It must be that I watch too many movies. Maybe I expect too much. I know it's not realistic to expect a big-budget, effects-laden alien attack movie to be too heavy on plot. But I don't believe that we should be expected to swallow a sort of deus ex machina setup with no explanation or exposition.
I can just see the script: " and then the main characters, selected from around the world for being really bad people, drop inexplicably from the sky onto a planet untold light years away with parachutes and weapons just inadequate enough that they can be hunted." Really? This is your story? Oh, but, dear reader, there is more.
For some reason, the main characters seem to know things they could not possibly have observed, and explain them to one another in astonishing detail so we can at least attempt to fill in enough plot holes to suspend our disbelief long enough to take this anemic story for a spin. And spin it does, from bad to worse.
First, let's deal with the obvious issues. There are the warthog dogs the size of a Subaru with so many horns and fangs that eating any prey they manage to run down would be a physical impossibility. There's the celestial problems of a planet that supposedly always faces the sun, probably not conducive to the ecosystem presented, and which is in direct conflict with the fact that later in the movie it gets dark, not to mention the fact that it has neighbors large enough to rend it in an apocalypse of gravitational fury.
But it is in the subtleties, or lack thereof, that this movie fails, and it fails utterly. You might remember that the original Predator movie actually had a working back story, complete with reasonably well defined characters struggling with internal and external conflicts. You might also remember that the alien attack aspect was layered with subtle suspense upon the storyline in the original. Here, it is the film's sole raison d'être, and it's tedious, not suspenseful.
Having forsaken everything that might have made this muddle a movie, its creators rely instead upon tawdry tricks. There are mawkishly re-imagined scenes from the original movie. And of course there's the trick casting. Adrien Brody does a creditable job as a bad man, but the grunting brute routine is a little wearisome, especially when contrasted with his out of the blue, half-assed Hemingway quotation. And if you're wondering why Topher Grace is in the movie, don't ignore the obvious. Besides, is it just my overactive "spider sense," or wasn't he already counter-cast in a big budget action sequel?
But the one towering issue I have with this mess is the same issue I have with all the previous sequels. It's the Predators themselves. Are we to believe that an alien race capable of interstellar flight and teleportation really have nothing more on their inscrutable insect minds than some endless demented hunting and taxidermy game? Are they some hopelessly retrograde culture? What other technological marvels have they devised? What happened to their civilization? Do they not have females in their species? What is their life cycle? Inquiring minds want to know.
Basically, this plays like an FPS video game, and not a partiularly good one. We expect more in a movie than running around shooting. So, I have an open offer to Hollywood. I am certain I can write a better script with these amazing creatures as characters. I don't have an agent. Contact me directly.
I can just see the script: " and then the main characters, selected from around the world for being really bad people, drop inexplicably from the sky onto a planet untold light years away with parachutes and weapons just inadequate enough that they can be hunted." Really? This is your story? Oh, but, dear reader, there is more.
For some reason, the main characters seem to know things they could not possibly have observed, and explain them to one another in astonishing detail so we can at least attempt to fill in enough plot holes to suspend our disbelief long enough to take this anemic story for a spin. And spin it does, from bad to worse.
First, let's deal with the obvious issues. There are the warthog dogs the size of a Subaru with so many horns and fangs that eating any prey they manage to run down would be a physical impossibility. There's the celestial problems of a planet that supposedly always faces the sun, probably not conducive to the ecosystem presented, and which is in direct conflict with the fact that later in the movie it gets dark, not to mention the fact that it has neighbors large enough to rend it in an apocalypse of gravitational fury.
But it is in the subtleties, or lack thereof, that this movie fails, and it fails utterly. You might remember that the original Predator movie actually had a working back story, complete with reasonably well defined characters struggling with internal and external conflicts. You might also remember that the alien attack aspect was layered with subtle suspense upon the storyline in the original. Here, it is the film's sole raison d'être, and it's tedious, not suspenseful.
Having forsaken everything that might have made this muddle a movie, its creators rely instead upon tawdry tricks. There are mawkishly re-imagined scenes from the original movie. And of course there's the trick casting. Adrien Brody does a creditable job as a bad man, but the grunting brute routine is a little wearisome, especially when contrasted with his out of the blue, half-assed Hemingway quotation. And if you're wondering why Topher Grace is in the movie, don't ignore the obvious. Besides, is it just my overactive "spider sense," or wasn't he already counter-cast in a big budget action sequel?
But the one towering issue I have with this mess is the same issue I have with all the previous sequels. It's the Predators themselves. Are we to believe that an alien race capable of interstellar flight and teleportation really have nothing more on their inscrutable insect minds than some endless demented hunting and taxidermy game? Are they some hopelessly retrograde culture? What other technological marvels have they devised? What happened to their civilization? Do they not have females in their species? What is their life cycle? Inquiring minds want to know.
Basically, this plays like an FPS video game, and not a partiularly good one. We expect more in a movie than running around shooting. So, I have an open offer to Hollywood. I am certain I can write a better script with these amazing creatures as characters. I don't have an agent. Contact me directly.