Predators

If I wanted to use a strong word, I’d probably use "disappointment" first, but "wasted potential" seems more appropriate with hindsight. Antal is talented, there’s no denying it because for two hours I felt like I was watching unadulterated 1980s carnage. It’s aided by good cinematography, and Debney’s brilliant soundtrack (those native drums just work even twenty-three years later). The present bunch is worse. True, I can't expect psychological miniatures, but... damn, couldn't it have been stretched for a few more minutes so we could learn a little more about them? There are all sorts of excuses for this, such as the fact that action movies were made this way when the first film was made. But what do you do with one random survivor and a nutcase with a scalpel? It’s also hard to love a film where I have to hit my head a lot to shake the memory of any significant action out of it. In that regard, I'll be eagerly awaiting the Director's Cut on DVD. Until then, it gets a hesitant 3 ½ stars. PS: The first half earns five stars. (07/09/2010)

After “Arnie’s” first one, this is hands down the best film in the Predator universe, though the original holds that first place mainly for the cult status it has gained over the years. By this I mean that both are basically the same, but whereas Predators is intentionally silly in a cute 1980s way, in Predator  that’s unintentional and therefore better (or worse, depending on how you see it), thanks to is earnestness. Nimrod Antal proves that the fears about his choice as director were unwarranted. I wasn’t expecting any interesting directorial tricks, but Predators is a film where the craftsmanship and the sense for execution and atmosphere are more than enough. I had a little problem with Adrien Brody, who’s maybe a bit too good a character actor for the role. In short, Predators is almost excellent, I got exactly what I wanted. PS: “Die, you space faggot” is almost as great as “You’re one ugly motherfucker”… (07/08/2010)

Two stars. Predators is a B-movie, a bad B-movie. I was really looking forward to the film and I expected many things, but not blandness of this caliber. That’s a big shame, because this was a big missed opportunity. What bothered me: There were very few Predators in the film (I don't know about others, but I expected a lot more of them based on the title and the sighting scene in the trailer), they appeared after maybe twenty-five minutes (admittedly, in a nice shootout in the camp) and they didn't stay on the screen for the rest of the film. They always just peeked out somewhere, killed somebody, and that was it. Plus, there's only one classic Predator - the rest are "new species" with not very nice "designs" (I don't understand why Stan Winston studio didn't work on them). Adrien Brody in the lead role didn't impress me either, but he didn't get on my nerves - the others were worse. I formed virtually no relationship with the characters (they were either poorly written or given woefully little space), their badass catchphrases sounded more or less cheesy (including Danny Trejo, sadly), and the atmosphere was probably mostly brought down by the fact that, while the whole group of characters were still searching for what they were hunting in the jungle and wondering about it all, the viewer already knew, and so wasn't too interested by their vigilant looking behind every tree. Tension = 0. Pros: A couple of fairly decently shot scenes (the opening, the camp scene, the fiery ending) and the music, which of course was 90% Silvestri's and John Debney actually "only" tweaked and innovated it. Said at the beginning, confirmed at the end - two stars. The first movie is unattainable, Predator 2 is more than decent, AvP (both of them) suck, and this is only slightly better. It was misery. (07/09/2010)

The weakest predators in the history of film were playing cat and mouse with the worst soldiers on the face of the Earth. Adrien Brody put on about 15 kilograms of muscle for this role, yet he still looks like a stick. Goggins, on the other hand, generally plays fags in most movies and here he is supposed to put in an absolute performance worthy of the SAS. Neither of them managed to clear that hurdle. It looks embarrassing, and what’s even worse is the Chinese guy, who swordfights one of the predators. I don’t know if the predators were just sick of what a bunch of amateurs those morons were, of they were the weakest predators ever. However, both those things made sure that even otherwise good ideas were buried with everything else in this film. (10/03/2016)

Antal has an incredible sensitivity for getting that eighties feeling right, in the end Brody surprisingly doesn’t seem like Arnie’s androgynous embryo (in the ending sequence his muscle-bound body was particularly impressive... or else CGI technology is much more advanced that I thought) and so only the more expensive half away from the jungle is the only thing that spoils it; not that it’s outright bad, but it lags far behind the first half in terms of quality. In the better half, it’s so good that it is better than the original. (07/09/2010)