PREDATORS - Early Reviews Excellent

[AndyDursin]

I don't know necessarily that PREDATORS looked like a big budget movie -- I mean, it was shot in a jungle/forest and had a real natural look to it. These days that's a rare occurrence like you said before, especially for a genre movie. The FX were also held at a minimum, which ultimately helped because it wasn't like -- as you said -- every CGI movie we're watching these days.

There weren't a lot of "sets" in the film. And I do think one of the scenes (SPOILER) where they're on Fish's ship, wasn't well choreographed visually and could have been better. Had a real cheap look to it like it was out of one of Corman's movies...they way they ran into the Predator in the hallway, they way the characters escaped, it was the one section of the film that visually and dramatically, kind of fell flat in terms of its direction and execution for me.

[Eric W.]

No surprises here in this thread from what I'm seeing.

The movies have been SO bad for months that I'm not surprised that anything even halfway decent is going to get overrated because people are just starving for anything good at this point.


I suspected once several of you saw it and got back I'd get something closer to actual reality which is: A decent romp that thankfully is better than the two AVP films. No more. No less.

I'll see it when it comes to Blu-Ray.

[TomServo]

I don't know necessarily that PREDATORS looked like a big budget movie -- I mean, it was shot in a jungle/forest and had a real natural look to it. These days that's a rare occurrence like you said before, especially for a genre movie. The FX were also held at a minimum, which ultimately helped because it wasn't like -- as you said -- every CGI movie we're watching these days.

There weren't a lot of "sets" in the film. And I do think one of the scenes (SPOILER) where they're on Fish's ship, wasn't well choreographed visually and could have been better. Had a real cheap look to it like it was out of one of Corman's movies...they way they ran into the Predator in the hallway, they way the characters escaped, it was the one section of the film that visually and dramatically, kind of fell flat in terms of its direction and execution for me.

Thanks for the review Andy, I hope to catch this soon, once I am done traveling for work so much this month. I'm a big fan of P1 and P2, enjoyed most of AVP (sue me, whatever) but never saw AVP:R. Rodruguez gave an interview recently where he said Fox just left him to his own devices on this film, probably because it did have such low production costs, but that they trusted his judgment as well. Whether everyone likes the movie or not, it's best when the studio accountants stay out of actual filmmaking!

[mkaroly]

Just got through watching it. For what it was, I enjoyed it, though I was really pining away for more character and story development, especially with the Predator culture. A lot of things were explained away with one sentence answers, but I craved more. There were some interesting storylines in the film (Fishburne's character comes to mind immediately), but they were underdeveloped.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

The main problem with the film was that the major theme of "predators" battling Predators didn't quite deliver the goods; also, Topher Grace's character as a "monster" who feels comfortable taking part in the killing of the hunted didn't quite pack the punch it could have. Personally I wanted to know more about why the big Predators fight with the small Predators, and although the story had several holes in it I still found it pretty entertaining...mostly because of the Predator characters. Fun film but nowhere near perfect.

I still say that the Alien creatures are the better killing machines.

[AndyDursin]

Michael I agree totally with you about the Topher Grace character.

This is the second film I've seen him in where they've obviously tried to "go against type" (SPIDER-MAN 3 being where he "went bad" also) and it's failed miserably. I really felt that aspect of the film didn't pay off at all.

[AndyDursin]

Rodriguez is talking about a sequel. If they can hold the production costs down again I bet it will happen since they've done almost $100 million total (foreign and domestic) on a $50 million budget.

http://uk.movies.ign.com/articles/110/1108015p1.html