PREDATORS

It’s been 23 years since Arnie, Jesse Ventura and Carl Weathers et al went bush in the Central American jungle to do battle with a vicious hunter from another world, and 20 years since Danny Glover and Bill Paxton mixed it up with another Predator on the streets of LA. In the intervening years the Alien Vs Predator movies sullied the great names of two of the best sci fi monsters in history.  So a proper Predator sequel was long overdue in order to restore the family name as it were. The good news is that PREDATORS delivers. It serves up exactly what you want from a Predator movie. A gang of selected mercenaries, criminals and general badasses find themselves in an alien jungle on an alien world, pitted against an unholy triumvirate of salivating Predators out to hunt them for sport. Without deviating a great deal from the original plotline PREDATORS manages to be a lot of fun without being mindblowing. It’s respectful to the original in a way in which the idiotic ‘versus’ movies were most definitely not. It captures the feel of the original and stands tall as a nice continuation of the Predator lineage. Adrien Brody is convincing as a hardboiled mercenary, and the likes of Danny Trejo and Laurence Fishburne are always good value. It's not reinventing the wheel, but then what’s wrong with the wheel? No-one has had a problem with the wheel for thousands of years. PREDATORS serves up exactly what you expect from a Predator sequel and is no less enjoyable for it. It’s good, fun sci-fi action.

IMDB: Predators

NOTE: This review is shorter, and a departure from the usual style because I wrote it as a 250-300 word entry for a competition to win passes to the Melbourne International Film Festival. So instead of my usual long winded ramble, enjoy some brevity for a change!