PREDATORS (2010 - Cert 15)

During my recent, and admittedly overdue, post about Attack the Block I referred to cinema reaching back for the sensibilities that made certain films 20 or 30 years ago so special and trying to recapture that magic. As well as that there has also been a less sophisticated move to do this that has involved either remaking films of this era, 'rebooting' or just simply making a very belated sequel. These releases have had varied degrees of success but one that sparked the most interest in me was Robert Rodriguez's Predators.



I had after all, like most people my age, a real soft spot for the first film. Arnie against an alien with a horrible mouth, dreadlocks and an arsenal of the most ridiculous weapons you could imagine. It was also pumped full of testosterone and channelled a lot of the energy, as well as having the same jungle setting, of Vietnam war films that were around at the same time. What was not to love. Then the obligatory sequel came with the unlikely hero of Danny Glover riding on the crest of Lethal Weapon success and shifting the setting to the city of Los Angeles against the backdrop of a war on drugs. It never really hit the heights of the first film but it still had plenty in it to enjoy, loads of carnage and an interesting ending (including a nod towards the Alien films and sparking rumours of an Alien vs Predator film), all in all enough to suggest that Predator could be a franchise with legs.

That was 20 years ago, and apart from two poor Alien vs Predator films that don't really deserve considering, there was no sign of our favourite extra-terrestrial mercenary. That is until last year when the third film finally arrived, some 15 years later than planned. Apparently, Rodriguez's idea for the film had been first put together back in 1994, which would obviously have better time to release the film as the series would have had momentum. They then had to wait until nostalgia was the en vogue theme in cinema to get it released, and you can't help but feel that the film didn't really need to be made.....

This is mostly down to it's mediocrity (perhaps I'm being too kind with that word). Alarm bells started gong off when I discovered it wasn't actually a Rodriguez film, despite everyone calling it his project. He is only the producer, in fact he doesn't even have a writing credit despite him apparently writing the script back in 1994.

It starts interestingly enough. A load of strangers wake up plummeting to the ground with a parachute strapped to their backs, with no knowledge of how they got where they are. It's not a bad cast, including Adrien Brody growling his way through a very un-Adrien Brody film,  Topher Grace, Rodriduez regular Danny Trejo and Alice Braga. They are all nasty pieces of work with violent histories and tendencies - they have clearly been chosen for something....it's not a spoiler to let you know that they are on an alien planet that is effectively a reserve where the Predators do their hunting. It's a very B-movie set up, which shouldn't be necessarily seen as a negative, that gets everything in place for what should be a violent, monster, action romp. Well, I suspect that was the plan anyway.

The opening segment really attempts to build the tension, you don't see anything for the opening half an hour at least, and I must admit that the slow build up does work. Well it would have worked had what followed been worthy of a tense build up. Instead it's a complete mess. While there are one or two good ideas, including predator dogs that we haven't seen before, it seems that very little thought has been put into the big action reveal of the predators and Nimrod Antal, the inexperienced director (and it shows) Rodriguez put into place, adopts a kitchen sink approach, chuck enough at it and some of it must stick. People die in a flood of gore but you're never really sure what's going on, like being really drunk in a nightclub on the dancefloor. Things rushing around you, no point of reference to help you.

What follows only gets messier and more tedious. The script attempts to give the characters arcs of development which only serve to make me yawn and the bitty action even more fragmented, we get a fairly good cameo from Laurence Fishburne as a clearly mental long time inhabitant of the Predator's game reserve,  but any joy there quickly subsides, we then get a load of scenes that are muddled together that seem to be the result of a brainstorming session of things Predators fans want to see including a samurai sword fight between a Yakuza gangster and a Predator that is completely derivative of Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and is devoid of any tension or atmosphere whatsoever, much like the rest of the film.

Apparently the reason this film didn't get off the ground back in 1994 was because the studio said that the budget would be too high. This is ironic because it doesn't appear as though this film has a budget at all. Everything looks cheap. The physical effects look like they have been put together by Anthea Turner with cardboard and sellotape and the CGI effects are only a slight improvement on something you can do on photoshop. I'm not being a snob but I wonder where the budget of $40m went, especially when you consider what was achieved with £8m on Attack the Block.

The film fumbles along to a conclusion that I didn't care about at all, in fact I'm not even sure what happened at the end, that's how instantly forgettable it was.

So, to conclude, as if my opinion was ever in doubt, this film did not need to be made. Predator dogs and Laurence Fishburne being a bit mad are hardly enough to make a film worthwhile. What could have been an opportunity to try and do something interesting and fresh with a monster-movie icon has been completely mis-handled. It should have felt fresh, but it feels tired and worn. The decision to make the planet a jungle landscape thus making it look like the first film may have been an attempt to recreate what made it special, instead it just comes across as lazy and thoughtless.

A huge disappointment.