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Director: Nimród Antal
Genre: Sci-Fi/Action/Thriller/Adventure
Year: 2010

The Predators are back, and this time I do not feel like punting them back to their twisted little planet! Cause–let’s be honest–AVP and AVP 2 were like pushing your forehead to a nail gun and squeezing the trigger. Predator 2 was not that good either but I am such an avid Predator fan that I was willing to look past pretty much everything. At the core, however, Predator will always be a man’s guilty pleasure. Its an alien and it hunts humans for sport. Nothing more exciting than to see the roles reversed and watch us be the hunted. If you have seen Predator and you enjoyed it, this movie will not disappoint. No predator film will ever be an Academy Award recipient, of that I am sure and after watching this movie, I still hold to that statement. But if we are able to look past the expectations a good film must overcome and see it for what it is–a fun, sci-fi, action, summer block buster–then we are golden.

The plot is pleasantly simple and yet still provides us with everything that we need to get this film going and at a breakneck speed off the starting mark. As mercenaries and killers start falling out of the sky, it is clear that there is something not quite right about the situation Royce (Adrien Brody; Love the Hard Way, Splice) finds himself in. Isabelle (Alice Braga; City of God, I Am Legend) points out that the area, the vegetation, the topography is all off and it does not take them very long (though for the audience it might feel like it does take them a while to reach this point conclusively) to realize they are not in Kansas anymore. Soon after angry, quadrupedal, alien hounds come chasing down their asses, they realize, the game has been flipped on them.

Among the group of the chosen are Royce, special ops; Isabelle, elite sniper; Cuchillo (Danny Trejo; Machete), a Mexican cartel mercenary; Stans (Walton Goggins; The Shield), an apologetically unreformed convict; Edwin (Topher Grace; Traffic), a doctor; Nikolai (Oleg Taktarov; The Way), Spetznas; Mombasa (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali; The 4400), a Sierra Leone warrior; and Hanzo (Louis Ozawa Changchien, Pretty to Think So), a Yakuza badass of few words. Together, this varied group of people must band together to survive against a team of predators that have declared the current hunting season open in a planet (or at least a jungle within a planet) that is deemed a hunting preserve. All evidence points to the fact that this has been going on for a long time. All evidence also shows that most prey die quickly and mercilessly.

Predators brings to the screen the joy of the first movie back, with faced paced action and some cleverly worked in humor. The acting is above par, and the feel of the film is respected, bringing it back to it roots and drawing a number of elements form some of the comic book mini-series that I once read as a teen.

While it might satisfy the action sweet tooth, you should go into Predators knowing it is not perfect. There are some plot choices that were a bit questionable and without going into spoilers, I was not very pleased with the unnecessarily complicated direction in which they took the character of Edwin. There are moments that make you wonder why certain things were not realized a bit earlier–highly trained killers that they are. There is also a ‘pregnant woman’ moment. Remember the second movie, where the Predator spares Maria Conchita Alonzo’s life because she is pregnant? It was a moment that showed the honor the Predators put into the hunt. This movie has such a moment when one of the hunters faces Hanzo on the Yakuza assassin’s own terms rather than his own and while some people might roll an eye at it, I thought it was once again representative of the type of hunters that the Predators are. There is also a few hints tossed into the different types of Predators out there and though they only mention two types–the warriors and the hunters–and pits them against each other (something I was unaware of in the original material but which might be accurate) there is certainly room here for a sequel.

All in all, this is the Predator return to form with a thrilling climactic fight and lots of glowing green blood. It is an enjoyable and fun film to watch even if it is not the brainiest of summer films–that will most likely end up being Inception.

Rating: I really love Predators and I am holding back adding in an additional star out of pure fandom geekiness. On the other side of the coin, if this is not your cup of tea, I can see how one might rank this 3.5 out of 5 instead.

Comments: Violence and language as is to be expected from a Predator film.
Quote: Royce: This planet is a game reserve. And we’re the game.