SPOILERS ahead!

Who can’t fondly look back to their first Predator experience? Especially being a young boy, retelling the “big pussy” joke, and somehow convincing myself that my pre-pubescent stature could constitute a comparison to the over-the-top testosterone fueled shit kickers, almost makes me weep. A chopper full of badasses, and one of the most memorable monsters to hit the screen. Arnold vs. Predator! The ultimate in Sci-fi Action. You couldn’t ignore the possibilities of future installments. From 1987 to 2010, good or bad, Predator is still around.

With a lackluster summer for movies still swinging, Predators has landed in hopes of slaughtering the meager competition. Robert Rodriguez and Troublemaker Studios has attempted to cash in on the success of Predator and promised the ultimate entry in the franchise. Read on for the good and not-so-good that Predators has to offer.

A group of earths “most dangerous” (including Adrian Brody, Danny Trejo and Topher Grace?) have mysteriously been placed on another planet and must survive the ultimate hunt. Unbeknownst to the unlucky, this is the hunting ground for a deadly alien species who kill for sport. Each one will be put to the test on a planet where the chances of survival ended the moment they arrived.

The Bad

I have to first mention Adrian Brody. Admittedly, I’m actually a fan of the guy. He turned in a great performance earlier this summer in Splice. He’s also brought his talents to award winning features and dabbled in multiple genres. Brody however, does not fill the badass void that his part was clearly written for. While he is certainly believable as a survivor and intelligent fighter, none of his baritone Batman vocal efforts offered much to a role that was obviously written for the clichéd tough guy that we didn’t end up with. We instead received a noticeably lame attempt at the ultimate tough guy role with a very forced deep voice that seemed to have every possible answer involving the groups predicament.

As Brody under delivers an overworked effort, the viewer gets rewarded with an insulting scene in the end. While Brody has not proven a formidable opponent other than what we’re just forced to pretend with this movie, the Predator he cuts free shits on the franchise as much as the fruitcake beast in the first AVP by somehow thinking the person in front of them is more worthwhile than the trophy his spine and skull could make. The throat should have been crushed the instant the thing touched Brody.

With that disappointment behind us, let us move to the uninspired choosing of Topher Grace. Before the story goes anywhere, you automatically know this pussy is going to end up being a serial killer. We sifted through the pathetic attempt at giving him a doctors past. It’s obvious that this pansy will have to confirm his stance as some kind of twisted murderer in a movie that should have axed this fucker in the audition process. With the “great” reveal in hand, Grace gives us exactly what we guessed about him, but his acting and the writing manage to add another layer of shit in an already clogged drain of horrible ideas. While attempting to escape, Topher randomly decides the time is right to kill one of his team members and offer a bowel wrenching testimony as to his true identity. Nothing is of surprise, but it’s treated as if the audience has just been given a golden nugget while not realizing that a gold plated turd is still a piece of shit. Thankfully, the excruciating performance before us comes to an end in one of the very few graphic scenes and we see Topher made a trophy of.

Possibly less of a major issue and just more of a personal attack due to being under whelmed and having to accept a mediocre entry into a series that could have certainly used 100% adrenaline, the back-story of the female (Alice Braga is thrown in to make the ladies feel involved). While I personally sat on the edge of my seat during her informative speech hoping she was the daughter of the rescued woman in the original, I had to reclaim my slouched position when she only had a small recap of the original events for no good goddamn reason.

As I continue to rant and sporadically cover the events that troubled me with Predators, I’ll back up and quickly slice the scene that introduced a Predator to sword fighting. It was fucking stupid and should have ended within seconds as the sword wielding hopeful was violently dispatched with and diverted us away from a pointless pseudo-samurai conflict. Another pointless inclusion was the inclusion of Laurence Fishburne. A perfect cameo spot was wasted and so was time. His story was ridiculous and Fishburne was about as believable as the hooker who says it’s just a cold sore.

The Good

Now that my fanboy ramblings are through, I can’t say much about the Predator design. The creatures look amazing and creative without running away from what we love about the Predator. While Predators limits these beasts to just a shoulder canon and blades, they still look great. The trailer mislead us into thinking we would get quite a few hunters for our humans to face off against, but the three we did get at least lived up to aesthetic standards.

Aside from Nimrod being a shitty director, he did take us to another planet and at least hinted at an even greater danger than the first film posed (although execution did not live up to the first entry on any level).

It was good to see another Predator film hit the big screen since the last direct sequel fizzled out in the early 90’s. While it could have made use of actually skinning a person, after all is said and done, Predators still beat the shit out of the first AVP. It’s definitely not the hard-R that was promised, but it can still be a fun ride. Don’t go into it with high expectations, and you might actually enjoy yourself a little.

Being a fan of Predator since early childhood makes the need to have a great sequel impossible to ignore. That being said, Predators isn’t the worst entry in the series or it’s crossover counterparts, but being mediocre with a film that has been craved for more than a decade will piss any hardcore fan off. Predators should have been more threatening and properly cast. It may carry an R rating, but you would be hard pressed to find many scenes that couldn’t be found in any action packed PG-13 flick. Predators is a very mixed bag, but at least we got a great Blu-Ray transfer for the original film out of this release.