Predators (2010) review

Normally I dont post my opinions on the movies in theaters at the times because there are so many who do that type of reviews and they do it better than I do. However, because the Predator franchise has been so important to me, I feel the need to talk about my experience with watching 2010's Predators.

Before I give you my opinion of the film, I must give you some backstory. Let me state how at times I was apprehensive in seeing this. I still remember six years ago being burned by Alien vs. Predator (seriously fuck that and AVP: Requiem), so I really did not want to go and see another person ruin what I enjoyed so greatly because I still have the first Predator as my second favorite movie of all time and while not as good as the first, I still enjoy Predator 2 and find it very underrated. I also missed the midnight showing because I was burned a few years ago by Spider-man 3 and I vowed never to do that again. However, when I started hearing good reviews for this movie so I went to a matinee showing of this movie on Saturday.

And I am really glad I did because this movie was fucking awesome. After seeing this movie, I immediately got out of the theater and in to my car to scream "FUCK YEAH!!!!!". I havent felt this good about seeing something so important to me as a fan of monster movies in theaters since I went and saw Godzilla 2000 & Freddy vs. Jason   . Sure those movies werent as good now as it was then, but I had great fond memories of seeing those movies in theaters because it was a worthy sequel to those series I have loved for a long time. I feel the same way I do now with Predators.

I was also apprehensive of the actors being that they had Adrien Brody (who bored me in King Kong), and Topher Grace (who made a really terrible Venom). However, they are given roles that they can work with and are not out of their range. The basic premise of the film is that all of these people who could be considered dangerous killers have been kidnapped by the Predators and dropped on this planet which is a game preserve so they can be the game for the Predators. Not only are the Predators hunting the game in this perserve, but apparently they are hunting other Predators because there are two different Predator species and they hate each other.

The human characters are of course, a mercenary (Adrien Brody), a Israeli Degense Force sniper (Alice Braga), a "doctor" (Topher Grace), a member of the Yakuza (Louis Ozawa Changchien), a death row inmate (Walter Goggins), a member of Spetsnaz (Oleg Taktarov), an officer of the Revolutionary United Force of Sierra Lionne (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali), and a Mexican Drug Cartel enforcer (Danny Trejo). I say doctor in quotation marks for Topher Grace's character because he turns out to be the exact opposite in the end.

While this film may have several scenes that seem like they are ripped from the first Predator movie, they are more nods to them with stuff changed. The scene with Billy Drago's Billy trying to fight to Predator and ending up being owned off-screen is kind of used where the Yakuza guy stays behind to fight a Predator. However, unlike Billy's death.....we get to see the whole exchange between the Yakuza guy and the Predator and the Yakuza guy does not go down easily. I should also mention that we meet a survivor from a previous hunting seasons (played by Lawrence Fishburne). We start to trust this guy as he has been in this place for a while, however.....we see that he is crazy (he talks to an imaginary friend) and will be more than happy to kill the others if it means he has a better chance of survival.

We also get good performances by four Predators played by three actors. Two of the Predators are played Carey Jones who is well known as a make ups artist and does his job very well as a scary person very well. One of the Predators in the big fight scene between two predators is Brian Steele, who is a huge man and has basically been known in plenty of movies as playing the monster in the film. The final person playing the Predator plays the classic Predator that we know from the first two movies is a man by the name of Derek Mears. Don't know who that last guy is? Well if you are into horror somewhat these days, you should that he played Jason Voorhees in the Friday The 13th remake. While that film is awesomely and there are many things to rip on that movie, Derek Mears playing Jason was certainly not one of them because he had all the mannerisms down. He does so in this movie and is a perfect replacement for Kevin Peter Hall (who was the Predator in the first two films, but cant do it anymore on account that he sadly died in 1991 of AIDS).

I will say that it is not as good as the first movie as it has a few problems. The biggest problem is the CGI at some points is bad like one explosion looking like it would have been better served in a 2D animated movie. Another problem is while they use Predator dogs in one scene, you never see them again. The third problem is while they do had mentions that the events of  the original Predator movie happened, none of the events of Predator 2 are ever mentioned and like I said before, I think Predator 2 is very underrated.

However, that does not stop me from loving this movie and I recommend you all go out and check this movie in theaters. I personally plan on seeing this movie again in theaters and when this movie comes out on DVD, I will be getting the fucking Blu-Ray of it. This will probably be my favorite movie of 2010 because I just love the Predator series and feel that yes, we have a worthy sequel to the Predator films.