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I say everything except for Adrian Broady will be good

He's actually OK.

He's one of the main characters so most of the movie revolves around him, and he pulls off the character very well.
The smaller (at least you think they will be at the start) characters even do well with the time they have.... except the guy at the start who comes between the first 2 characters... tehehe.

Awesome...that was all the answers I could possibly need. Now to go see it myself...and then come the recriminations for you guys if I hate it!

some people may enjoy his acting, I know I did in the Pianist, however all I see when I look at him in predators is a scraggly jewish holocaust survivor that now has the misfortune of being hunted by alien super predators lol. Now Arnold, that was a champion we could take pride in!

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:... except the guy at the start who comes between the first 2 characters... tehehe.

Some people hit the ground running. Some don't.

I hope this is good. I love the first movie, and rank it up there with Die Hard and Aliens as the all time great meatheaded action movies. The sequel is okay in parts, but really just shows how hard it is to make a good meatheaded action movie. The AvP movies are horrible.

I might try and catch this this weekend. Fingers crossed.

Before I see the film, I must know if there are any ludicrously horrific deaths (like the head-rip in the new AvP game). You can't have a Predator movie without horrific deaths.

Spine rip outs. Yes.

After reading everyone's impressions here, I'm starting to really look forward to this film.

Emperors Faithful wrote:Spine rip outs. Yes.

Sweet!

Cheese Elemental wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:Spine rip outs. Yes

Sweet!

I'm definitely going to see this one now.

With a day to reflect, I have to say that the biggest problem with this film is that it's hollow. Let me explain:

1. Not on Earth.
The revelation that they're not on Earth but on an alien planet comes far too early into the film. From that moment on the situation is hopeless, making most of the films actions (and especially the deaths) seem pointless. If they're on an alien world in an endless jungle... why bother? The alien planet revelation should have been the last thing in the film - something that turns the story on its end and makes you rethink the entire narrative.

2. The Music, Part 1.
I saw that Alan Silvestri wasn't doing the score for this one, and I was disappointed. But then I saw that despite that, he was credited with the main Predator theme - ok, cool, so it's like Don Davis doing the music in Jurassic Park III rather than John Williams. It's new music, but it takes its queues from the original film. But it's not. There are parts of the original Predator score in this film verbatim, taken out of the context of the original and just left there, almost as if they took the original soundtrack and just tried to find the right bits to insert it.

3. The Music, Part 2.
Films often have temp tracks for the score, where they have synthesised versions of tracks that will eventually be recorded (check the second Gladiator soundtrack for a good example of that), or music from other films that is approximately what the composer wants to put in there while he's writing his own. The music in Predator, except the end (where it changes dramatically) feels like the old sound track slapped onto the new film and is just begging to be replaced with something more contemporary.

4. The Music, Part 3.
Predator was a film from the 1980's. It has synthesiser beats and grandiose over-produced horn & string sections. It's a great soundtrack, but it's dated. Movies (we'd imagine) have progressed since then, and while I mean that as no slight towards Silvestri's work (I really do like the score in Predator) you cannot expect to make that score work now. They only 'advance' the main theme makes is during the closing credits, where the synth beats and ticks are replaced by heavy-distortion electric guitars. Sure, it's cool, but it's too obvious. It'd be like re-doing the original Transformers cartoon but replacing Stan Bush's 'You've got the Touch' with a cover by Metallica. Would it be bad - probably not - but it would lack originality.

There have been a number of movies out this year with big scores, and the only really good one so far is Harry Gregson William's score from Prince of Persia (and I didn't even like that film...).

5. Plot vs Narrative.
A plot is a sequence of events. A narrative is the thing that ties those events together. Even if we ignore the hopelessness of their situation due to the far-too-early reveal of it not being earth, the movie is like a kid learning to drive on a manual - the shifts in gears from 'action scene' to 'talky plot development scene' are almost audible, and it makes the plot's progression rather erratic, like that same kid accelerating awkwardly as he's not sure how much to let the clutch out, so he's bunny-hopping his way from fight scene to dialogue scene and so on. To extend the metaphor the car never stalls, but it's badly driven. The car's components are working in the correct order, but the person at the wheel is using them poorly.

6. Danny Trejo.
Seriously, you get him to play a Mexican Kill Squad Drug Lord and you kill him off in the first ten minutes? That's just not fair.

7. Billy... I mean the Yakuza Guy!
He does what Billy does. I'm not making that up. He gets a blade, he silently falls behind without question, and then takes the Predator in a one-on-one, sacrificing himself in the process. Sure he wins the fight, and the audiences reaction (including mine) to that was equal parts shock and appreciation, but he's just this movie's Billy - an ethnic 'other' to be killed. It wasn't an homage, it was a direct fething copy. And that brings me too...

8. Predators is a work of fan fiction.
It is. The whole movie is as if it were written by me 12 years ago during my heavy 'I love Alien so I'm going to write a novel!' phase. That's not to shun fan fiction - there's as much really good fan fiction as there is really really terrible fan fiction - but this film just felt like someone who loved the balls off Predator and wanted to do his own version, but had to change it enough to make sure it wasn't the same film (even if the entire finale is the same damned film, from Billy-Chan's sacrifice to Muddy-Pianist using fire to distract the Predator).


I'm just left thinking "Now what?" with this film. If the movie had ended with the revelation that it was another planet, then the continuation is obvious. Oh wow! They're not on Earth, what will they do next? Will they escape? Can they escape? But it didn't take that risk - it spelled everything out for you from the word go, left nothing to the subtext (other than Topher Grace's character, who I really liked), and leaves you... empty. Hollow. I mean, it even had a scene where the girl explains what a Predator is FFS!

Some films take their audience for granted, assuming that they have a lot of assumed knowledge. This films treats you like you've never heard of a Predator film and while yes, the first one was from nearly 25-30 years ago (or just about), Predators are still in the social consciousness, even if it is just from the God-awful AVP films.

A Predator sequel has always been a risky proposition as it's hard to do it without just making the same film again with different characters. Predator 2 certainly wasn't as good as the original, but at least it made it different - different setting, different plot, different style. Predators isn't different. It's a bunch of - I won't say clichéd characters (other than Danny Trejo, but he created his cliché, so it's ok) - but let's just say that they're not deep by any means, and throws them into a different setting with 'more Predators' being the only significant narrative difference.

Yay? Do we want to see that? And where does it go from there? Can it go anywhere from there without just being a rehash ie. the Pianist and the non-really-Jewish girl find a new group of survivors and carry on as before!!!

And, actually, that's another point - what are the names of the characters?

Alien. Aliens. Predator. What do these movies have in common? You can name everybody in them. You know who each crew member/soldier/etc. is, by look, character archetype (however 1-dimensional or underdeveloped they may be in some cases), and you care when they bite the big one. Who wasn't shocked when Frost got toasted at the start of Aliens? He was a main character up until that point, and suddenly bam, he's gone, just like that. Alien 3? Name the characters in that film. Go. Come on. Just try. Now I liked Alien 3 - I liked the Director's Cut even more - but try and name them, really! You can't! And that is one of the film's biggest failings. Even Alien Resurrection, which was gak, had nameable people (Hillard, Elgyn, Vriess, Purvis, Christy, Call, and so on).

I can't name any character in Predators. I'm either calling them by what they look like (the big Russian guy, the convict) or their actor (Brody, Topher, Danny Trejo, Morpheus). I realise I've only seen it once, so it hasn't sunk in yet, but I don't care to know them. It doesn't matter because there's no suspense in what's going to happen. Should've killed Brody during the second act, or at least killed the girl at the end. Make the ending mean something. Make the suspense real, because the "how do they survive" never becomes the main crux of the action, making the film about "will they survive", and that's never as interesting.

Before I go off on any more tangents, let me just say this:

I enjoyed this film. I'd watch it again. I'll probably see it at the cinemas one more time even. But it is an empty film, a piece of fan fiction - made with all the love and attention to detail fan fiction entails - but none of the heart.

New Predator will suck.

It'll try to keep what made the original Predator good but they'll throw in modern day culture.
And it'll mix as well as water and oil.

LunaHound wrote:It'll try to keep what made the original Predator good but they'll throw in modern day culture.

Well no, that's not what they really do, and that's not why it fails in parts either.

6. Danny Trejo.
Seriously, you get him to play a Mexican Kill Squad Drug Lord and you kill him off in the first ten minutes? That's just not fair.

I'll agree with you there.

But, as someone who has watched a;; the movies but hasn't read the AvP comics, I found the idea of a 'clan wars' to be truly intruiging. As far as any '3' in a chain of Sci-Fi can be considered, this was actually pretty good.

And I personally did start to care about the characters (well, I was sorta going 'Kill him, but not him and him'), my only real complaint about them was that you knew who the favs for survival were about 15 minutes in. Yakuza, sort of an improvement on Billy IMO. He actually talks for one, and is a freaking samurai! Come on. There's no pleasing some people.

H.B.M.C, mate, you should work for Empire after that review, I'm going to post one of these threads for every film I plan to see now after that last response!

Also, very good point about naming characters in good films. I've seen all the Aliens films dozens of times and the only name I can think of from Alien 3 is Boggs, I think, the crazy guy who lets the alien out later on in one of the editions of the film...

Although that might have been in the book!

So, now I want to know what you thought of Toy Story 3?

Haven't seen it yet...thats okay mate, I'll wait!

Well, since I can name Woody, Buzz an co. it's obviously a fantastic movie.

You must be intentionally missing my point.

Emperors Faithful wrote:Well, since I can name Woody, Buzz an co. it's obviously a fantastic movie.

It is a fantastic movie, but that you can name the characters is only one of the indicators of this.

Emperors Faithful wrote:

6. Danny Trejo.
Seriously, you get him to play a Mexican Kill Squad Drug Lord and you kill him off in the first ten minutes? That's just not fair.

I'll agree with you there.

But, as someone who has watched a;; the movies but hasn't read the AvP comics, I found the idea of a 'clan wars' to be truly intruiging. As far as any '3' in a chain of Sci-Fi can be considered, this was actually pretty good.

And I personally did start to care about the characters (well, I was sorta going 'Kill him, but not him and him'), my only real complaint about them was that you knew who the favs for survival were about 15 minutes in. Yakuza, sort of an improvement on Billy IMO. He actually talks for one, and is a freaking samurai! Come on. There's no pleasing some people.

To be frank...
don't look at "Predators" as a sequel to Predator/Predator 2/Aliens Versus Predators, etc.

It's meant to be a reboot of the "Predator" license. If it does really well, then Rodriguez is going to get the go-ahead to do an "Aliens Versus Predator" movie based off the comics.

Which means you all damned well better see this movie so we can get that

Reboot?

Recycle.

Watched it yesterday. I gotta say I actually enjoyed it, it was a bit strange at some bits but it was pretty cool. Time for an Uber spoiler



Still I can see another sequel fore coming, they wont just leave the clan wars thing alone.

As we were walking out of the movie my little brother commented on the scene where they enter the Pred Campt site. He said:
Him: "You know all those skulls and trophies they had when they walk around, and there was that Predator skull on the ground?"
Me: "Yeah, what about it?"
Him: "They should of had the Master Chief's helmet there instead."
Instant Win

Yeah. That probably would have made the film an instant winner of all things oscar shaped...

Now that I think about it, Predators are fairly similar to Covenant. They even both have cloaking fields. Just throw some dreds on the elites and replace the Master Chief with Ahnuld.

Wrong way round - Covenant are fairly similar to Predators.

Remember which came first.

Halo. You see, Halo invented bipedal aliens, ringworlds, and the first-person shooter.

I liked it.

In regards to the spine being ripped out: Fatality!

But yeah, I hope that this movie is successful as I thought that it was pretty good. Danny Trejo went out like a punk though, that's probably my only complaint.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Reboot?

Recycle.

See, I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing.

"Predators" is fantastic. The current "Aliens Versus Predators: Three World War" comics are fantastic. They scream for Rodriguez to transfer them over, and would work quite well for his style I think.

If "Predators" does well, he's stated he's planning on working on adapting "Three World War" which makes me superhappy.

@H.B.C.M. I was just pointing out similarities, not making a claim of which came first.

@Vlad: Yeah, I was devostated when Danny