Generic action-fodder for the school holidays.
I must admit I’ve never been a huge fan of the Predator movies. I LOVE the Alien trilogy but for whatever reason, Arnie’s antics in the South American jungle couldn’t capture me in the same way. Throw in a couple of very poor cross-franchise attempts with this addition and its safe to say I wasn’t exactly champing at the bit about another Predators movie.
I’ll get this out of the way first though – if you liked the original Predator you’ll be more than entertained by this entry, which is a far sight better than the recent cross-franchise ones. It’s entertaining, yet mindless action so stop reading as it ticks all the boxes for your average 16-25yo male.
Even if it was entertaining though, that’s not enough to leave me with a lasting impression. Director Nimrod Antal (Vacancy) seems content to serve up a bog-standard action thriller. The plot is easy to follow: a group of mercenary types from around the world, including the requisite female (Alice Braga, I Am Legend) and the lone doctor (Topher Grace, That 70s Show) find themselves stranded on a remote planet as game for the Predators to hunt. Of course the film quickly establishes former Special Forces soldier Royce (Adrien Brody) and IDF sniper Isabelle (Alice) as the main protagonists with the other mercenaries set up to be periodically killed off every 10minutes. When one of the bunch is on the FBI most wanted list you know he’s not going to make it…
Along the way they meet Noland (a very plump Laurence Fishburne) who has managed to survive for years holed up in an abandoned giant drill. He’s also got one of those imaginary friends… The sequences with Noland provide a little respite from the back-to-back action sequences before he too is ticked off the box. And don’t tell me that’s a spoiler!
A lot of noise has been made about Adrien Brody taking the lead role. I mean this is the guy who won an Oscar for a Holocaust drama. Not the first person who comes to mind when thinking of an Arnie replacement. He’s a fantastic actor and even though he has buffed up a LOT for the role it’s still a weird choice to carry a big franchise such as this. It’s hard to expect massive units like Danny Trejo and Oleg Taktorov to take orders from an arrogant former Special Forces soldier. When you’re dealing with badassery as epic as the Predators you need someone equally OTT badass – which is why Arnie was so celebrated in the originals.
One final complaint, the complete and utter pointlessness of Topher Grace’s character. Given that he’s a doctor, you’d expect him to be able to help out when the mercenaries get injured. I mean it’s not that big an ask is it? No, instead he stumbles around aimlessly for three quarters of the movie before the weakest twist I’ve seen in a long time which does no work earlier on in the movie to create any sort of payoff.
You get the gist. The people who are going to watch Predators went off to see it after the second paragraph. Anyone else probably wasn’t going to see it anyway and this is just further justification. Sadly it’s already recouped its production budget so another entry seems certain. At least I’ve got the NZFF keeping the faith!
2 1/2 Stars
Andrew Cozens