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Tuesday, July 20, 2010

PREDATORS

Rated R

DIRECTOR: Nimrod Antal
STARRING: Adrien Brody, Alice Braga
WRITTEN BY: Alex Litvak, Michael Finch
  

CRITICAL SCORE:  6 / 10

BULLET POINTS:  7 / 10 







PLOT
A goulash of bad asses are dropped (literally) on a game preserve planet and hunted down for sport by an alien race of predators.

TRAILER TRASH
John McTiernan's 1987 slice of kickass known as PREDATOR is one of my absolute favorite flicks ever put to celluloid and holds the special honor of being the movie I paid to watch at the theater more times than any other film.  That is a tough act to follow for any sequel, but I find PREDATOR 2 to be quite underrated and a pretty damned solid entry into the Predator Franchise.  Yes, AVP was pretty awful and although AVP: REQUIEM stepped it's game up a couple of notches on the entertainment scale, both flicks are severely lacking and didn't deliver the goods for most fans.  As a Predator geek, I think most of us were happy just to have another Predator film delivered to our mandibles for consumption, much less one produced by genre fave, Robert Rodriguez.  However, after the buzz of pre-release euphoria wore off, it was time to sit down in that dark cold theater with my Reeses Pieces in hand and finally see whether or not PREDATORS actually delivered on it's hype and on it's own as a film.  As Jesse Ventura's character Blain might say, "Let's lock and load you slack-jawed faggots because it's time to let ol' painless out of the bag!"


LOCK AND LOAD
Before I could oil up my biceps and light a stoagie, PREDATORS takes off from the first frame, hellbent on delivering some adrenalin.  Litvak's script combined with Antal's direction make tight entertaining work of the first third of this film.  With the exception of Brody, my first impressions of the rest of our main group of players was that they were a bit formulaic.  However, that was easily countered by a pretty solid cast of actors, great pacing and some beautiful cinematography by Gyul Pados.  And, while we're on the subject of cinematography, much has been made of the shot of Brody being light raped by multiple Predator sites that is in the trailer but not actually in the film.  I understand Rodriguez's stance on having shots for the trailer that embody the movie without giving away too much to the audience.  Frankly, trailers today by and large suck and give too much away, so I completely agree with that stance.  That said, the specific shot in question was used as a hook to get asses in seats and the fact that not only is the shot misleading in the context of the film, but outright impossible, means that the hook misrepresented the movie.  Of course, there is going to be ire raised and backlash from that.  Moving on...

PREDATORS begins to fall apart in the second act, largely because the plot falls prey to it's own self-aware formula and shallow characters.  With the exception of "the dogs" and a scene involving Danny Trejo, Antal fails to build any palpable suspense or originality as our ragtag group begins to dwindle.  The odd insertion of Lawrence Fishburne into the plot gives us a nice unexpected left turn, as well as some good exposition, but altogether doesn't work.  The believability of the 'Noland' character is squandered (due to script) and Fishburne's physical state adds to this loss (more on that in the "Picking Bones" section), rendering a good idea into something that just doesn't fit.  The last third of the film along with it's finale delivers a solid punch to the audience's collective face with some nice action that won't disappoint fans.  However, this flick ultimately fails to do anything unexpected.  With the exception of an incredibly cool scene involving ChangChien's 'Hanzo' character blade fighting a Predator in a field (like some Kurosawa nightmare), and some aforementioned scenes above, PREDATORS lacks the one thing I thought it would accomplish quite easily: originality.  And anyone remotely paying attention could have smelled Topher Grace's character turn a mile off.  How much more interesting would it have been for this obvious bit of business to happen much earlier in the film and be unknown to the other characters as he picks them off from inside the group?  Answer: Infinitely more interesting.

Plain and simply, PREDATORS is extremely derisive.  Structurally, almost beat for beat, this film mimics the far superior original.  A lot of directors today seem to misunderstand the concept of an homage and go right into the land of borrowing.  A character line here or there, maybe an evocative shot, a piece of music are great ways to wink at the audience and help them recall some nostalgia.  To do them all and do them repeatedly as well as using the same story structure is overkill.  The concept for the film sounded very original on paper except that when it came to the execution of the concept, it was not done from an original perspective.  The script and director places a group of fighters in a hostile jungle territory which is basically exactly the same plot as the original.  Who gives a shit that you're on a different planet if nobody can tell 99% of the time?  Small tweaks and minor variations don't hide the fact that the main plot thread is exactly the same.  PREDATORS not only does a poor job of separating itself from the original but it constantly mimics it's influence which continually begs the audience to compare it to the original.  This is extremely bad news for Antal and company because not only has the audience seen this film before, but it was done far better and was, for it's time, a fresh and inventive take.  This leads me to my biggest problem with PREDATORS...

PICKING BONES  **SPOILERS** 
The way the different races of Predator, or what I'll call the 'Blood Feud Storyline', was handled chapped my fuckin' hide and pissed off a lot fans of the original.  Look, there's nothing wrong with the idea.  However, all of the hype before the film was that PREDATORS was the sequel PREDATOR deserved and that's a fine and dandy opinion but it's a bit crass. Combine that with blatantly copying the original in a multitude of ways and then having an actual storyline that ties an "original" Predator up as captive, while spouting off that these new Predators were stronger, bigger, tougher and badder-ass, and then having your new Predator beat the ever-loving shit out of it and chop it's head off... Well, your heavy-handed metaphor didn't go over a lot of fans heads.  It speaks of an ego problem, especially when the film does not back it up.  To further argue the point: Schwarzenegger's infinitely cooler and tougher group of Special Forces Mercs was taken out by ONE of these things and three of your new and improved Predators couldn't get the job done on their own turf against a ragtag group of fighters who aren't even trained to work together is kind of pathetic in comparison.  Just saying.  Oh, and P.S. - Where the fuck is the gore in this flick?  AVP: REQUIEM had more balls!  I don't need a splatter fest, but when shit goes down, it needs to go down!  Maybe they missed this point from the original?  As well as the suspense?  As well as the simplicity of the thing?  Bottom line, the filmmaker is inferring that PREDATORS is bigger and badder than the original.  Seriously?  I say, "You're ghostin' us motherfucker.  You spout that ego one more time, I'll bleed ya real quiet, leave ya here.  Got That?"  But, I digress...

Lawrence Fishburne as 'Noland' was a fail. Sorry, but if you survived 10 seasons on the Predators game preserve planet, hiding out, killing Predators, surviving, scrounging for food, collecting shit, going batshit nuts - you would not be gelatinous.  You would be cut out of iron and maybe even malnourished.  You'd be fucking scary!  Fishburne's 'Noland' is none of these things.  Though the actor gets the crazy part down, the dangerous aspect is never there.  Also, he gets killed like a bitch.  Poor script strikes again. 

Topher Grace as 'Edwin' the psychopath just doesn't work.  Grace does okay with his comical moments without making things schlocky but lacks the emotional (and possibly acting?) range to pull this character off.  Also, his character turn comes way too late and is as obvious as fake mammories on a senior citizen.  Damn script.

BREAKING BONES  **SPOILERS**
The bug infested alien thing that attempts to run down the Topher is actually based on the original design of the Predator.  Stan Winston came in at the last minute and redesigned the creature into the mandible-faced fuck we all know and love.  Yes, that is rad.


Adrien Brody is spot on as 'Royce' and pretty much makes this movie.  This guy is good in everything.  He trained like a beast for the role, lived in the jungle for a spell and gave up sex in order to "harness ferocity".  The actor states, "I felt I needed to keep away from all distractions and all things that, erm... drain you, if you know what I mean."  Yes, I think we get you... And I don't think I could argue with the results.  

SPLATTER FACTOR  **SPOILERS**
PREDATORS misses the mark here big time.  There's some decent glow in the dark Predator gush, but as far as straight out hardcore levity building blood baths, this film is lacking!  We really could have used some sauce in the 'Hanzo' samurai fight scene for damn sure.  The camera always seemed to pull away when anything too gruesome happened, BTFW, if you're going to rip out someone's spine with their head attached while they're still alive, for fuck's sake show it!!  WTF all day long.

THE KILLSHOT
While very entertaining, PREDATORS struggles to do anything unique.  This is not bad entry into the Predator Franchise in the least; much better than AVP or AVP: REQUIEM.  However, PREDATORS leans far too much on the original and gets caught up in its own formula, failing at creating any type of suspense.  Brody made awesome work of his character and I definitely had fun watching this film, especially the second time around.  That said, I expect more from filmmakers than a by-the-numbers, take it or leave it, entertaining movie, especially when Rodriguez's name is attached.  The original PREDATOR, and PREDATOR 2 as well, had an inventiveness to them that is sorely missing from PREDATORS. Unfortunately Antal's insistence on keeping the same plot-structure and constantly referencing the original, keeps his film predictable and comes off as being too repetitive and unoriginal.  If these types of flicks aren't your cup of tea, then I suggest watching McTiernan's 1987 bowl of awesome, PREDATOR, and leaving it at that.  If Sci-Fi badassery is your thing, you'll definitely enjoy PREDATORS but it won't rip out your spine and put you in a trophy case like it should.

2 comments:

  1. GREAT review! Love reading your work. =)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Awesome review dude! Seriously, you said everything I was thinking about this movie.

    ReplyDelete