Review - Predators

Predators (2010), R, 106 minutes - I've been a little torn over the past couple of months leading up to this week's release of Predators. When I had first heard that another installment in franchise was going to be made (and produced by Robert Rodriguez) I was pretty excited. Then I saw the first teaser trailer and my hopes dropped as it was obvious that Adrien Brody was going to be the primary character. It wasn't that I don't like Brody as an actor, I just don't think 'alpha dog, ex-military badass' when I hear his name. That feeling sort of wore off as I began to get excited about the fact that Predators was getting back to the basics of the original classic: following a group of elite killers through the jungle as they faced off with this alien race of superior hunters.

Predators opens with Adrien Brody and a handful of other extremely dangerous individuals being air dropped into a jungle in an undisclosed location. There's an initial 'getting to know you phase' amongst this group that is relatively entertaining. It is during this exchange when my worries about Brody's character disappeared. He stepped up right away and took charge, wanting to 'find out who threw me out of a fucking plane'. Alice Braga (I Am Legend) becomes the default 2nd in command and the rest of the group is comprised of Walter Goggins, Topher Grace, Oleg Taktarov, Danny Trejo, Louis Ozawa Changchien, and Mahershalalhashbaz Ali. They eventually meet up with a survivor from a previous drop who has gone crazy as he has survived on his own for quite some time (Laurence Fishburne).

The plot is pretty basic - the Predators have collected some of Earth's deadliest humans and dropped them on another planet that they use as a game preserve for hunting. They hunt/kill and learn and adapt from their experiences. As always, the human story becomes survival of the fittest. There are a couple story point references to the original Predator that help connect this installment to the existing franchise continuity that I enjoyed.

Predators is, in my opinion, the best installment to either of the Predator or Alien franchises in quite some time. The Alien vs Predator films were a complete letdown so it was nice to see Predator get a decent treatment.

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