My Review: Predators (6/10)

¨They can hear you. Smell you. They see you.¨

One of the reasons Predators stands out from it`s predecessors is because Robert Rodriguez was behind this project. His studio, Troublemaker Films, produced this movie in order for him to have controlling rights over it. His first decision was to sign Nimrod Antal as the director. Antal had directed Vacancy, Armored, and the movie that opened the doors for him in Hollywood: Hungarian film Control. Armored was a huge disapointment for me last year and a movie I really disliked, but Predators was an improvement considering I went into it with very low expectations. Predators is much better than the AVP sequels or even the second predator film and it does the original 1987 movie justice. Of course it is not as good as the original movie because, well that one was original and we had never seen the predators before, but now we have been bombarded with them in four other movies and finally in this sequel the suspense is back and so is the fear of the unseen. The movie builds off very nicely from the begginning introducing each character and setting the mood of the film. The location chosen for filming was excellent and contributed to set the atmosphere. The screenplay for this movie was written by Alex Litvak and Michael Finch, but it was one of the weakest things about this movie which was full of cheesy dialogs and copied phrases from the original.

The movie begins with Royce (Adrien Brody) falling from the sky into a jungle. His parachute opens up just in time, but he can`t quite remember how he got to this place. He runs into another man who seems to have got there in the same conditions, Cuchillo (Danny Trejo), a member of a Mexican drug cartel. All of a sudden they begin to be shot at by a Russian Sptesnaz soldier named Nikolai (Oleg Taktarov), but Royce evades him and ends up pointing a gun at his face and letting him know that they are not the enemy. The three men run into an Israeli sniper named Isabelle (Alice Braga) who claims she has never been in a jungle like this one. They have all been parachuted from the sky and the last thing they remember is seeing a white light and then waking falling in the air into this mysterious place. Isabelle claims to have seen more parachutes fall near her so they continue to search for answers and run into two men fighting: Mombasa (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali), a revolutionary african fighter, and Stans (Walton Goggins), an inmate who was going to be sentenced to death in two days and a former FBI most wanted criminal. The six run into a Predator camp where they find all sort of dead body`s which are kept as trophies and here they run into Hanzo (Louis Ozawa Changchien) a Yakuza enforcer, and Edwin (Topher Grace), a doctor and the only one who doesn`t seem to fit the profile of the group. They soon discover that they`re not on their planet and that they have been brought here as game for hunters.

The major difference this film has with the original is that no Arnold Schwarzenegger look a like is cast. Instead, Oscar award winner Adrien Brody was chosen for the lead and he did a pretty good job. Alicia Braga is also good in this film and is perhaps the most likeable character. She makes a reference to the 87 movie mentioning how an elite military group was killed in the jungles of Guatemala by a creature similar to this. My favorite character however was the quiet and reserved Hanzo. The first half of this movie was excellent and did a great job of creating suspense, but the last half really let me down once Laurence Fishburne`s character came into play. I really thought that his appearance was going to improve the movie, but the screenwriters really messed up from this point on. Once the predators are no longer hidden the movie losses that mystery, although the action is pretty entertaining. The major problem I found with the second part of the movie however was that several of the characters changed personalities from one moment to the next only to give the film a more dramatic effect. The first part of the film is worth 4 stars, while the second only 2 out of 5. Predators is a far better sequel than the other movies and can be enjoyed if taken lightly.