As per my promise to review the movies I see in theatres, I start with Predators, starring Adrien Brody plus several unknown actors since all the action movie stars were busy making the Expendables.
Category: Pulp Action Science Fiction
Premise: A group of elite warriors are dropped into an unknown location and are hunted by members of a merciless alien race known as Predators. That pretty much sums it up.
Zer(o)verview:
Since all the A-List action stars were too busy huffing steroids working on The Expendables to do any other films, the director of Predators was faced with the no doubt difficult task of hiring a group of B-List action stars and unknown actors to play a group of elite, no-holds-barred warriors, chief of which is a man who goes unnamed until the very last scene in the movie (Spoiler Alert: His name is Royce) played by Adrien Brody, who avid movie watchers may know recently for his role as Clive in the 2010 indie film, Splice.
Well, Brody decided to man up and grow a pair after getting pushed around by Elsa all the time, and he's pretty ripped in this movie. To be honest though, it's kind of hard to take Adrien Brody seriously as an action hero after seeing him so recently in a film like Splice. That's not to say he doesn't do a good job. He stays committed to his character, the lone wolf mercenary who quickly adapts and knows his way out of every situation. As much as it sounds like I'm heckling him, I actually enjoyed his portrayal of the character.
Laurence Fishburne is in the movie for all of 10-15 minutes, so don't get too excited about seeing Morpheus kick Predator ass like I was. I was pretty disappointed about that. His character was kind of an unnecessary segway from the introduction to the climax build-up, but it was kind of cool to see Morpheus even crazier then the Matrix made him. Overall, I was pretty disappointed that he didn't get more screen time though.
Other actors include Danny Trejo, who plays "The Mexican (Seriously, I don't think I ever heard his name); Alice Braga (Remember her from I Am Legend? Neither did I until my roommate mentioned it. Shoutout to Matt Fenelon.) stars as "The Girl" (Again, you don't hear her name until the last scene of the movie; SPOILER ALERT: It's Isabelle); and Topher Grace, as in Topher Grace from That 70's Show, stars as "The Doctor", the only one of the elite warrior group that isn't actually a warrior. His character gets more interesting after the short Fishburne segway, but isn't built up as much as it could've been.
In fact, that kinda sums up the whole movie. I enjoyed it as a B-level action movie, but I feel like they could've made it more then a fight-run-repeat, especially with the potential for character backstories. And if you're only gonna throw Fishburne in there for 10 minutes, make the damn thing into a TV show instead of a movie so I can at least see him for 3-4 episodes. FFS.
Actually, yeah! Directors, if you're reading this, this would've been a fantastic TV show. You could've developed characters, made the Predator threat more suspenseful rather then in your face, and done a whole lot more with the "Game Preserve Planet" concept.
Pitch it as the new Lost! Actually, a girl I went to see it with said the initial scene in the movie made her feel like she was watching Lost. (Shoutout to Olga Lembersky for that one.)
Overall, Predators was much better then the sequels to the original, but the original was way better. I was definitely worth the $5 I paid to see it, and it was a pretty good B-level action movie. But again, TV SHOW WOULD'VE MADE BILLIONS IN MY OPINION.
GROUND ZERO: The girls I went to see it with (sans Emma and Dana Needham since I didn't hear their opinions) hated it, but the guys pretty much loved it (especially the Yakuza). Don't bring a date, but then again, I'd hope you know what to expect when you walk into a theatre to see a Predator movie. You're there to see Predators kill people. And they do.
3 out of 5. (TV Show probably would've been 5 out of 5. DO YOU HEAR ME NBC, CBS AND ABC?)
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