“Predators” opens with a group of strangers dropped into a jungle not knowing how they got there, who sent them and where exactly they are. The audience doesn’t know the answers to these questions either, but what we do know is that the characters will soon be confronted with “predators,” alien monsters who want to hunt down and kill them. However, what the audience may not be prepared for is many of the surprises and interesting plot turns that make this sequel worth a look.

“Predators” serves as yet another sequel to the original that starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. This one — the 4th in the series – finds new characters in a new locations battling multiple predators — unlike the original, which only featured only one.

To prepare for the sequel, I re-watched the 1987 original where a group of mercenaries are sent on a mission to rescue hostages in Central America. Led by Schwarzenegger, that team attacks a village that supposedly holds the hostages and only later discovers that the real threat is not the kidnappers but an alien that blends into the jungle and tracks its human prey using  body heat. One by one, the predator attacks the team leading to a showdown with the hero. (more…)

“If it bleeds, we can kill it …”

The future Governator’s classic line from “Predator” still gives us chills after all these years. Watching the 1987 film today in Blu-ray (released yesterday) makes you forgive the lackluster sequel and the two horrific “Alien vs. Predator” features. The Blu-ray “Predator” arrives just in time to piggyback on the upcoming reboot, set for a July 9 release. What are the odds!

Suffice to say “Predators“ star Adrien Brody is no Arnold Schwarzenegger, and seeing “Predator” again is a glorious trip back to a time when biceps bested acting chops.

Schwarzenegger plays Dutch, a special ops soldier called in to rescue a U.S. government official taken hostage in an unnamed Central American country. Dutch assembles a team of cartoon characters, or rather super soldiers, to complete the mission. Little do they know an alien creature (played by the late Kevin Peter Hall) is also stalking the jungles and starts taking down Dutch‘s team one by one. (more…)

[Editor's Note: Script reviews of upcoming projects have been around for as long as there's been an Internet. Therefore it's no secret that a film can evolve into something quite different from its screenplay. Please keep in mind that this article represents a look at a particular script and not the final product.]

Take 1:

In another regurgitated burp, Hollywood has again shown it’s unable to step out of the box and into a fresh creative realm. They’re remaking/rebooting the 1987 classic Predator. And to be honest—I can’t wait to rent it from Red Box. You know the box, tucked away in the corner of Safeway like an evil-little-red-monster taking dollars from Hollywood one at a time.

Having taken on this sucker punch assignment, I dove into the script with a semi-chub that if could speak would ask, “Is that a script in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?” I found myself in this heightened state anticipating scenes depicting evil human spaceships with thirteen onboard monitors all tuned to Fox News, or scenes of pro-choice predators standing in line at a Planetary Planned Parenthood waiting to abort their alien burden. No such luck. Not even the humans in the script stopped at Whole Foods for an extra hot, soy, cappuccino served in a corn cup before being murdered by dreadlocked sporting monsters. Other than a single comment in the script about how we deserved to lose the Vietnam War, I cannot deliver a sucker punch, nor even a bitch-slap.

However, what we do have in this remake of Predator is a story about the useless nature of human beings, how they fall from the sky, and are torn to shreds by a higher specie. And, if the characters in the script were talking heads from MSNBC, they’d have a point. Sadly, that’s not who’s tossed into this all you can eat Country Buffet; instead, it’s a multiethnic band of assholes, and one hot chick. (more…)

Is it possible for a film to be both a brilliant, exciting piece of entertainment, and also a completely illogical piece of heavy-handed political propaganda? It is, if the new science-fiction oddity “District 9” is any indication.

Led by a stunning performance by Sharlto Copley, who is not only unknown to audiences outside South Africa, but who had never acted in anything but short films before, “District 9” blasts through its running time with a furious mix of action and satire. Yet its central plotline, focusing on what might happen if space aliens approached Johannesburg and were then held in a segregated district for nearly three decades, is riddled with holes and bangs viewers over the head with its allegories of racial discrimination harkening back to the evil days of that nation’s apartheid policies.

The film kicks off with a fast-paced blend of fake newscasts and faux-documentary footage shot by a camera crew that’s been assigned to cover a mass evacuation of aliens from their home in the city’s District 9. The aliens had come in a giant mother ship back in 1982, but no one has ever figured out why they arrived and left the ship to hover eternally over Johannesburg. (more…)