The original Predator movie is one my favourite films, which is unusual for me, since it's mostly seen as a big dumb action movie, and as someone who reads way too much into films, I'm not meant to like big dumb action movies. But I love it for a couple of reasons. I think the actual Predator creature is one of the best realised humanoid aliens in cinematic history. One of the key moments in watching films as a kid, and something that made me so obsessed with them, was seeing the Predator unmask in the original film for the first time. I remember thinking 'there's no way it'll look as alien as it should' (yes, I was jaded when it came to films even as a kid), and then was really impressed when there was this lizardy mandibled monster that actually looked convincingly alien. And then it impressed me again in Predator 2 where they, for once, managed to make a creature that was obviously the same species, but convincingly looked like a different person. Not just another gathering of aliens that all looked identical.
But I also loved the way the plot worked. It was clever. It almost works as a subversion of a big dumb action movie. It starts like one, with its own plot and characters (more on that later), but then they get interrupted by something else, and it all goes off the rails and gets very interesting. It also manages to be hilarious at the same time. 'I ain't got time to bleed' has to be one of the worse, and therefore best, macho one liners ever.
I also love Predator 2. But that's a film that has a terrible reputation, and might actually warrant a 'vs. Predator 2' blog one day. Which would at least be a pretty awesome title for a blog.
But unfortunately, both those films are pretty old, and anything that's attempted to capture the Predator as a film concept since has failed miserably. So I started off surprised when Predators started off strongly. Flung into the story in one of the best cold openings I can think of, we join our 'hero' (inverted commas needed for this guy, trust me) plummeting through the sky in free-fall. He's pretty freaked out, and seems to have no idea why he's there. He discovers an alien parachute strapped to him, manages to activate it, and lands, with no clue who 'threw him out of a fucking plane'. He's then joined by various others plummeting out of the sky in the same manner, all complete strangers, and they set about finding why they're there.
They're even a nicely diverse bunch, from all over the planet, so for once they aren't all Americans. That's nice, even if them all speaking English is a stretch. (I suppose you could assume the Predators picked prey that they knew could communicate with each other to make for a better challenge, so I can accept that). And actually, although this section of the film has some oddities (a doctor recognises a plant....on the alien planet) and it commits one of my cardinal action movie sins, for the most part, it's fairly efficient.
For those of you interested, if you're still managing to read this, that cardinal sin is introducing a female character we're told is very strong, independent and dangerous, and then repeatedly making her the incompetent one. In this case, we're introduced to an Israeli sniper who actually seems to be the real hero of the piece (Adrian Brody's character, although written as the hero, is far too self centred and selfish to be considered the hero). The only one with any morales, she's also meant to be one of the 'deadly predators' that were picked for the actual Predators' sport, but in the first part of the movie needs rescuing twice before any Predators even show up. While all the other male characters, even the unarmed ones, obviously handle these threats with no problem. I hate that kind of 'fake feminism' (as I call it). So it loses a point for that.
Other than that, and a few very sketchy infodumps ('this planet is a game preserve, and we're the game' says the main character... having deduced this because an alien dog attacked him... and then the aforementioned Israeli sniper tells everybody about the events of the original Predator, because a top secret US Government mission gone wrong is the type of thing they tell Israel), the opening is strong. There's some nice moments of mystery, the characters are hunted and stalked, and there's a real sense of a story happening.
And then the film begins to fall apart. The characters decide to set up various traps and wait for the Predators to come (they're all very accepting of being hunted by aliens, by the way), and apparently the only reason they have for doing this is because it was a scene from the first movie. Here, it makes no sense. They've already found the corpse of somebody who tried differently, and got a lot closer to the group of Predators (for there's more than one) than most people ever do in these films, but still think they're primitive traps might work. Of course, they don't. And that's where things go really wrong.
Laurence Fishburne turns up as a survivor of this world for what's implied to be years, driven insane and living off scrounged technology. He takes the heroes to his home, on a giant crashed spaceship. Apparently, the Predators never thought to look there for him. In fact, if the Predators parachute their prey in, why is there a crashed spaceship there? Anyway, regardless, things really begin to fall apart plot wise here, and it's not just because we question things like random spaceships. At least Laurence Fishburne is an acceptable source of info dump, as he tells us the Predators pick these people not only for good sport, but to advance their hunting techniques. They return each 'season' with newer, deadlier weapons and techniques. This is the first stumbling block for this movie, since it follows the set pieces of Predator so closely that it means there are no new weapons or techniques for the Predators, completely destroying this plot piece. They don't even use any of the interesting or cool gadgets introduced in Predator 2, since this film seems to ignore that, making them seem dull in comparison.
We're also told there's some sort of feud going down between the new redesigned Predators, and 'smaller' ones, which are the originals (the earlier mentioned mystery is why one of these is imprisoned in the Predators' camp). Not only does this disregard the original movies and the power of the enemies by telling us these new ones are bigger and more powerful (despite technically being shorter; they come in at about 6"7 whereas the original Predator was over seven foot), but it's another case of the film telling not showing. If these are meant to be 'Super Predators' or whatever, they fail to perform spectacularly. Not only do their reduced height and bigger helmets make them vaguely reminiscent of the old 'big head mode' on a video game, they fail to perform as deadly hunters. One is blown up when it stupidly grabs a man armed with explosives, and another is killed in a sword fight (itself ripping off a scene almost shot for shot from the original Predator, before rather than cutting away as the original did, actually showing us the sword fight; it looks about as silly as I always thought it would). But whereas the original films (both include a scene where somebody challenges the Predator to a sword fight and is then killed off screen) were sensible enough to show the Predator winning these confrontations (and both times making the badass swordsmen scream in horror off screen) in this case, the Predator actually loses. And the whole scene, again, only seems to have been put there to 'quote' the moment from the original film.
This would almost work if when later on in the film, the original style Predator escapes, and challenges the surviving new Predator to a scrap. As a 'return of the original badass' moment, this could have really worked, as the old school monster everybody watching this is a fan of kills the new one, and then becomes the real threat. Sadly, their fight is reduced to grabbing each other in man hugs, and, as Carl put it, Swilly head butts, and the classic Predator actually dies making the entire thing pointless. We do get to see the new Predator unmasked however. It looks terrible. As someone who loves the original, as I said before, something I found to be a believable yet horrific alien, this new one is just a case of overdoing everything to make it 'scary'. It even has red eyes!
It kinda looks like a rubbish Cthuthlu, but not a Predator...After that, there's a fairly well executed plot twist for one of the characters, the girl needs rescuing again, and the hero defeats the last surviving Predator with an axe he got from nowhere. Then they're stranded on the planet with nowhere to go, so the movie ends. Yet despite all these flaws, they're not the biggest problem with the movie. It took me a while to realise what was wrong with it, despite Kerry's constant complaints of 'nothing happened', before I realised this actually was the problem.
By that, I don't mean that nothing happened in a movie cram full of set pieces, but moreover, the characters had no plot or motivation beyond what the Predators were doing. One of the great things about both the older Predator films was that they're both actually set up like different types of movies that the Predator is attracted in to. Predator is a cheesy Arnie movie like Commando or something, with characters on a mission that's not quite what it seems, a 'it's a conspiracy' plot twist, a government official you can't trust, and so on into which something new and fearsome is drawn. Predator 2 is a hardboiled cop movie with a 'too old for this shit' cop tackling gang warfare and his interfering bosses into which, again, something new comes. Both movies are like movies on their own that the Predator turns up in. The characters have plot lines, motivations and things to do outside of the attacks of the Predator, and slowly, the Predator takes over the storyline. Both films would make average action movies without the Predator (especially the original, with the awesome 'attack on the enemy camp' scene, complete with moments like pinning somebody to a wall with a machete, and delivering the line 'stick around'). In comparison, Predators is just the 'Predator' part of these films, with none of the set up to pull us into the world, or to make the appearance of the Predator interesting. And that's why it runs out of steam and the film feels like nothing really happened.
In fact, maybe that's the way to go with the franchise. To make films that work as films on their own, then throw a Predator in there. The possibilities are endless! What about a classic teen slasher flick, but the violence attracts something new and even more powerful? And suddenly, the hunted and hunter are hunted by something even worse. Or what about a powerful mob drama set in the 1930s, when suddenly something completely inexplicable and unstoppable shows up? In fact, why stop there? Why not any type of movie? Zombie apocalypse? The dead walk, man kind if pushed to the brink of extinction, every day is a battle as the planet boils... and then there's something else that can't resist that environment...
That's how you do a Predator movie! Quite literally, tagging 'vs. Predator' on to the end of random movies will net you a better Predator film than attempting to make it 'stand alone'. After all, the original Predator is little more than 'Commando vs. Predator', and really, Predator 2 is pretty much 'Lethal Weapon vs. Predator' with the comedy removed. Compared to that, 'Predator vs. More Predator' was always going to be a bit shit.
