Australia's Best Movie Magazine

Film reviews

Chronicle

Let down by its illogical “found footage” approach, this remains an impressively compelling ride, which has more in line with classic storytelling than current fads.

Man On A Ledge

While Worthington doesn’t quite match the talent of his top-notch co-stars, this admittedly implausible but impressively dynamic thriller is exciting stuff.

The Artist

Beautifully made, surprisingly fresh, and there’s no denying its charm, but ultimately, it’s a slight case of style over substance.

Martha Marcy May Marlene

Driven by Elizabeth Olsen’s mesmerising lead performance, this languid and unsettling story buries deep into your mind

search the site

Enter search term:

newsletter

Enter your email address below to receive the weekly Filmink newsletter

Enter search term:

Predators (Film)

by Jack Sargeant | July 05, 2010 16:11 | Edited July 05, 2010 16:12

With impressive visuals and riveting thrills, the latest addition to the franchise is likely to engage both old fans and new audiences.

Moving the action from Earth to an unnamed hunting planet, Predators succeeds in updating the mythology of the first movie while thankfully bypassing the largely forgettable Alien Vs Predator films. Opening with American mercenary Royce (Adrien Brody) plummeting through the air, fumbling with his parachute, it becomes rapidly clear that he has no idea how he has arrived at this predicament. Crashing to the ground he is soon joined by various soldiers and professional killers, including a Mexican gangster (cult actor Danny Trejo), an Israeli sniper (Brazilian actress Alice Braga) and a Yakuza enforcer (Louis Ozawa Changchien), all similarly delivered to their rainforest destination. As what little plot there is develops it becomes clear that all have been abducted and delivered to this alien world to be hunted by a pack of predators.

 

While the first Predator movie was a vehicle for its star and the second didn't make a whole load of sense, Predators foregrounds the action and brooding menace of the bloodthirsty aliens with thankfully little interest in either stars or intertextual gags (like the xenomorph skull seen in the trophy room of the spacecraft in Predator 2). Driven by an ensemble cast, with an amusing cameo from Laurence Fishburne, Predators maintains a velocity throughout as the eight humans are hunted through the jungle by a number of predators.

 

Like his 2003 cult movie Control, Nimrod Antal's tight direction and attention to visual detail enables characters to emerge naturally, and wisely the brief scenes in which the protagonists discuss (god forbid) their ethics and their histories are kept to a bare minimum. The emphasis here is on following their attempts to survive.

 

There is a whole fan culture around the predators, with everything from the alien species' culture and biology emerging in computer games, comics and novels. While Predators doesn't get bogged down in this, there are occasional nods to a wider universe that the alien hunters inhabit. Fans of the genre can enjoy this; knowing the franchise is in good hands, while casual viewers out for science fiction and horror action will find enough thrills here for satisfying viewing.