Predators Movie Review

Released: July 9th 2010 (US)

Length: 107 Minutes

Certificate: 15

Director: Nimrod Antal

Starring: Adrien Brody, Alice Braga, Laurence Fishburne, Walter Goggins, Topher Grace, Danny Trejo, Mahershala Ali, Oleg Taktarov and Louis Ozawa Changchien

After the release of 1990's Predator 2, the popular alien poacher slipped into hiding. While various video games kept the creature alive throughout the 2000s, its film appearances in the awful Alien vs Predator duology kept it from making a full comeback. After a twenty-year gap, Predators marked the third main release in the franchise, to admirable if not brilliant success.

Predators takes a similar approach to the 1986 classic Aliens in that multiple monsters are on display. The film follows a mercenary named Royce (Adrien Brody) as he finds himself marooned on an alien planet with an assortment of other deadly killers; there's a Yakuza, (Louis Ozawa Changchien) black operations sniper (Alice Braga) and a Russian heavy weapons specialist (Oleg Taktarov) to name a few. They soon realise that they’re the game in a hunt led by not one but three predators and band together to stay alive, hoping to find another way back to Earth. Predators is much tighter and a more cohesive film than Predator 2; with the setting locked down, the film has a solid amount of action with a few quieter moments in-between. There’s always the sense that the alien hunters are just one step behind and the antagonist themselves are deepened thanks to the film's efforts to explore their different tactics and species. All the elements are here for a great Predator film but sadly things don’t always go according to plan. The main issue with Predators is how it feels the need to borrow quite a bit from the movie it claims to succeed. It’s not a complete repeat narrative-wise but when the moments ripped from the original rear their head it’s jarring and unnecessary. These scenes stick out because everything else the film does is right at home with the franchise's roots, with good pacing to match. Any fan of the original will have a hard time something this fault.

When compared to previous outings, the characters in Predators fall somewhere down the middle. Adrien Brody stands out in the lead role as Royce; an often-ruthless mercenary who more often looks out for himself than others; he’s more than capable in terms of both emotive and physical acting. Isabelle, the aforementioned sniper, fills the role of exposition, offering a simple yet effective bridge between films. Not all characters are quite so developed however; Mexican cartel member Cuchillo (Danny Trejo), death squad gunman Mombasa (Mahershala Ali) and Japanese swordsman Hanzo don’t have much to them at all and go by incredibly underused as the film rolls on. Most disappointing of all though is the character played by Laurence Fishburne; Noland’s life of isolation as the sole human survivor on the alien planet could have been a very deep character study but is instead written off a couple of scenes after he’s introduced. In short, the film has trouble balancing out character moments with action, despite things moving at a consistent pace; a shame as the cast in Predators comes the closest to matching that of the original. No one is really at fault here; they just needed more material to work with and the moments that do allow the different character traits to play off each other are rather fleeting.

The same also holds true for the presentation; with Robert Rodriguez in the production chair, Predators is a very sleek and confident production. The alien planet gives way to many great looking locales, creating an excellent setting for the hunt to take place. The action is very well produced, with a few scenarios thrown into the mix that have never been seen before in the franchise with the team’s varying weapons and tactics being put on display. The music is a collection of older beats taken from the first Predator alongside a set of new tracks from John Debney and these also work well. Despite the film being knocked to a 15 rating, the violence is still suitably grotesque and well suited to the action on show. There’s certainly no knocking Predators for its look and style; it comes very close to rivaling the original in this regard.

Predators could have been a great follow-up to the original 1987 film; in a lot of ways it really does recapture the tension and feel of being hunted by an alien menace (in this case several of them). But two major flaws hold it back; wasted potential with its characters and too much reliance on call-backs to the original film. Had the film worked harder to carve out its own image and bind the characters together more often, we could have had a great film. As it stands, the film is a respectable, if somewhat underwhelming effort.

Rating: 3/5 Stars (Fair)