Predators (2010)

Quite similar to the original Predator, only with less muscle…

The Story:

Royce (Adrien Brody), a mercenary, reluctantly leads a group of elite warriors who come to realize they’ve been brought together on an alien planet… as prey. With the notable exception of a disgraced physician, they are all cold-blooded killers — mercenaries, Yakuza, convicts, death squad members.

In earth, those people are the hunter, which each has the ability to kill without conscience. In short, they are the human “predators”. But when dropped in the middle of a jungle on alien planet, they become the prey, who’re trying to survive from being eliminated by a new breed of alien Predators.

Release Date: July 9, 2010 (wide)
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Directed by: Nimród Antal (Vacancy, Armored)
Starring: Adrien Brody, Laurence Fishburne, Topher Grace, Alice Braga, Danny Trejo
Budget: $40,000,000
Gross Revenue: $126,248,813 (worldwide), $52,000,688 (US)

Reviews:

If you already watched the original Predator (1987) movie, you won’t finding a difficulty to imagine what’s this movie all about. It uses the exact same formula as its predecessor. The plot is about a group of chosen men dropped into a jungle and being hunted by an alien specimen. If in Predator the event took place on Central America, in Predators (2010) the game is set on an unknown galaxy, even if the jungle doesn’t felt like on an alien planet at all.

The hero character, Royce (played by Adrien Brody), has a slightly different personality than Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yes, he is obviously less hunky, but he also has a dark background and more egocentric that he feels that he won’t need anybody’s help in order to survive from the beast. It’s hard to imagine an Oscar winner for his role as a skinny war-victim (in The Pianist) can turn himself into a cold-blooded warrior, but Adrien Brody managed that pretty well.

While for the other characters, as usual they only appear on the screen to be slaughtered by the enemy, without much proportions to develop their role.  That’s actually a pity, considering that this movie is filled by big names from Hollywood, namely Topher Grace (Spiderman 3), Danny Trejo (Machete), Alice Braga (I am Legend), and Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix trilogy).

One thing is bugging me after watching Predators, how come a 2010 movie can’t looked much better than a 1987 film? The action scenes are ordinary, and nothing special from the special effects either. It also obviously lack of suspense, and you probably can guess who will be the last survivors since the beginning of the movie.  I even prefer the background set in original Predator, the jungle looks much more natural in that movie. In case you didn’t know, the visual effect of Predator (1987) also nominated for Academy Awards.

Nevertheless, this movie is obviously for an entertainment purpose only. Watch it, get entertain, and then forget it.

My Rating: B-
IMDb user rating: 6.7/10
Rotten Tomatoes meter: 64%
Metacritic: 51/100
Yahoo! critics: C+
Yahoo! users: B+
Your Ratings: (2 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)
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