Predators is the one movie I watched in Thailand, not counting airplanes, not counting when I fell asleep 17 times trying to watch Hitchcock’s Rebecca in a state of sheer exhaustion, and not counting the last 30 minutes of Michelle Yeoh’s Hong Kong Indiana Jones rip-off Dynamite Fighters that I caught on TV in Cambodia …which was totally awesome! We went to a crazy 10 or so story mall in Bangkok – think the Mall of America, but, you know, Thai. They have a world class aquarium in the basement, and sell Lamborghinis and stuff in the mall. The top few stories are a movie theater not unlike your average multiplex. Oh sure, there are the little differences: seating is assigned, Thais don’t put butter on their popcorn, and nobody seems to mind that the poster for Splice features several graphic images of full frontal nudity and interspecies nookie and is placed conspicuously close to the entrance to the theater playing Toy Story 3.
It’s only when you’re in the theater after the previews roll that things get weird. You know how when you go to a baseball game, everyone has to stand for the national anthem? It’s kind of like that. Everyone stands in the theater and takes their hat off for the anthem of the king. You must understand that King Rama IX of Thailand is like the Queen of England and the Pope mixed together, but if everyone emphatically loved the Queen and the Pope. Nothing will get you beat up faster than going into a bar and shit talking the king. So here we are, surrounded by a mostly Thai audience who is really getting into this “King’s Anthem” business, and I kid you not, this is the King’s Anthem and accompanying video:
Leaves me speechless every time. We should have one of these for Oprah.
So, Predators, huh? I don’t want to get hyperbolic on either side. It’s not amazing, or even as ‘solid’ as some have made it out to be. It’s also not nearly as bad as others have claimed. There are some great ideas at play…and some poor, poor execution. The movie opens with a sequence that lasts less than a minute, but is worth the price of admission by itself. Adrian Brody gains consciousness in midair freefall over a jungle with no memory of how he got there and no idea how to use the parachute strapped to his back. We’ve all been there, am I right ladies? The Rodriguez touch is evident in moments like this. The story’s frame and conceit have his fingerprints all over them, and where this movie succeeds as a small, taut, scrappy action monster movie, I think he probably deserves as much credit as anyone.
Adrian Brody is two for two so far this summer, and while Splice is a much better movie (and probably the more interesting and engaging acting gig), Brody does a great job here filling Arnold’s shoes without ever seeming like he cares if he fills those shoes or not. It the very least, he does about 7 zillion times better than ol’ Mr. Geriatric himself, Danny Glover. I like parts of Predator 2 as much as the next guy, but nothing ruins an action movie faster than watching Danny Glover wheeze his way across the screen. I can’t get over the logic gap that suggests that a intergalactic hunting god would travel half way across the universe to stalk the biggest badass on earth and it’s…Danny Glover? Plz.
Bah. Who am I kidding? I have a lot to gripe about this movie about. It’s not that I didn’t like the movie. I did, for the most part. There are just some glaringly unprofessional or half-assed elements here that no one else seems to be talking about. I sort of get why everyone is giving Predators a get-out-of-jail-free card. I certainly enjoyed myself enough while I was watching it. But I don't want to settle for a 'good enough' Predator movie. It's sad to leave the theater wondering how much better this would have been with one more script draft and an extra month of planning.
At its best, Predators is a fresh and scrappy riff on the original ‘Predator vs. soldiers in the jungle' conceit. At its worst, it’s a poor man’s knock off of the original. Let’s take a look at our badasses for a minute. We have some 80s style badass archetypes, right? So it would not be unreasonable to expect some classic badass banter. Remember Jessie ‘The Body’ Ventura in Predator going on about his status as “a goddamn sexual Tyrannosaurus?” How does Predators answer the awkward, sometimes gross, but still hilarious machismo talk? Walton Goggins muttering “Your ass is awesome” and “When we get out of here I’m totally gonna rape some bitches” like the cheap Steve Buscemi knock off that he is. A sexual Tyrannosaurus he ain’t. And that’s about as interesting as the dialogue here gets. Sure, they look badass, but it stops there. You have Danny Trejo in your posse, for goodness sakes! If we’re going to be walking around in a jungle for 2 hours with these guys, at least give them something interesting to say.
For as good as much of this movie sounds on paper, Predators is tonally off-kilter for the majority of its running time. Think back to Predator and you’ll remember that some of the best parts of the movie are brimming with silent dread. The scene after Arnold jumps off the waterfall, where he discovers that the Predator can’t see him if he’s caked in mud, for example. This sequence is not rushed. It’s not overwrought with a pounding score. It doesn’t jump cut every two seconds. It’s tense and memorable because you feel like you’re there holding your breath with Arnold. When I think about 80s action sci-fi, I think about the majestic moments. In Aliens, when they first arrive at the abandoned base, there are long, quiet shots establishing just how desolate and ominous the locale is. Though there are plenty of places where taking their time would be appropriate, Predators director Nimrod Antel and crew plow through these moments with a bulldozer. One would think that the discovery of the alien horizon, or the reveal of Lawrence Fishburne’s abandoned spaceship hideout would warrant moody establishing shots that lasts more than two seconds, but Antel and editor Dan Zimmerman apparently don’t have time for that stuff. John Debney’s score, while making good and ample use of Alan Silvestri’s original Predator theme, is incessant, never letting up for a moment. This doesn’t create tension; rather, it detracts by numbing the viewer any emotive input from the orchestra pit.
All the same, there are some great moments. I love the idea that the Predators we’ve met in the previous installments are actually the weaker bread compared to the new guys we meet here. I love the surreal, ominous shot at the end with the new batch of cages falling from the sky. I love the hallucino-vision, which is one of the more realistic (though muted) psychedelic visions I’ve seen on the big screen. Predator dogs were cool. The Predator vs. Yakuzi sword fight was pretty awesome. Adrian Brody making himself invisible by lighting everything else on fire was great. All of these elements, however, belong in a much better movie. And since Predators is already out in the world, I guess I hope it generates enough interest that another outing warrants more time and care. I believe the Troublemaker Studios team has a good Predator movie in them. This just isn’t the one.
I don’t know. It was pretty good, though.
-Ben