Predators

Taken from their homes and summarily dropped onto an alien world a group of strangers must come together to overcome the universes most elite hunters, the Predators. Will this rag tag group overcome their own mistrust of each other or will they be slaughtered like animals by the Predators?

What I Liked:
This is a bombastic and chaotic film which features my favorite of universe spanning hunters, the Predator. I have loved the Predators since I was a kid and everything I remember from the first film is here. They turn invisible, they kick butt, they are still ugly as sin so yes it is the same Predators that I grew up with. This film has several shout outs to previous films, books, and comics which have been expanding the Predator world since 1984, even the original film is referenced directly by one of the main characters which really helped sell the film for me. As par the course there is plenty of violence and plenty of blood and lots of Predator on human violence.

What I Didn't Like:
However that is not to say that this is a good quality made film. One of the first things you will notice is a lack of continuity control. Actors looking once direction will be looking the opposite way in the next shot, one moment they will have out their gun the next they are picking their nose and so on. These issues continue on as the group travels through the jungle trying to get to safety, or is it the woods? The characters cross over way to many locales, starting in a jungle, then woods, a mountainside spaceship, a volcano of some sort (ash in the air), then they travel through grasslands back to the jungles where it all started. All if this occurs in the course of maybe two full days and our characters are on foot. Sure the days are apparently longer but no one seems to notice it or mention it aside from a one liner about how it hasn't moved. Oh and since we are on the topic of the sky how is it that the main character notices that the sun hasn't moved but fails to notice the three new planets and crushed moon hanging along side it? Yes the reveal of the alien sky is definitely cool but it occurs almost right after the line about he sun. Overall the script and the execution is severely underdone, with to many fanboy moments and not enough meat for newer audiences. The main character seems to know everything about literally everything and his emotions and relations are all over the place making his character even more unbelievable than the Predators that are trying to kill him. He is a loner, who is a leader, a guardian who leaves people to die, a hard hearted, cold stone killer with a soft, cuddly heart. It's enough to make you dizzy when he flip flops around so much. Both his character and the film would have benefited greatly if the writer had bothered to give the other actors some lines and one of the many personalities found in the main. Everything we learn we learn from him, even the vagrant crazy man, who has managed to live on the planet for years, provides less information. I see no reason for the other actors except to become fodder for gruesome deaths. The script is an abomination of testosterone and suffers from some terrible one liners. The bad writing, coupled with the overly bombastic score effectively erases any of the tense atmosphere that the film is trying to create.

In Conclusion:
This is not a great film, but then again you do not go to watch a Predator film expecting greatness. Does that excuse the films weaknesses? No. There is a vast depository of information that has expanded the Predator storylines and while the comics and books are not great, some are still very good. The potential for good storytelling is there and had the script been vetted or worked on a little more it could have achieved this, but it was to overly concerned with referencing itself than telling a compelling story. The characters are forgettable, the story unique only because of its premise. There was a point where the characters do a head count and come up one person short, for the life of me I could not figure out who was missing until his body was found. Characters die left and right and I don't know their name nor care about the characters and that is bad storytelling at its highest. Predator fans have no doubt seen this film by now and most seem to have enjoyed it and it is enjoyable to those familiar with the previous ventures, everyone else should wait for the rental.