{"id":1236,"date":"2024-07-23T03:53:18","date_gmt":"2024-07-23T03:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=1236"},"modified":"2024-10-14T01:00:31","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T05:00:31","slug":"predators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/07\/23\/predators\/","title":{"rendered":"Predators"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Predators<\/strong> (2010)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 20th Century Fox\/Sci-Fi-Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 107 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, strong violence and gore, frightening creatures)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Nimrod Antal\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Alex Litvak and Michael Finch\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Debney and Alan Silvestri\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Gyula Pados\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: July 9, 2012 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Adrian Brody, Topher Grace, Alice Braga, Walton Goggins, Danny Trejo, Oleg Taktarov, Louis Ozawa Changchien, Mahershala Ali, Laurence Fishburne.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $52 million (US)\/$127.2 million (World)<\/p>\n

Rating:<\/strong> ***<\/p>\n

It’s been twenty years since the last solo Predator movie and in that time, they’ve twice faced off against a particularly nasty species of aliens. Perhaps you’re familiar with them; they’ve been the bane of a certain woman’s existence for over 200 years.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In Predators<\/strong>, the titular creatures fly solo once again in their war against mankind. It opens with a man (Brody, The Pianist) free falling from the sky towards the jungle. Thanks to the last minute deployment of his parachute, he lands safely. He\u2019s soon joined by several others- Chuchillo (Trejo, Machete), Isabelle (Braga, I Am Legend), Nikolai (Taktarov, Bad Boys II), Stans (Goggins, The Hateful Eight), Mombasa (Ali, Moonlight), Hanzo (Changchien, TV\u2019s Jack Ryan) and Edwin (Grace, That 70s Show). They have no idea where they are or why they\u2019re there. All they know is that they\u2019ve all been chosen for something.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The unidentified de facto leader of the group deduces two things: (1) they\u2019re not on Earth anymore and (2) they\u2019re being hunted. Why? It turns out they\u2019re all connected to violent organizations- U.S. Special Ops, a Mexican drug cartel, Israeli Defense Forces, Spetsnaz, Death Row inmate, Revolutionary United Front and the Yakuza. Okay, but what\u2019s Edwin doing there? He\u2019s just a mild-mannered doctor…. or is he? As for who\u2019s hunting them, I think you can deduce that yourself.<\/p>\n

\u00a0At one point, the group encounters a mysterious hermit (Fishburne, The Matrix), a former soldier who has survived on the planet for several years and knows a few things about the alien hunters. He gives his guests the rundown on the Predators. He explains there\u2019s an ongoing blood feud between two classes of the aliens, the (regular) Predators and Super Predators. Also, the planet they\u2019re on is a game reserve for the vicious extra-terrestrials to hone their hunting skills. Of course, all those years of complete solitude have affected the hermit\u2019s mind. He often carries on conversations with an invisible person. Ultimately, he loses it completely and tries to kill everybody.<\/p>\n

\u00a0For the most part, Predators<\/strong> is a decent sci-fi-action flick. Directed by Nimrod Antal (Vacancy), it has lots of action, lots of violence, some pretty cool effects and a capable cast. \u00a0I say capable because it pales in comparison to the lineups in the 1987 original and 1990 sequel (still the best ones!). Brody is a good actor, but he\u2019s no Schwarzenegger (or Glover for that matter). Trejo gets too little screen time, but makes the most of it anyway. Braga plays a convincing tough chick. It\u2019s weird to see Topher Grace in an action movie, but you\u2019ll understand why he\u2019s around once he reveals his secret.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The creature effects by Howard Berger and Greg Nicotero are pretty good mainly because they wisely choose to remain faithful to Stan Winston’s original design. Unfortunately, the CGI effects in Predators<\/strong> isn\u2019t all that good. It takes something way from the experience. I wasn\u2019t filled with the same sense of excitement I felt watching the original Predator for the first time back in \u201987. Furthermore, the characters simply aren’t as interesting either. They’re more like cardboard cut-outs, each with a single defining characteristic. None of them are particularly memorable.<\/p>\n

\u00a0BTW, I feel I must point out that the series’ trademark line “You’re one ugly motherf***er.” is nowhere to be found here. WHAT?! That’s like a Die Hard movie without Bruce Willis saying “Yippee-ki-yay, motherf***er.” It\u2019s a glaring omission to be sure.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I never expected Predators <\/strong>to measure up to the awesomeness of Predator. I didn\u2019t even expect it to measure up to Predator 2. If taken on its own terms, it’s a reasonably entertaining B-movie. I\u2019d expect nothing less from co-producer Robert Rodriguez (Grindhouse). It\u2019s what I call a matinee movie. It goes back to one of the most important lessons I ever learned from my father. He imparted these words of wisdom to teenage Movie Guy 24\/7: \u201cSee the matinee. It\u2019s cheaper and the same damn movie you\u2019d see at night.\u201d Those are wise words indeed and true in this particular case. Predators<\/strong> is ideal Saturday afternoon entertainment. It\u2019s good, but I wouldn\u2019t want to pay full price to see it.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Predators (2010)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 20th Century Fox\/Sci-Fi-Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 107 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, strong violence and gore, frightening creatures)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Nimrod Antal\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Alex Litvak and Michael Finch\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: John Debney and Alan Silvestri\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Gyula Pados\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: July 9, 2012 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Adrian Brody, Topher Grace, Alice Braga, Walton Goggins, Danny Trejo, Oleg Taktarov, Louis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure","category-sci-fi-fantasy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Predators-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1236"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1875,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236\/revisions\/1875"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}