I take way too long to get these things finished and by that time I have forgotten all of the cool and witty things that I want to say about the movie I watched (at least that's an excuse that I try to use to cover up for how these are generally not cool and not witty). I also feel the pressure to get something up before I head out to "Inception" and I really shouldn't let these things pile up. In addition, after reading Benjy's post about "Predators" I felt that I needed to throw out a few positive points of the movie to counter balance what appeared to be five fingered slap to Adrien Brody's face. I am starting to wonder if he actually did like the movie or if he just like the scene where a spine is extricated from a body and everything else just got in the way.
So really quickly..."Predators" is everything you would expect from a Predator movie. There are gory fight scenes aplenty and you can play the game of trying to cell who dies next. It's exactly how I thought it would play out. Ensemble cast??? Of course most of them aren't going to make it through the movie...I'm not spoiling anything here...If you don't know it's going to happen then you have not watched any Predator/Alien/Resident Evil/etc. movies. Some of the characters are interesting (see Lawrence Fishburne) and they all have interesting fighting styles that make for some fun fight scenes. And they had enough new stuff in there to make it feel like a unique movie while still being part of a franchise (Who knew that the Predators could use both heat AND sound to target their prey?...Oops...I've said too much!).
I love how some people critique the dialogue of this movie. Anyone who has seen the first "Predator" movie with Arnold knows that it isn't really a dialogue driven plot. I remember sitting at home one night with my roommate and we stumbled upon a Predator marathon on AMC or Space. Anyways...we watched the last half of "Predator" and marveled at the lack of dialogue (although by that time the only character left is Arnold and he is just setting up his trap and building up to the climax of the movie...so it's probably good that he wasn't talking to himself). "Predator 2" comes on, with Danny Glover as the star (I know!!! Danny Glover was apparently an action "star"...who knew???...then came the unfortunate "Operation Dumbo Drop" and so went his career...sigh). Within the first 10 minutes we both came to the realization that there had already been more dialogue in this movie than there was in the entire first "Predator" movie. Plus, all this dialogue was taking away from the Predator shooting laser beams and slicing and dicing lesser cast members. In the case of "Predators", I didn't find that the dialogue added or detracted from the story at all. In my opinion, as long as the characters weren't miming for two hours on screen, that was enough to keep things movie from one fight scene to the next.
There were a few scenes in the movie that were reminiscent some of the scenes from the first movie and they warmed my heart as I remembered back to long bus trips when I got to watch movies like "Predator" without my parents knowing. I am sure you all remember the scene where Arnold is falling off a cliff in a forest into a lake or how he sets up his elaborate trap in the final scene...if you watch this movie you will be reminded of those scenes. But they don't make it obvious so you get to appreciate it after the fact.
I am wondering where the franchise goes from here...In the first movie there was one Predator and he took out everyone except Arnold, who had to use an elaborate jungle trap to overcome the alien. In the second movie, Danny Glover gets the honor of taking out the Predator...but he somehow does it in hand to hand combat. Really??? Danny Glover can take out a predator with his bare hands while Arnold Schwarzenegger needs an entire jungle...Yeah...I believe that! And now "Predators" has a group of these aliens are killed by a band of mercenaries and war heroes essentially identical to the group from the first movie. Are the Predators getting softer? We have gone from Arnold getting rolled by a single intergalactic killer to Adrien Brody kicking multiple Predator asses on a distant planet. What's next?...The cast of High School Musical singing these once ferocious beasts to sleep in an another exciting combination of movie franchises? Maybe they can team up with the Twilight cast and we can get rid of a few of those annoying vampires and werewolves (fingers crossed!!!). They need to be careful because they are losing the fear and mystique that got attached to the Predator from the first movie by slowly eroding their awesomeness in subsequent movies.
In terms of mindless movies...I would say that "Predators" definitely fits the bill. I enjoyed myself and there were plenty of giggling "that's awesome" moments, which I haven't had for the past few weeks. I would agree with Benjy's disappointment with the edited scene from the trailer but if there had been 18 laser beams pointed at Adrien Brody and he somehow got away then the previous paragraph would have been even easier to write. So...let's give it 4 explosions out of 6 epic death scenes...yeah...that sounds about right.
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