Genre: Action | Sci-Fi
Starring: Adrien Brody, Alice Braga and Topher Grace | Director: Nimród Antal
Predator returned away from the Alien crossover movies and back to the main story which began in 1987 and this time, the predators are back in their original territory, the jungle of Central America.
The main story continues with a group of strangers being released into the jungle in Guatemala, Central America with no idea how they ended up there. They begin to work together in order to survive as they quickly learn they are part of a vicious game, and are not alone.
The return of the Predator’s original environment was enjoyable after seeing the creature in urban areas that clearly did not work well. The Predator is back, using his camouflage ability to stalk his prey as they make their way through vast amounts of green wasteland. The characters are introduced immediately to the audience, the same way they are introduced to each other, by landing in the same environment. The viewers are thrown into the situation alongside these characters, with the same knowledge and information as them. This jungle however, did slightly miss the feel of 1987’s ‘Predator‘ and instead, veered more towards a Hunger Games-esque atmosphere, especially when the characters refer to their situation as “a game”.
Oleg Taktarov starring as Nikolai in ‘Predators (2010)’
Although we do have the first, strong female lead within the Predator’s main story, all the characters aren’t particularly likable. Even though the point is for the viewers to dislike these characters, the reason for the lack of likability is not for the right reasons. Instead of disliking them in terms of their past actions back home, in which they slowly describe to their peers throughout the movie, the audience is left disliking a few members of the cast due to their lack of character, bad script and poor acting.
The story within ‘Predators‘ is a fresh take on the franchise, but sadly, was not well executed. Potential for a good story line can be seen at the start of this movie, when both the audience and characters are unaware of the reason for their presence within this dangerous environment full of alien beings. But unfortunately, they brought a slow, lifeless adventure that struggled to fill it’s screen time. Action screens were immensely dragged out instead of filling the audience with the reasoning behind why these characters are actually there. This left the story with a feeling of being unfinished and never explained.
Walton Goggins, Alice Braga, Oleg Taktarov and Adrien Brody all star in 2010’s ‘Predators’
With most of the ‘Predator‘ movies, the final act is usually where these movies do best; this one however, did not. The final act feels like a massive rip off of the 1987’s first installment ‘Predator‘ which made the creators of this film seem extremely lazy in the fact they couldn’t come up with their own ideas and the attempt at a plot twist sadly fell short.
Even though this modern installment of Predator did look better in terms of the use of camera shots that worked well in terms of seeing the characters and environment, making the film a lot more bearable that ‘Alien vs Predator – Requiem‘, the plot moved extremely slow and quite frankly, didn’t have anything to say in the end. This is a franchise that has tried for years to get it right but it’s safe to say, Predator (1987) still sits firmly at the top of the rankings and shows no signs of being outdone.
- ‘Predators‘ is available on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital Download.
