Predators

2010, cert: 15, running time: 106 mins
Director: Nimród Antal
Actors: Adrien Brody, Alice Braga and Laurence Fishburne

Very very very bad Jim.

It seems I have been rather slack in my blogging... I was determined that my blog was not going to go the way of 99.99% of all blogs* and be abandoned after a few posts. Dammit.

Well, consider the blog revived and to kick off this new season, Predators. Now, I do like a good action film, particularly if it has Arnie in it. Sadly this doesn't have Arnie, and to be honest isn't really very good either. The obvious parallels between Alien & Aliens and Predator & Predators have been drawn, and Predators will most likely be found wanting. Budget wise (always important in an action bonanza - just how many helicopters are going to explode?) it is reported at costing around $40 million US, which seems comparable to Aliens' $18 million US in 1986 when adjusting for inflation and so on.

Aliens took what was essentially a horror film (Alien) and made it into an all action thriller. Unfortunately Predators has taken a horror/action classic and made it into the same horror/action format on an alien planet and without any horror. And less gore too.

The basic idea is that there is a group of people (supposedly all bad ass killers) dropped into an unfamiliar jungle that turns out to be an alien planet. Then it turns out they're being hunted by something But what could it be? (at this point you're thinking, "I know!") Maybe its some sort of test? ("Nope, it's Predators.") Maybe we're in hell!? ("Nope, definitely Predators.") I think we're being hunted! ("Yes, by Predators, dumbasses.") They were testing us! ("Just get to the bit with the f*!king Predators already, there's supposed to be lots!!") You knew what that thing was! ("P.R.E.D.A.T.O.R.") Sadly, despite a pretty full on beginning, it takes loads of really obvious build up before we meet not actually that many Predators. I suppose Predators are really very bad-ass so twenty of them would have just been unfair, but why not have 300 Predators against a whole army of Persians and then... Oh wait. Still, would've been cool.

Adrien Brody's Tough Guy TM routine (that's actually what his character's called for most of the film) was OK but was never going to live up to the man mountain that is Schwarzenegger, and the rest of them are pretty obvious stereotypes. Slight kudos to the filmmakers for not killing the black dude first, but there really isn't much interesting about them (apart from the fact they're all murderous bastards) so you don't like any of them anyway. Plus there should have been more of Lawrence Fishburne's almighty gurning nut-job character.

All in all it's OK. It's got nothing on Predator. It's much better than the God-awful AvP franchise. Nothing you haven't seen before, particularly if you've seen Predator

*Real statistics are likely to be completely different from the ones I've just made up on the spot