R, 1 hr. 46 min. Directed By:
Nimród Antal. Release Date: Jul 9, 2010
DVD Release Date: Oct 19, 2010.
Do you ever look at an actor and think
that he basically peaked way too soon?
That’s how I feel nearly every time I look at Adrien Brody, whose descent into madness has been... shall we say, Lohanesque. When he first appeared on my radar in 2001 or
2002, I thought he was talented. He’s
still the youngest man to win Best Actor, so I wasn’t alone in that. Either that or the Academy and I stroked out
at precisely the same moment. Since ’03 or ’04, I’ve been watching his
Lohan-esque spiral with equal amounts of horror and fascination.
Predators is just the
next link in the chain. Brody is
probably the only strong point in the film, and I don’t think his portrayal of
Royce is bad… I just think he didn’t have much to work with. At least I felt like he wasn’t phoning in his
role, which I couldn’t say of anyone else.
The movie is poorly written and conceived. At some point the powers that be need to
understand that one successful movie doesn’t need an infinite number of
increasingly crappy sequels. The
characters all feel like someone was using a D&D character developer to
come up with stereotypes for “warriors” from all kinds of perspective.
At 106 minutes, Predators manages to be the longest movie ever. Each all-too-brief action sequence is
prefaced by a dull bit of boredom that I think was supposed to build the
suspense. For folks who are unfamiliar
with the Predator saga, it might
work, but since I already know about the trick with the mud and the technology
the aliens are using, it really didn’t do much for me.
I do have to give them props about
Topher Grace. Not that he didn’t suck,
but his character. I totally swallowed
the red herring they threw our way, and for about fifteen minutes, I thought
he’d been selected for the hunt so he could serve as a medic. It wasn’t until much later (but not before
the big reveal) that I learned the reason for his presence.
Anyway, my gut and head both rate this
in the stupid zone. It’s not without some
entertainment merit, but you can totally skip this without feeling guilty.
