Predator is one of those movies that sits so firmly in my pantheon of favorite films that, despite having seen it dozens upon dozens of times, I will still gladly watch it again any day of the week at any time. I’m always in the mood for some Predator. When it comes to its sequels, however, I had actually only seen Predator 2 until very recently. I certainly wasn’t avoiding the sequels; I just was not interested enough to seek them out. I saw the third movie in the franchise on Hulu just a few nights ago, however, and I finally had the time and motivation to see it for myself.

Pros

Premise is pretty solid even if it’s an excuse to use archetypes for the characters
Feels like an homage to the original in some good ways
Lots of practical effects to counter CGI
Some action scenes are pretty good
Pacing is reasonable and the film is not too long

Cons

Feels like an homage to the original in some not-so-good ways
Odd or poor choices with particular characters and moments
Never fully understood the Predator culture power-dynamic

Plot & Thoughts

A man whom we eventually come to know as Royce (Adrien Brody) wakes up to a shocking surprise: he’s falling from the sky, miles in the air. His parachute opens and he hits the ground of a foreign jungle with only enough time to situate himself and his weapons before he encounters another random person who just experienced the same thing. They all have two things in common: they don’t know how or why they got there and they’re all professional killers. It doesn’t take long before more people of their ilk show up and they go on a journey through the dense jungle to find out where they are. Of course, if you are familiar with the Predator franchise, you know that these killers were selected for the primary purpose of hunting. The Predators are hunting the humans, among other alien game, and it doesn’t take long for the characters to figure that out.

When it comes to Predators, I could put this movie in a Fair or Foul review category, because I think it’s half-good. For every good quality it has, I could point out a flaw or counterpoint. Some of the characters are actually pretty smart (most of the time), which is a good trait to have in a horror movie. Unfortunately, they’re all still pretty one-dimensional. For every badass line of dialogue, there’s something stupid said to counteract it. For all the action scenes and intense moments, it rarely feels like much progress is being made by the characters towards anything meaningful in the plot. Even though I like hearing the classic music from the original film’s score and seeing not-so-subtle nods to the original film, Predators lacks much of its own identity. It feels like a fan film in both the right and wrong ways.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed Predators, for the most part. I’m a big enough fan that my biases push the film into Fair territory. It’s not that there haven’t been Predator films that I don’t like, but I think Predators does just enough to work out. It’s not too long, it doesn’t wear out its welcome, it has some decent action scenes, the premise fits with the franchise, and the acting from some of the cast is pretty solid all around. For instance, while I’ve seen Adrien Brody play many different characters than what he is here, I think he does a convincing job and manages to hold the film together better than I expected.

With all the praise out of the way, there were a few moments that I didn’t care for at all. Some of which made the film feel rushed or incomplete. In some cases, it was as though they didn’t know what to do with a certain character or they needed to kill one off quickly, so they just tossed the script on the floor and improvised the solution. For example, there’s an eccentric character introduced late into the film who is far more interesting than anyone else. Rather than make him stick around to the end and add more color to the scenes, they give him a character motivation that comes out of nowhere. This motivation almost immediately backfires on him, and the character is quickly removed from the story. He was with us for so little time, why have him there at all? His role is similar to that of the random family from Logan: break up the action and give some time to slow down the pace of the film. They could have done more with him than that, but maybe they didn’t have the budget for him to be in the film more. Or, maybe the writers couldn’t figure out a way to get the team back into a dangerous situation without having the character do a heel turn, I don’t know.

Another example of this sort of odd use of a character to progress the plot is with one who is actually there for the entire film: the doctor, Edwin (Topher Grace). He’s a character who seems out of place among the killers who were all dropped in this jungle as prey and the movie quickly calls it to your attention with some dialogue about how he doesn’t fit in with the rest of them. There are plenty of clues about him throughout the rest of the film that give away why he’s there, so it’s not a big secret, but I’ll refrain from saying what it is. The reason I bring him up, however, is that when his secret is finally revealed, it doesn’t really serve much of a purpose other than a little extra tension for about three minutes. In addition, the choices he as a character makes during these moments, don’t really make sense. He acts like he has the upper hand when he really doesn’t and never has during the entire movie. It’s completely illogical, no matter how you look at it—if he wanted to survive, he wouldn’t do what he does during the revealing moments of his character. It’s just an example of a writer thinking they got a cool twist for the movie and they need to put it out there, but they couldn’t come up with a better way of utilizing it.

There are other, briefer moments where characters act spontaneously in stupid ways that seem odd or just go against common sense, just so a Predator can show up out of nowhere and cause trouble. There’s even a scene towards the end in which a character, who is already debilitated in some way gets further injured by a spike going through their shoulder, but then nothing really happens with that. No drama about removing it or anything. So why do it? I definitely asked that question multiple times while I watched the film and the list of questions like it goes on and on.

TL;DR (Conclusion)

Comparing it to the original film of the franchise, Predators is a somewhat weak sequel and a far cry from the near perfection of the ‘87 classic. However, just judging it on its own, it’s a fun, simple action movie with some cool sets and special effects. Predators is filled with dumb moments where it seems like the writing fell apart, they ran out of time, or they ran out of money and they just had to make something up on the spot. Yet, it doesn’t ever feel like a boring failure of a film either. Keep your expectations low, and you might have a good time.

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