My Favourite Movies: Predators

My regular readers will know that I am a fan of both the Alien and Predator movies despite the rather patchy nature of both. So it should come as little surprise that I both saw and liked this movie too. Billed as ‘the sequel the original deserves’ this tells the story of a half-dozen or so mostly military types who wake up to find themselves falling through cloud. As their chutes open they discover they are about to hit the jungle with quite a thump. It’s not long before they realise that they’re not on Earth anymore and that something is hunting them. They need to band together to figure out exactly what is going on and how to survive against unknown and unseen Predators.

That’s basically the story – basic. In many ways this is a homage to the original film complete with an almost exact copy of the original soundtrack. In the Arnie role is Adrien Brody as a hard-case mercenary who only cares for his own life. Brody actually isn’t bad. I hadn’t seen him in much of anything before so I was fairly impressed. More impressive, for a number of reasons, was Alice Braga who provided one more back-link to the original film by recalling the Arnold mission and what happened to his team – both adding suspense and bringing anyone who hadn’t seen the original up to speed. I recognised her immediately but had to check on IMdb to remember where I’d seen her before: City of God, I am Legend and Repo Men. The other expendable cast member who caught my eye was Louis Ozawa Changchien who played a Yakuza equally at home with a gun or a sword. Rather inevitably he does indeed come across an original Samurai sword and uses it with great effect against one of the Predators. Of course I have to mention the rather strange appearance, again in more ways than one, of one of my favourite actors Lawrence Fishburn who plays a survivor of a previous abduction/hunt. Quite insane he preys on anyone unlucky enough to come into contact with him but serves as a useful plot device as he fills everyone in on what’s really going on.

Whilst not exactly a work of art this is a highly entertaining addition to the Predator movie franchise. Robert Rodriguez, the director, is obviously a fan of the original movie and has tried to stay true to the spirit of the original idea – except for the rather glaring inclusion of the idea of the existence of two distinct types of Predator explained as the equivalent of dogs and wolves, basically big Predators and even bigger Predators. It’s all rather odd and, in my mind, rather unnecessary. But that aside if you enjoyed the original you’ll certainly enjoy this. I did.