Predators

Rugged mercenary Royce (Adrien Brody) inherits command of an elite team of human fighters — including dorky-but-dangerous Edwin (Topher Grace) and tough-but-beautiful Isabelle (Alice Braga) — as they are hunted by a race of ruthless alien trackers known as Predators. Director Nimród Antal’s sci-fi action explosion, which also stars Laurence Fishburne and an uzi-toting Danny Trejo, is a direct sequel to the 1987 blockbuster Predator. Directed by Nimród Antal (Vacancy).

Matt
Rating: 5 out of 10

This could have been a whole lot better, given the strength of the source material and cast, along with the fact that Robert Rodriguez (Machete) produced the film.

It wasn’t a total disaster. There were some interesting characters, which ended up being the film’s weakness. There were just too many of them. All of the characters had to be cookie-cutter stereotypes because that’s all you can develop when you have seven primary cast member in a 90 minute movie. You’ve got the ninja (who still calls themself a ninja?), a tough girl assassin, the anti-hero war vet, the surly Russian, and so on. They tried to throw in some new predator arch to the story. They use these crazy alien hunting dogs, which I liked, but they also tried to wedge in a back story about two types of predators that are warring. The only difference between them that we get to see is that one is taller than the other. Not very compelling stuff. I did like the concept of all these varied soldiers getting dropped off in the jungle and hunted by predators, though. It made for some good action.

This is not a very good movie, but it’s certainly the best Predator movie since the original, which was very good.