The Unseen Movie Review Predators

By Robert Dixter Jul 9, 2010, 15:52 GMT

Predators, a bold new chapter in the Predator universe.  Follows a group of human mercenaries, Yakuza, convicts, death squad members - human "predators" that are now systemically hunted and eliminated by a new breed of alien Predators. ...more

The true mark of success in Hollywood is not being able to command $20 million up front or being able to marry Brian Austin Green but having the clout to produce genre specific films that you don’t have to direct. How many times have people lent their names to get movies made? Tom Cruise did it after watching Narc to get it a wider release, Michael Bay remakes old horror films under his Platinum Dunes banner, and now Robert Rodriguez has started producing other films as well.

The weird thing about this is that Robert still produces with Elizabeth Avellan who was his wife for 18 years until he left her for Rose McGowan. I wonder what those budget meetings are like, “Well Robert we could afford the extra CG effects if you hadn’t stepped out on me and our five children with that little tramp. Oh, and you know Marilyn Manson slept with her, right?”

Robert’s new production is Predators a sequel of sorts to the classic Predator starring two about-to-be governors, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura. This time around the humans are being hunted by the Predators on their planet. The film sounds exactly like Surviving the Game from 1994 with Ice-T except instead of being hunted by aliens Ice-T was hunted by people for sport. More recently Ice has become known for his clever Twitter responses to Aimee Mann. Why that man never accepted a Lipton endorsement I’ll never know.

The reason the first Predator worked was because it was the eighties and we liked our movies to star guys who had not mastered the English language but made up for it in the size of their biceps and the amount of oil and fake sweat they slather on their bodies. Think back to Predator, and aside from the great one liners “I ain’t got time to bleed”, the plot was pretty scarce. But that’s what action films were in the eighties, big, loud and dumb, and why not? We wore leg warmers for chrissakes. Isn’t that the point of pants? To keep our legs warn? Predator 2 was even worse. Who told Danny Glover that he could be an action star? Huh? It wasn’t me.

So now the Predators are back but this time they have home field advantage, and the weird thing is the film looks pretty good. The reason the trailer works is because the filmmakers do not try and cast a new Arnold with muscles so big he could crack an egg using his butt cheeks. In fact, they go the exact opposite route and put Adrien Brody and Topher Grace in the film. These two guys are known more for hanging around the library and protecting their pockets from pens than for slaying weird aliens who are trying to kill them. But that’s what makes the film appealing. We’ve seen the brawn and muscles, now give us smart and clever on top of the action.

The plot in the film seems pretty standard and has been done before but with this new geek is chic approach, I’m actually curious to see the film. This summer has been in need of some good action and I think Predators might finally be delivering it.