The next stop for the dreadlocked deliverer of doom was a date with Danny Glover in Predator 2. This oft-underrated sequel brings verve to the Predator mythos by taking the fight to the city streets of America. A solid franchise was thus born with the strength of quality on its side.
The tried and true formula of the first films was not to last, however, as Hollywood’s hankering for commercialism was soon to take hold. Adopting a Universal Monster approach, the Xenomorph from the popular Alien series was brought on board for an extraterrestrial showdown. The decision was a poor one. The Alien vs. Predator films (AVP, AVPR) proved to be nothing more that a collection of unimaginative action set pieces. The Predator legacy had been undone.
Now Rich Rodriguez (Desperado, Sin City, Planet Terror) has come to salvage the ship by revisiting the past, literally. It was his original 1996 script for a Predator sequel that caught the eye of a Fox exec. The project was given the green light with Rodriguez at the creative controls and relative newcomer Nimrod Antal in the director’s chair. The duo’s first order of business was to ensure that the new addition, entitled Predators, was an old-school jungle affair.
The new film remains generally faithful to the original as a collection of military badasses and ruthless murderers are mysteriously dropped into a strange rain forest. As the motley assortment of killers struggles to coexist, they soon find out that they have assumed the role of prey.
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| Adrien Brody tries to figure out how he wound up in this film. |
This is where Predators’ cloaking gear begins to malfunction and we all discover its true identity: a tepid thriller virtually devoid of suspense. Predators never asks to be anything more than an accessible romp in the jungle. It sacrifices characterization and unique plot advances to offer what you would expect from a big-budget summer escapade. It is shame because the characters of the original were treated as a vital piece of the storyline. And when one really thinks about it, aren’t these two films, Predator and Predators, structured exactly the same? The similarities are too countless to discount. What separates the two is that one relishes its characters while the other simply directs them to the Predator’s trophy case.
Speaking of Predators, could someone explain where they are hiding this new Rodriguez/Antal production? Are they cloaked for the majority of the film? It is only until the end of the picture that the audience gets a modest dose of the famous alien. The Predator certainly warrants more face/mandible time.
Star and Academy Award-Winner Adrien Brody (The Pianist, The Darjeeling Limited) does well in Predators and does what he can with the dreary dialogue. That is not to say that his gruff, tough guy speak doesn’t seem forced at times. The rest of the team basically falls embarrassingly flat and never comes close to the charisma exuded by Schwarzenegger’s original band of misfits. It makes you realize exactly how good Jesse Ventura, Carl Weathers, and the like actually were. We all knew that they were being dropped into a meat grinder, but we connected and laughed with them before the jungle came alive.