Check out this guest review/post from Ant. Ant is a long time MTR supporter who has decided to share his review with the MTR fans. Share your thoughts in the comments section-Rich
Tonight, I watched Predator for the first time in a couple of years. I forgot that it wasn’t just a meat head action movie. It was a mystery film action movie with a perfect amount of pacing. The first thing you see is something fly past Earth and something drop out of it towards Earth. A safe bet would be that something alien came to Earth. Immediately after that we get a light-hearted entrance into a very human scenario which is very Rambo like. This goes on for a good deal of time while we learn about the human characters and see that something horrible is happening. You almost forget that glimpse of something alien in the beginning and become drawn into the mystery of the horrors. You don’t even see the alien monster that is hunting our main characters one by one until 3/4 of the way through, and from then on its go time and you don’t get enough of the alien’s in your face killing spree.
After that came the second movie which was pretty much just a typical action movie with really bad acting and a poorly chosen cast. The only thing Predator 2 brought to the table was more details on the Predator species (the fact that there’s more than one, that they have been doing this throughout our history, that there’s different classes, that they have an honor code, etc). Predators comes along and completely ignores that film by every means. Many fans consider Predator 2 to be an embarrassment, and I guess it could still be considered canon but Predators makes absolutely no reference to it in dialog or design. In fact, one of my very few complaints with Predators is that, while the new tech and toys are definitely amazing, I would’ve liked to have seen some of the toys from Predator 2 (the smart disc and the spear).
Predators is essentially the long-awaited sequel to Predator that casts off Predator 2 as a mistake. This isn’t the first time this idea came along, but it’s definitely the best sequel-skipping-sequel I think I’ve ever seen. It takes the formula of the first film and does it again, but with enough changes to make it a worthy sequel. With so many movies doing unneeded sequels, reboots, remakes, releases, and retarded rejects, this just feels right. Like it feeds the hunger for more that you thought you were getting with Predator two and the abysmal AvP films. Don’t get me wrong, I loved everything that had Predators in it in their own ways, but Predator was the only one to really set it off right and really make you go WTF. Everything else was “Ooo look what he did” while Predator was like “Oh my god, what the hell is that?” Predators mixes both. You get a retread of the mystery you experienced in the first film, dealing with an ample amount of time with the human characters before you even see one of the aliens and when you do it’s go time, and you can’t get enough. After the mystery is revealed, you get pretty much nonstop action from that point on.
One thing this film does that Predator didn’t do was leave a little more mystery even after the alien shroud is revealed. You get a little more mystery with the human characters this time around. One character in particular is pretty much unexplained through the whole movie until the ending, as he’s like a tag-along character the whole way through (I’ll just call him Dr. Venom). The ending also was a change in the formula. Many reviews pan the ending as sloppy, while I think that it just makes me hungrier for more. All I can say is it leaves room for a sequel that is more direct than this film (IE, it doesn’t take place 23 years later, but could take place immediately afterward).
There is a decent amount of well-placed comic relief, many many generous nods to the original (one of the characters is almost an exact copy of the original with good reason), and even story exposition that refers directly to the original. This story has been worked on for years (well over a decade I believe) and it shows. There is a lot of old-fashioned technique to set it aside from any of the crapematic celluloid garbage we’ve been fed. The digital effects are put to a minimum (only really used when absolutely necessary), the costumes and their designs are superb, and the characters themselves are each different and likable/dislikable, unlike many other films with forgettable garbage (what was the pregnant chick’s name in Predator 2? Or Danny Glover’s character name, nonetheless? Who was the main character of AvP? Which character did we care about in AvP:R?).
The action in the film is great not only because it was filmed in ways that we can actually discern what’s going on (I’m looking at you, Michael Bay), but because everything that happened had a reason. Shit wasn’t just done to look cool. You had traps set by the Predators, traps set by other people, attack dogs sent in in the same way hunters actually would, attack methods that make sense when you’re dealing with the situations the movie put you in… Well, except for one scene which, while kinda cool, didn’t really need to be there (main point: Mr. Yakuza-Guy). Christ this review is hard to do with the rule that I can’t really spoil anything…
Anyway, this review is long enough. All in all, there were a shit load of hoots and hollers, a couple good laughs (It’s 5:00. You’ll know when you see it), and a lot of Oh My Gods. There was more than enough to satisfy me as a fan. There was more than enough nods to the original to go around (C’MON KILL ME! DO IT NOW!) This could’ve just been another Predator movie where they were in the jungle on Earth, a retread of the first film. This could’ve been another Concrete Jungle style film, like Predator 2. There could’ve even been nods to the Aliens franchise (like in the game Predator: Concrete Jungle). There was none of that. This was put on an alien world with just enough to make it familiar to Predator fans (jungles) but also enough alien world to set it aside as something new and different.
All in all as a Predator fan I give this a 9/10. As an outsider, if I was an outsider, I’d give it the same score since it’s NOT your typical modern action film and it’s paced and given enough time with good enough actors and a story with enough time and care to really make this stand apart. Go see this movie, you really won’t be disappointed.
