Do you dare go toe-to-toe with PREDATORS (2010)?

Posted by Michael Thielvoldt

Dir. Nimród Antal
Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar, 7/8/2010, 7:30

[Warning: CONTAINS SPOILERS!]

Predators doesn’t waste any time getting straight into the action. Though it does not begin en media res, it surely begins “in the middle of things.” The film opens on a free falling Adrien Brody who, after waking from unconsciousness, pounds at the beeping, glowing, Iron Man-esque medallion on his chest in hopes that it will release his parachute. It does, but just barely, as the camo-clad Brody tears through thick canopy, landing with a bassy thud on the jungle floor. The film’s title card flashes across the screen: “PREDATORS.”

For those of you who are fans of the original film, you may very well enjoy this picture. It is not nearly as fleshed out in terms of plot development, as the first film. But it does deliver on plenty of key conventions of the first film. There are various scenes of violence among and between the predators and the heavily-equipped group of human badasses constantly shifting the roles of predators and prey. Predators also takes advantage of Alan Silvestri’s percussive score from the original installment, while introducing original music by John Debney that slides in seamlessly along side it. If you were able to stomach Predator 2 (1990), you should adore this latest installment, though the plot development of this sequel doesn’t even live up to the oft-denigrated first sequel.

The gang, or what’s left of them

Brody scurries to his feet, no worse for wear, after his fall. Another body soon follows, landing with a similarly hard thud, introducing the sniper rifle-toting Isabelle, played by Alice Braga. We are quickly introduced to the rest of the motley band of killers: Russian military man Nikolai (Oleg Taktarov), a throwback to Bill Duke’s Mac with his minigun and a heavy trigger finger; Danny Trejo double-fists twin Heckler & Koch MP5K’s as Cuchillo, the Mexican cartel enforcer; Mombasa (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali) is a member of a Sierra Leone death squad and favors an AKS-47; the suit-wearing Yakuza, Hanzo (Louis Ozawa Changchien), relies on the more compact Baretta; and, finally, when the bullets and pulse blasts star ripping through air and flesh alike, the death row inmate Stans unsheathes his prison shank?

Then there is Edwin, played by Topher Grace. Edwin, who claims to be a doctor, is introduced, stuck in a tree and screaming for someone to help him. He is not one of the calm, cool killers that comprise the rest of the gang. Instead, he is whiny, helpless, and unarmed. Surely there is more to Edwin than meets the eye. This is no spoiler, as anyone who knows anything about film and/or character development should be immediately suspicious of a character like Edwin. Brody’s character Royce spells it out in the first few minutes of the film when he tells Isabella that Edwin doesn’t belong.

Edwin is one of the big flaws of this film. He works as little more than a plot device, his naïveté luring the other members of the group into dangerous situations and providing a few moments of comedic levity. Of course there is a none-too-surprising revelation at the climax that shifts spectators’ understandings of Edwin. But, without revealing too much, I must simply say there is no reason for Edwin to be in this film. His plot progressing role as an initiator of danger could just have easily been serviced by the many traps laid by the predators, as it does in other parts of the film, and the minimally-armed Stans, is already positioned as a possible—even superior—comedic outlet. Edwin’s character twist near the film’s end is anticlimactic, anything but surprising, and too ephemeral to earn a place in this script.

You don’t need bulging muscles if you sport a big enough gun.

Brody, on the other hand, works well as the trim, but convincing American-born mercenary Royce. I was skeptical of the wiry actor’s abilities to fill a hard body action hero role. But Brody put on a few pounds, a hulking gun, and a jaded demeanor to transform into a fitting successor to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Dutch. Predator fans will also be pleased with the addition of a new species of predator that avoids the rather hokey quality of the Alien/Predator hybrid created at the end of Alien vs. Predator (2004) as well as a dog-like creature the predators use to flush out their prey.

The film is not void of entertainment, though clearly there are major flaws in the forms of underdeveloped plot and characters. I hesitate to recommend this movie to the general pool of filmgoers, but fans of the franchise as well as violence-seeking, teenaged boys and girls will probably enjoy it.

One of Predators’ new predators and his dog.