THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
All it takes is time and patience to make something good. In my eyes, 20th Century (Fox) Studios did just that when making 2010’s Predators.
PLOT
The film follows a group of eight individuals who free fall into an unfamiliar jungle and plan to stay together in hopes for survival. The group includes: mercenary Royce, cartel enforcer Cuchillo, Spetsnaz Alpha Group soldier Nikolai, IDF sniper Isabelle, RUF officer Mombasa, Yakuza member Hanzo, death row inmate Stans and Edwin, who claims to be a physician. A ninth person dies before grouping one due to his parachute not opening to break his fall. As the group moves through the jungle together, they find traps planted by a deceased green beret soldier they get to avoid. By the time they reach ground, they realize they’re not on Earth as they look at an alien sky. They then defend themselves from a pack of quadrupedal beasts and get to kill a few before the rest are called back by their owners. Off of all they’ve seen thus far, Royce deduces the planet they’re on is a game preserve and the game is them being hunted by whatever brought them there. Cuchillo gets captured and placed into a trap for the others to walk into, but Isabelle chooses to mercy kill him as they accept moving on. The group then track the beasts’ footprints that take them to a camp. There, they find a captive Predator. They retreat when finding the camp to belong to a group of three Predators - credited as Berserker, Tracker, and Falconer -, who kill Mombasa in the process. After tripping into a waterfall, Isabelle admits to have recognized the alien as it matches a description similar to one that was killed in Guatemala back in ‘87. As they keep moving in hopes to figure out how to kill their new threat, they meet Ronald Noland whose been stuck on the planet for the past 10 seasons and has been scavenging to survive. When taking them to his hideout that is a crashed alien ship, he explains that there are always Predator groups in threes that abduct worthy prey from other worlds to sharpen their skills and their is a blood feud between two different Predator generations, which is why there was one held captive at the camp. Knowing this, Royce plans to free it hoping it can take him back to Earth. The remaining group gets moving again when Noland tries using smoke to suffocate, for the sake of taking their equipment. Royce decides to use an explosive to lure the Predators to the hideout. It ends up working as Tracker arrives and quickly kills Noland. Nikolai ends up sacrificing himself with his own explosives in efforts to kill the Predator. Stans attempts to make a sacrifice of his own when trying to face Berserker with a shiv, but it leads to his spine getting ripped from his body. Hanzo challenges Falconer to a duel, facing him with a katana, but both die in combat. Edwin gets injured by a trap on the way to the camp, but Royce chooses to abandon him, resulting in Isabelle to tend to him. Royce does free the captive Predator and is convince him to take him back if he frees him. Berserker then shows up, having captured Isabelle & Edwin. The captive Predator dons its armor and activates the ship for Royce before it dies fighting Berzerker. The latter then detonates the ship to self destruct, believing to have killed Royce. However, he chooses to change his mind to save the others. Isabelle gets paralyzed by Edwin from a neurotoxic he got from a plant earlier, confessing to being a serial killer and wants to stay. Royce then uses it on him and uses him as a booby trap, covering him with grenades to injure Berserker. This ends up working because with Isabelle having enough will to use her rifle, Royce officially defeats via decapitation. The film ends with the remaining two seeing more parachutes in the distance, vowing to find another way off the planet.
THOUGHTS
This franchise was in deep shit for a long while because Predator 2 was corny and its double feature crossover with Alien was either too campy or too dark to see a thing. With a bad track record since the classic ‘87 action flick, expectations were very low which is where I got relieved to see this one ain’t so bad. Producer Robert Rodriguez and Director Nimród Antal gave us exactly what we wanted since the first time around that is a stressful adventure with a twist. It’s already frightening to think of being hunted by an alien, but then it’s a whole other ballgame when being hunted in another planet that is familiar to only the alien that’s hunting you. Gyula Pados’ cinematography gave the accurate vibe on how induced the stress gets at each passing moment because you know things are past your control in something you’re not familiar with. That is why the Predators are still quite frightening here. The original captive was a badass for still having that respect for the hunt, but the new trio are what the adrenaline going in the victims they hunt. Greg Nicotero did a great job designing them to be different not just from the bodies, but even their gear. Tracker has horns on his helmet and controls the pets. Falconer has a drone and has a thinner helmet, whereas Berserker is the tallest and his helmet has a mandible attached to it. If said mandible belongs to a xenomorph the way fans claim, that’s just awesome to notice. Even the visual effects added on to them made them all the more intimidating to where they appeared untouchable until they weren’t. While these sci fi elements work, I think the overall quality of this film pays off because it expresses how one must maintain morality and sanity should the goal is to fight to survive. With an ensemble filled with individuals who aren’t standard citizens, the stakes are very high on will being tested. Royce is the finest example leading the party because Adrien Brody doesn’t make clear what side the character was on as a mercenary. Like everyone else, he just wants to go home where he was in control of what he was doing and the difference is he’s pitiless with each step he takes. The time he spends with everyone however, makes him understand he’s not the only one dealing with problems, explaining his decision to bail on his way one way trip back home. The only one who is straight up voice of reason is Isabelle which makes it easy to like her since Alice Braga shows her to be the only one who knows there is a better strength in numbers, thus wanting to stay behind with Edwin without even knowing the truth about him. Considering she and Royce were the only two, I’d like to think they get better chance going home with the new group they saw coming. Going into the rest of the cast, Laurence Fishburne made it all count in his given time as Noland. He’s someone who was capable in his prime, but his long period of time on the alien planet has made him so unstable that he’d rather talk to himself than build a newfound alliance. Noticing this, it’s safe to say he was put out of misery when Tracker kills him. Topher Grace had to be stealthiest wild card as Edwin because he fools us good in thinking he’s an average Joe when he’s in fact quite deranged compared to the others. He’s so sick in the head he thinks he’d do better staying in a game-preserve themed planet knowing aliens are gonna keep hunting him for sport. He has no advantage the way he assumes and despite lasting longer than we thought, he was screwed either way should he have gotten back. It was cool seeing Danny Trejo as Cuchillo because despite coming off ratty, he was still capable to hold his own until he couldn’t. The similar thing can be said with Mahershala Ali as Mombasa he is able to be merciless to better chances for himself. If he had eyes behind his back, he totally would’ve not died the way he did. Louis Ozawa also made Hanzo a cool character because all the silence he imposed gave him focus on what he could do. And that focus is what motivated him to duel with Falconer. Walton Goggins was an unlikely surprise as Stans because he’s a much more visible wild card whereas Edwin was metaphorically camouflaging. Stans was so upfront in being a sacrilegious kind of guy you know he’s bound to die, which is where you get surprised on how he earns his respect with an unexpected sacrifice. The only one I genuinely enjoyed from the get go was Nikolai because Oleg Taktarov made him a loyal comrade who chose to help those that helped him. Edwin protected him from the poison and in return, he protected him from Tracker. And that made his death piss me off because you wish he did this for someone else who deserved that trust. While I think this is the series’ best since the first time around, I can admit there are still a few things that don’t hold up compared to before. For example, was Edwin really stuck on the chute when he landed on the tree or he was faking it to win the group over? I know he was pretending to be soft, but his introduction has confused me for a long time. And how was everyone so calm with Hanzo entering the group when he doesn’t vocally introduce himself? I know he’s not talkative due to being previously punished for it, but he could’ve said anything to imply they can trust him. Also, what made Stans think anyone would give him a gun? Just because most of them got criminal backgrounds does not mean they’ll help him. And how did no one see Cuchillo get swept away by the Predators? He can’t camouflage like a Predator so it’s pure luck the pets was enough to distract them all. I then wonder why didn’t the new trio destroy the tech that belonged to the captive Predator? If they don’t want him to have a chance in escaping, they should’ve destroyed his wrist watch to ensure it. And I know these aliens enjoy the hunt, but they wasted time in the end when not shooting them down when they totally could’ve. If Tracker could casually shoot Noland, Feral should’ve shot Hanzo when the chance was given. And if I gotta talk about continuity errors, two of them go to Edwin because his leg should’ve been burnt after Nikolai’s explosive went off and it’s crazy he wasn’t limping after Berserker through him in the pit. Ain’t no way he recovered from the trap that fast. Other than that, this movie is still pretty dope. In short, Predators is the long awaited improvement on the sci fi franchise for being intense when called upon and genuinely exciting as well. If you’re still a fan by the time you reach here, I promise you won’t be disappointed.
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