the fact that the new generations are probably not going to look up an old Schwarzenegger film from the 80s, even if it is good, but what these new generations are getting with Predators is a remake that lacks the charm of the original. Still, it is at least a step in the right direction. There are many worse action movies out there and this one is less forgettable than those preceding Predators vs Aliens movies.