In a Nutshell: Predators Review
Before I start let me clarify something. I went into Predators without paying a single cent. I received the tickets as part of a prize from EB Games Australia, so I knew no matter what I’d gotten one up on “The Man”. I only mention this because I don’t want people thinking I am buffering my opinion of the film to justify paying the ticket.
Predators is the latest instalment in a long running series based on either Aliens, Predators or both at once. This film is set on a game preserve of sorts where the Predators go annually to slay Humans and when put into perspective, it’s a kind of grotesque spin on our own game hunting activities. The film starts off with the main character, Royce, free-falling rapidly towards a lush dense planet surface. He lands with a thud, before he meets up with a few other survivors.
20 or so minutes into the film and their posse has grown to eight strong as they piece together what has brought them to this strangely unfamiliar environment, and why. The lead, and only female role: Isabelle deducts that they’re not in any environment she’s seen before and it isn’t long before they’re presented with a pretty well done “holy shit what is going on” piece of scenery. From there on the movie goes downhill in my eyes. About midway through the film we’re introduced to Laurence Fishburne as Noland, an Air Cavalry Soldier whose been stranded on the planet for years and years.
As soon as his character came on screen the film lost any of whatever credibility it had left in terms of acting. Fishburne plays the role of Noland as I mentioned, however his character is either retarded or just socially inept from all his years in solitude. The majority of Fishburne’s screen time portrays him as constantly muttering to himself or an invisible friend, before he disappears as stupidly as he appeared in the first place only to be killed be a Predator. In the ten or so minutes wasted fleshing out a worthless character, they director could’ve done something useful and fleshed out some of the more outstanding questions that you will form yourself when, and if you watch the movie.
Alongside Laurence Fishburne’s horrible character, the rest are pretty sub standard too. I felt like the African American in the pack was just there as a “token black person” role, whilst the Yakuza character literally went from having no screen time, to becoming a pivotal part of the movie. It feels like the crew behind Predators started with an awesome idea, then dropped the ball half way through the movie and gave up. The low performance acting of the core characters is offset by some good character development between Royce and Isabelle, although it’s cliché at the best of times and I knew everything before it happened simply from seeing this all before.
Mixed in with the shoddy acting and plot was some really really, really poor special effects. The explosions looked like something I .gif’d in Adobe Photoshop, and it really ruined the immersion for me. The Predators on the other hand looked damn right menacing, and I wish the movie had of focused more on them as opposed to the humans getting picked off. Something neat though was the fact they wove a piece of the original Predators movie into the 2010 reboot via Isabelles character. That being said, with the good comes the bad, you see there was a scene where a Alien chestburster had obviously been and instead of making an awesome scene they just went on idly into the forest. Talk about a momentum killer.
In summary, Predators IS a good movie, but like so many films before it, I felt like the idea and concept behind the film was lost midway through, and they just gave up. I would recommend it for fans of the series, but wait until it is out on BluRay and enjoy it from the comforts of your own home. The ending of Predators was intentionally there to set up a possible sequel, so hopefully the next film is better.
