Predators

***** Four Stars Out of Five


When I was a young, impressionable boy, at the tender age of four, I experienced a movie that changed my life. My older brother exposed me to Predator, a movie that involved six commandos - including some of the manliest men to ever walk God's green earth like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Apollo Creed himself, Carl Weathers - going into Guatemala to fuck some bad dudes up. The premise was standard action fare for the time, but there was a unique spin to the traditional story - they were hunted by an alien with technology far beyond our wildest dreams, and a penchant for taking souvenirs from his human trophies.

As the years wore on, Predator became one of my most-rented movies (up there with Desperado, which is funny for reasons I'll explain later). It seemed as though every fourth weekend at Blockbuster involved me snatching up Predator along with some other movies that I can't remember today. I drifted away from the movie until my senior year of high school, when I rediscovered it after a Mountain Dew-fueled evening at a friend's house. We watched the film and concluded that it was, indeed, the Manliest Movie Ever Made. Now that I'm 25, that decision still stands. There are more oiled-up biceps, murders, bad-ass weapons with nicknames like "Old Painless," and testosterone in that movie than any film should legally be allowed to have. There are some of the best lines a man could ever hope to speak, such as, "Stick Around!" "I ain't got time to bleed," "GET TO THE CHOPPAH!!!" "If it bleeds, we can kill it," and my personal favorite (a line that would be etched on my tombstone if my future wife would allow it): "A bunch of slack-jawed faggots! This shit'll make you a goddamn sexual tyrannosaurus, just like me!" It is a stone-cold fucking classic, and I am not being hyperbolic when I say that.

Sadly, the Predator franchise hasn't had a great go of it on celluloid over the past 20 years. In 1990, Predator 2 was released, and it replaced Arnie with Danny Glover in the lead. Stop to take that in for a minute. Danny. Fucking. Glover. Now, Danny's not a pussy or anything, but Arnie he ain't. The movie did a decent enough job of expanding on the mythology of the Predators, but it certainly left a lot to be desired. Then, in 2004, after a 14 year hiatus, the Predator co-starred in AVP: Alien Vs. Predator, an absolute shit-fest that makes my blood boil. Gone were the slick, stealthy Predators of past movies who were on the hunt for humans, the greatest of all game. In their stead were roided-up Preds who looked more like WWF wrestlers than virile hunters. Fans were outraged by this, and in 2007, AVP-R: Aliens Vs. Predator Requiem was released. While it wasn't as bad as AVP, it was still a pretty fucking miserable excuse for a movie. Instead of being a smart, manly thriller, it was instead a bargain-bin slasher flick with Aliens and Predators taking over the role of Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees. The franchise seemed ready to die an unjust death at the hands of confused filmmakers and stupid screenwriters.

Then, a miracle happened. Robert Rodriguez, the writer/director of such cinematic achievements as Desperado (see, it's funny that my other most-watched movie as a kid was directed by the guy who would go on to redeem a favorite franchise of mine), Sin City, Planet Terror, and From Dusk Till Dawn (which, in fairness, was scripted by Quentin Tarantino), was approached by Fox to produce a script he'd written in 1994 - which was, at the time, deemed to expensive to film - and he immediately agreed. With Rodriguez attached to produce, my hopes immediately sky-rocketed. He brought in Nimrod Antal to direct, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Predators opens up with Royce (a super-beefed up Adrian Brody), a mercenary for hire and former black ops badass, free-falling towards the ground. As he tries to remember how he got there, and what he's doing in the middle of the jungle, he meets up with six other similarly confused, equally well-equipped (save for two) people. Here's a quick rundown of the six characters: Isabelle - an Israeli sniper, Edwin (Topher Grace) - an American doctor, Cuchillo (Danny Trejo, a Rodriguez favorite) - a cartel assassin, Mombassa - an African death squad soldier, Stans - an American serial killer, Hanzo - a Yakuza gangster, and Nikolai - a Russian soldier. It doesn't take long for the seven individuals to realize that they're on an alien planet that is similar to Earth, and they are being hunted by something. They have all been chosen because of their exceptional talents in killing, except for Edwin, who seems awfully out of place among these hardened killers. They have to try to survive long enough to figure out what they're dealing with, and find a way back to Earth. It's a simple plot, and the simplicity works exceedingly well given the movie's central focus on the Predators and their hunting ways.

Movies like this often tend to lose their way and forget that they're made primarily to entertain. Predators is not that type of movie. Instead of sitting around and waxing intellectual and philosophical about their killing ways, the characters quickly understand the gravity of the situation, and are aware of the threat they are dealing with. Rodriguez and Antal simply did a tremendous job of making the Predators not only relevant again, but threatening again. Antal pulls a Spielberg on us by withholding the Predators from view for as long as possible, allowing the suspense to build before letting us see the creatures up close. I was surprised at how badly I wanted to see the Predators, considering I've seen them numerous times over the years. Their reveal is an awesome sequence that will have fans of the franchise smiling gleefully like I did.

Another great thing about the movie is how the Predators' mythology is presented. Through witty dialogue and the Predators' actions, we learn more about them and how proud as a species they are. The hunters adapt and evolve, so much so that the Predators we see here are significantly more dangerous than the ones we've seen in the past. There is a great sequence near the end of the movie which shows how the Predators view dying in battle, or for the hunt, much like the Samurai or Spartans did. They believe in dying an honorable death, and they never back away from a fight. It is an interesting juxtaposition, as it is easy to view them as cowards, since they tend to hide in the camouflage and use weaponry far superior to the game they so vigorously hunt. I did love to see the expansion of their trophy-taking, and their methods got pretty gruesome at times.

I would be remiss as a critic (and I use that term tenuously) if I didn't mention Adrian Brody. The dude got fucking jacked for his role as Royce, and he looks and acts as if he might actually be able to take down a seven-foot tall alien. He wisely avoids the camp and manliness of Arnie's Dutch, and he instead opts for a quiet, calculating man simply trying to survive. I was also happy with Topher Grace's performance as Edwin. I kind of hate Topher Grace - he was abysmal as Venom in Spider-Man 3, and he is, to me, like the male Cameron Diaz; he doesn't do anything to make me hate him, but I do, and every time I see him, I just want to punch him in the face - but he did a good job of lightening the mood throughout the film with various quips and funny moments of pitch black comedy. The rest of the cast does a great job, too, and it was nice to see killers from all over the world and different backgrounds stuck together to try and survive. Danny Trejo's extended cameo was great, as his presence in, well, anything is always welcome. His role as Cuchillo was a nice little primer for his big project Machete, which re-teams him (again) with Robert Rodriguez.

Really, I don't have many complaints about the movie. There were a few pacing problems early on, but I think that was mostly on me because I wanted to see the Predators so badly. On repeat viewings, I don't think it will bother me as much, and it will allow me to focus on all of the little Easter eggs that Antal and Rodriguez littered throughout the film. I sincerely hope that this movie does good at the box office, so Antal and Rodriguez can return for a sequel. They did such a great job of bringing a childhood favorite back to life, and they paid tribute to a classic of the genre without stepping on its' toes or simply emulating what we've seen before. In lesser hands, this would have been a glorified remake, but instead we're given a continuation of a story that started 23 years ago. It's a shame that it took so long for someone to get it right, but I guess I'll take the cliched route and say that all good things come to those who wait (unless you're a Cleveland sports fan... Fuck you, Lebron!). Predators was most assuredly worth the wait.