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.

VALENTINE'S DAY (2010)

2010 saw men's action movie fantasies realised with the the ensemble cast put together for The Expendables. Sly Stallone managed to bring together old school names Dolph Lundgren, Mickey Rourke, Eric Roberts and Jet Li, chuck in Steve Austin, the current hero Jason Statham and then sprinkle in cameos from Arnie and Bruce Willis. Sounded great, and on paper it looked like it would be an action packed, guilty pleasure treat. The problem was that it wasn't. It was all a bit of a mess and not nearly as much fun as it should have been.

I watched Valentine's Day last night (on Valentine's Day of course - I felt guilty for having scared my girlfriend witless with District 9) and realised that 2010 also saw an ensemble cast gathered for the ultimate rom-com. Julia Roberts, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Biel, Jessica Alba and Jennifer Garner are all there. The male quota is filled by Ashton Kutcher, Jamie Foxx, Patrick Dempsey, Bradley Cooper and Topher Grace who I'm sure they all have their tops off at some point. Oh and Kathy Bates for some reason, looking as though she's walked in off the street lost and not believing she's ended up in this film. All of this directed by Garry Marshall. Who else could be entrusted, other than the man responsible for Pretty Woman, The Princess Diaries and The Runaway Bride.



That is quite a cast list, not just in terms of bankability but also in terms of numbers. And there's more than that. This film has as incredible number of characters. So much so that a coherent narrative can't possibly be shoehorned into only 2 hours of film. The action jumps between different strands of the story as we meet all the characters, then revisit them in random order as it all plays out. There's a florist, a doctor, a sports journalist, a woman who does phone sex for a living. I lost track of it all to be honest and it doesn't really matter. None of it's complicated - you can dip in at anytime and know exactly whats happening, all because of the sheer cliche of it all. The other problem is that because of the huge number of people and amount of story lines involved, each tale is only really comprised of 4 or 5 scenes. It's hard enough to say anything meaningful and develop characters in this number of scenes at the best of times, but when the writing is this unimaginative and the acting this wooden, you really don't have a chance. Perhaps if Marshall decided to focus on one, or two at most, of the stories, he might have made a rom-com that didn't lack both romance and comedy.

All the film seems to be is a 2 hour advert for Clinton Cards and high street florists. The trouble is that a 2 hour advert has already been made by the British, only for Christmas instead. You may remember it - it was called Love Actually. It's impossible not to think of Richard Curtis' soppy ode to Christmas in London while watching Valentine's Day. LA is not as iconic and romantic as our capital in the snow and the characters supposedly 'portrayed' by Julia Roberts and co aren't nearly as amusing to watch than Bill Nighy for example.

It didn't offend me as much as Couple's Retreat did though. That film really insulted the intelligence of the viewer by thinking it was funny when it quite clearly wasn't. It had a smugness about it, something that only Vince Vaughn can exude. This film doesn't try to be particularly laugh out loud (when it does, it fails), it's just so schmaltzy....sometimes cringefully so.

I know that all of the above is particularly negative, but the main feeling I had afterwards was complete and utter indifference.  During the film I knew that it was completely rubbish and made me want to vomit, but now I've completely forgotten about it all, just 24 hours after the credits finally rolled.