2 stars (out of four)
I’ve never seen Predator or Predator 2. I’m not sure how these pop culture gems slipped past me all these years – perhaps I spent too much time watching the Alien and Terminator movies instead – but I think I can infer enough from their titles and trailers to know everything I need to approach this film, which thankfully ignores the embarrassing Alien vs. Predator crossover movies in hopes to breathe new life into the franchise.New hope means new blood and Predators begins by introducing a not-so-merry band of murderers and trained killers, led by an American mercenary (Adrian Brody) and an Israeli military woman (Alice Braga), who the camera sometimes catches looking at Brody long enough to suggest attraction, but there’s no time for romance when there are aliens to be killed, and these few shots are all we get of that subplot. The rest of the crew is filled out by a checklist of requisite minorities including a big Russian, a bigger Mexican, a samurai-slinging Asian, and an African who has a habit of starting his sentences with, “In my culture.” I won’t spoil who dies first.
The movie categorizes these characters by race and killing specialty, keeping them one-dimensional because ethnicities are more fun in action movies when a personality doesn’t get in the way of delivering cool lines in broken English. When Topher Grace shows up too in the jungle, they ask him who he is. He responds, “I’m a doctor.” Of course, the funny doctor. Yeah, we could use him too.
There’s a lot of grunting and threatening each other with guns, but the humans eventually realize their commonality: they’re all killers. But why were they dropped into the middle of a jungle? After cycling through a few seasons’-worth of LOST theories in under minute (This is an experiment! This is a dream! This is Hell!), they arrive at the conclusion that they have been brought here for the purpose of being hunted by the More Dangerous Game – those dreadlocked aliens known only as the Predators.
Everything up to this point is pretty tedious and carried out with dialogue that consists of either clichés or inane questions (“Who are you?” “Where are we?” or my personal favorite, “Wanna see something fucked up?”), but it’s just obligatory exposition before the action kicks in. Unfortunately, even the action feels as if it’s going through the motions. We get a lot faux-tension from gun reloading drama – don’t characters realize that when a spiky alien dog is running at them, they’ll always have enough time to reload before shooting it mid-jump? – followed by some post-battle pondering about whether it’d be better to find cover or search for high ground.
While these are hardly transgressions in an action movie, they become too much to bear without a single relatable character in the bunch. The aforementioned killers all have their cool moments, but they’re too flat to generate anything in the way of audience sympathy. When one dies, we shrug it off and get excited for the next action sequence the survivors will find themselves in. Worst of all is Brody’s character, the supposed protagonist who dismisses each death with such callousness we soon despise him when we should be cheering for him. The film seems to expect that we’ll champion his cold heart simply because he’s the first character we meet, but when a character is this morally devoid, I’d just as soon root for the Predators.
There is a glimmer of hope with the introduction of Laurence Fishburne as a military man who, after holding out on the planet for “ten hunting seasons,” has developed some clever survival tactics as well a split personality. His performance is a reminder of the actor’s charisma and in his limited screen time he brings some much-needed humor and intrigue to the movie.
Predators isn’t terribly interested in either, however, preferring to stack the movie with aimless action sequences. The characters are trying to survive and maybe even make it back to Earth, but we never get any idea of how many Predators they’re fighting against, so there’s no sense of their progress. With great difficulty, a few Predators get killed, but the death toll for humans is twice that and the aliens are barely trying. Finally, after all the shooting and stabbing and exploding, the film doesn’t even have the courtesy to end its narrative with a satisfying conclusion. Yes, the ending is a sequel set-up, but judging by who’s left at the end, I can’t say I’m all that interested in investing more time in their struggle for survival.
Somewhere in this film there’s an interesting parable about the inhumanity of violence, and you wouldn’t have to lose any of the action to turn it into one. When Adrian Brody solemnly decides to sacrifice the weaker men in the pack, director Nimród Antal expects us to nod in agreement. He’s just telling it like it is. But when our lead man has no discernible humanity, maybe we are better off rooting for the aliens. If in the mind of Predators, the last mud-slathered man standing is right and all his preceding decisions are irrelevant, then what the hell was the point?
- Steve Avigliano, 7/11/10
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