Predators (2010)

[Chicane-UK Veteran]

Contains spoilers!

I have to open my review by saying I'm a real fan of the original movie. It just was a great action movie, made so memorable by the ego-fuelled stars and the great build up to the eventual reveal of the menacing Predator.

The news of a Robert Rodriguez reboot of Predator carried mixed feelings for me. Was pleased that it was getting another airing and that it would lean more towards the original than films like AVP. However I was worried just what would happen to one of my favourite films.

I went along to see Predators last night and, sadly, it was not an entirely positive experience. I'll get the few good points out of the way first:

* A pretty interesting idea for a story and easy enough to see how it is a reworking of a 1994 sequel script which got canned.

* Really nicely shot and was shown on a stunningly sharp screen in my local cinema - looked as sharp as my Sony TV with Blu-Ray, just many times bigger :)

* Lots of nods to the original film...

The downsides?

* TOO MANY nods to the original film. Like, endlessly. Loads of lines copied, characters copied (the Yakuza guy stripping to the waist, to engage in blade to blade combat with the Predator was just a reimagining of Billy from the original film) - it just drove me crazy. When we came to the final climatic scene and Adrian Brody had covered himself in mud, was holding a torch and shouting "Do it! Kill me now!" I was just totally lost and uninterested. I wanted something new with a few nods back to the original - not a fricking carbon copy.

* Irritatingly inconclusive ending.

* Adrian Brody as the lead just didn't work for me. He may have buffed up for the role but I just flat out didn't believe he was a mercenary or spec ops kinda guy. The stupid husky growling voice and totally un-menacing one liners only served to make me more and more angry as the film went on..

* The doctor character was just pointless & crap.

* Some dubious special effects. Overall pretty good, but one or two shockers.

I think I made the mistake of setting my expectations too high. I heard some good reviews, the trailer looked tempting enough. So I thought we were on to a winner. As a result, I left the cinema feeling pretty disappointed.

5/10.

[Pygmy_Hippo]

Totally agree. Saw it last week and it was a bag full of meh. It wasn't content to be it's own film, all the good bits were scene for scene rips from the first movie, but with less iconic characters.

[Tech Star]

I saw it last Sunday and I thought it was ok. Definitely no where nearly as good as the original.

The doctor character thing was VERY random and maybe the story could have done without it. The ending also set itself up for a sequel, which kinda was expected.

Overall it was a good watch, A LOT better than the recent AVP crap we got. 6.5/10.

[Fish]

On the whole, I really enjoyed the movie. I'm a big fan of the franchise, and for me the film delivered everything that I wanted to see in a Predator movie. I liked the homages. A friend of mine disagrees, and reckons they were trying too hard, but for me it worked well. The doctor character was weak, almost to the point of being superfluous. The action and special effects were good, and film was well paced. Fatty Fishburne played a good role, and I would of liked to of seen more of him.

If you're a fan, you'll love it. If not, don't bother.

8/10

[Razorwing]

I actually saw this opening day. I loved it as a Predator/Alien fan . The Doctor was really useless imo. I thought they brought him in for another reason. Oh well.. 7/10 for me.

[Hurmoth]

It was okay. I felt like the slow pace to the film was suppose to build tension in the audience, but it didn't work for me, so I felt bored 90% of the film and loved 10% of the film.

6 out of 10 for me

[Ayepecks]

Pretty good movie. It seemed to follow the pacing of the original pretty well, and obviously had a lot of homages to it. I didn't like the concept as much as the original (the whole "these guys were hand-picked to fight" thing), but it was entertaining. Definitely the most faithful sequel or inclusion of Predator yet. It was alright. Nothing spectacular.

3/5

[ichi]

* TOO MANY nods to the original film. Like, endlessly. Loads of lines copied, characters copied (the Yakuza guy stripping to the waist, to engage in blade to blade combat with the Predator was just a reimagining of Billy from the original film) - it just drove me crazy. When we came to the final climatic scene and Adrian Brody had covered himself in mud, was holding a torch and shouting "Do it! Kill me now!" I was just totally lost and uninterested. I wanted something new with a few nods back to the original - not a fricking carbon copy.

Agreed. It sometimes seems to be trying too hard to be like the first movie.

Well, it obviously isn't, and all those nods do nothing but remarking that you are basically watching the same thing again only that worse, and it's a pity because Predators has some new interesting elements in it and could have been far more enjoyable if they had focused on building on that rather than going again and again back to stuff from Predator.

* Irritatingly inconclusive ending.

There's also something annoying about that:

Fishburne says he has been there for 10 hunting seasons, which makes you think he has been there for a long time. Then when the movie ends you see they are already dropping more boxes, so turns out he could have actually been there just for a few days :blink:

I went to this movie with low expectations so I kinda enjoyed it, but it's half-assed. It has some decent plot elements but fails miserably at exploiting them.

Characters had potential as well (even while it was painfully obvious that all they were copies of those in the original movie), but again they failed at developing them. Out of the whole pack only the inmate was somewhat interesting (and Trejo, to some extent).

Then just to top it all,

the final battle between Brody and the predator is stupid. It's not just that it's a copy of that of Arnie, but Brody wastes most of the time hitting the only part of the predator that is protected by a piece of armor. And then when the predator switches his vision mode to see Brody's heartbeats, the director somehow thinks that the heartbeat sound isn't enough of a clue and feels the need to also show Brody's chest for a while... hey Robert I didn't get it yet, could you please draw a dotted line from predator's helmet to Brody's heart? And also Brody could say "oh crap, he's seeing my heartbeats!!? Because, you know, people watching your movie are stupid :rolleyes:

.

[J_R_G]

I didn't like this movie at first, but it's growing on me each time I watch it. Got the blu-ray and it looks splendid. I'd give it 8/10.

[bruNo_]

Just watched it.

Mmm.. what I have to say? Too much dialogues compared to original Predator.

And of course, Arnold kicked Predator's ass so much better than Royce.

[Nick H. Supervisor]

Overall I think Rodriguez did a great job. The way he explained his thought process when creating it (he said that he looked at the things that Predator did right, the things that Predator 2 did wrong, and he completely disregarded the AvP series) certainly seemed to show in the film. I agree, there were moments where the "homage" to the original seemed to be blatant carbon copies, but overall this was a film that held the same values as the first Predator: a solid fun film without requiring too much thought.

7/10

[ahmz]

I thought this movie was going to be bad, but I was pleasantly surprised as it provided solid entertainment.

7/10.

[Lqv2015]

If you're a big fan of the original & love the franchise, you'll hate this movie. But for a simple, fun action film, it'll keep you entertain for an hour and a half. Not the best and not the worst.

5/10

[Lqv2015]

BTW Robert Rodriguez didn't direct this movie. Nimr?d Antal did. RR was the producer.