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PREDATORS: BECAUSE THE ALIEN SEQUEL HAD A “S” TOO
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If this had been released five years ago, I’d be a little more excited. But after a Story Corp. barrage of sequels, threequels, reboots and remakes it’s tough not to be cynical about a movie called Predators .
It’s Predator with an S! It has to be great! I mean, Aliens had an S and that totally rocked!
Studio marketing has decided, due to research statistics, that sequels with numbers in the title make less money (Friday the 13th part 8) than those with names like Rambo (really part 4) or X-Men: The Last Stand (really part 3). (WARNING SIGN 76 – The title tries to hide the fact that this is a sequel.)
So, let’s not buy the $9.99 bullsh*t mind games.
It’s $10 f*#king dollars!
It’s Predator part f*#king 3!
That means this road has been traveled twice. And, like anything, the first time is fresh, new, exciting. The second time, it still has our interest but, we’re looking to explore it more. The third time, or in this case, the “S” time, we have to ask the question, “What’s left?” (WARNING SIGN 22 - Movieja Vu - you feel like you’ve seen this before)
Seeing the Predators preview feels like we’re watching the result of a Robert Rodriquez min-movie-middle-of-the-night-marathon of Predator and Aliens.
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It’s like he went into a pitch meeting the next morning and said, “Predator meets Aliens!” To which an executive responded, “We’ve already made two AVP movies.” To which Robert clarified, “No, no, a LOT of predators, like a lot of aliens in Aliens, and the commandos from Predator…and the forest too!” The executives remained silent until, “And…you can use my name in the advertising.” “DEAL!”
MORE of something doesn’t mean sh*t, and sometimes, it means exactly that.
Bigger isn’t always better.
Where should the Predator universe go for this threequel, which, is more of a fivequel, if we include AVP & AVPR?
Cooler weapons? Done. Beyond thermal vision? Done. Aboard the Predator spaceship? Done. Elder Predators? Done. The home world? Done.
A lot has been done, but…has it been done WELL?
Predator 2? Introduced some cool weapons, took us aboard the ship, revealed a tease for AVP and personally, I loved the idea of the “Urban Jungle,” but, these ideas weren’t totally taken advantage of.
AVP? Ugh. An ancient pyramid hunting ground structure? L-A-M-E.
AVPR? More Predators and Aliens in a town with a Ripley-style main female character? Yawn.
So, the territory HAS been explored, but It hasn’t been mined. There are a ton of diamonds waiting to be discovered.
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How will Predators learn from the success of Predator and correct the mistakes of P2, AVP & AVPR?
By telling us that “This summer fear is reborn?”
Ugh…are we talking about the same Predator franchise? I don’t think Predator was a horror movie? I don’t remember being afraid…ever, while watching any movie that featured these alien hunters.
Is there a genre switch going on here? I guess that’s new...but is it better?
Let’s explore what the story might be.
ACT I
Evident from the preview is the fact that we, the audience, have to sit through somebody-put-me-out-of-my-movie-going-paid-full-price-for-this-misery questions like:
“Woah, where are we?”
“Who are you?”
“Did you hear that?”
“Does it feel like we’re being watched?”
“Does it feel like we’re being hunted?”
After thirty minutes of that the Predators will make themselves known and the movie either becomes a good ol’ fashioned action/chase adventure or it gets s-l-o-w….and “Our worlds deadliest killers” hide like p*ssies under bushes and in boxes borrowed from the set of Aliens.
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ACT II
It’ll be established that Morpheus or The-Guy-Who-Kissed-Halle-Berry-at-the-Oscars will take the team lead and strategize on how to help everyone survive. After of course the obligatory, “No one tells me what to do!” forced moments of conflict from the generic action movie characters handbook.
I bet there will be a line like, “Back on Earth, I was the bad assest killer ever!” To which someone will reply, “Too bad you ain’t on Earth anymore.”
One team member is killed off every 10 mintues or so as the hunting intensifies and more about the Predators culture is revealed…hopefully.
Here’s the thing. I’d LOVE to see the New York of the Predator world. Is there one? Or do they live in tribes? At war with each other? Do they have reality TV shows where the best hunters are celebrities and followed around the universe as they hunt? A.k.a. something NEW!
I’m burned out on watching movies where a new set of victims with guns doing impersonations of the characters from Aliens and Predator slowly get killed off in predictable been-there-seen-that kind of ways.
I’m burned out these whimpy humans SOMEHOW finding a way to defeat them. Man vs. Bear or Dude vs. Shark or Peep vs. Lion ends the same way in the real world! Why can’t the movies have the balls to bring some real world attitude into the land of make believe? Surprise us!
Why are the Predators hunting humans? They could kick our ass any day. Are we just practice? Easy prey for the young hunters? Do the more mature, proven warriors get to face off with Aliens?
Look at the cast of characters here. Let’s trust our guts. Do we really care about any of them? While watching the preview their personalities come across so….blah.
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That’s mainly because the preview is trying to create this J-Horror fearful mood. “Ugh, Robert, can you tell your director that this is an action franchise?”
By the end of act II most of the humans will be dead as the final battle for survival and the struggle to escapes this “game preserve” culminates.
For examples of this see: Surviving the Game, The Condemned, The Running Man and No Escape.
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ACT III
Morpheus or The Pianist or both, maybe the girl too if the writers are aware of clichés, fight the king warrior Predators and make it off the planet…or, if this story has some balls, become honorary warriors themselves. They kill off one of the respected dudes and take his place?
Just please, give us something new or at least pop culturally forgotten and pass it off as innovative.
And…
PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE!
DO NOT! DO NOT! End this movie with a Predator activating his blow-up-sh*t-real-good-wrist-device!
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EVERY Predator movie ends with that.
Blame the Story Corp. sequel machine for these predictable patterns.
Usually the first movie of any subsequent franchise is sparked, created inspired by the imagination in a new, different, original way. We, the audience, respond to that on a spiritual level (I don’t want to get all New Age here, but, really, there’s honesty and truth in original ideas that draw us too them) and as a result we reward them with thanks-for-doing-something-different box office.
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Then the accountants tap the Studio on the shoulder and say, “That made a sh*tload of money! Make another one!”
So the motivation, the spark, the reason for the sequel’s creation is not spirit anymore, it’s profit.
As a result there’s no inspiration, just manipulation.
The success is analyzed, “What did everyone like about the original? What action set pieces did they cheer for? What kind of one-liner dialog did they laugh at? What kind of special effects wowed them?”
Basically, if a movie’s drama and conflict were graphed, it would look like peaks and valleys, the valleys being the “boring” character-based drama and the peaks being the “good stuff” or genre set piece conflict.
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As a result of this analysis and the resulting answers, sequels tend to be cut-n-paste-n-copy-n-multiply peaks minus the characters and drama that gave those genre money shots meaning in the first place.
What worked unconsciously on us as an audience in Predator was watching the Toughest-Man-on-Earth fight the only alien on Earth. Schwarzenegger on the run? Hiding? Bleeding? That NEVER happens!
Also the personalities of each commando, the backstory of Dutch and Dillon and of course Ah-nuld’s delivery of his lines were fresh and became super classic.
Most importantly, there’s the respect, the non-exploitative exploration and filming of the Predator. The point of view thermal vision shots, the breathing, the clicking, the teasing images of what the creature looks like.
Our imaginations work with the movie to tell the story.
And, most importantly, it isn’t making us conscious of a sequel.
Movies today have this subconscious message, “There’s gonna be a sequel.” And it’s like we can feel it in the camera’s body language and the script’s subtext and in the director’s ambivalence.
What happened to respecting the story and audience and just making a complete movie? If it succeeds then sure, make another, but don’t I-Phone us! Don’t hold back cool features cause you know in six months or a year you have to release another version to keep the stock price rising.
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Why is Aliens better than 1,3 or 4 and AVP & AVPR?
The Marines? More Aliens? Machine guns? The Queen?
Nope.
Ripley.
Aliens is Ripley’s story. It could be called Ripley’s Revenge or…Ripley’s Healing.
It’s based in her character AND has even deals with the greed of Wall Street in the 1980s in a disguise-a-message-in-a-science-ficiton-future-setting kind of way.
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Ripley’s inner struggle, voiced through her dialog, shared through her emotions and tempered by her personality and perspective gives everything meaning.
It’s also great because it incorporates what happened in the original, so we feel like we’ve been on this long journey with her.
When she straps into the Power Loader suit at the end and battles the Queen Alien, that’s a physical manifestation of her new inner strength. She’s facing the source of her fears and has become, reborn. Who is the Ripley character in Predators?
The final Act III battle between Ah-nuld and the Predator – almost totally dialog free – is this invincible human being put to the ultimate test as a commando. We don’t need to know his family backstory, that’s not what’s important, this is a battle of resourcefulness and courage and Dutch hasn’t had to face this, maybe ever.
This threequel just seems so…familiar.
So why does something like Toy Story 3 work? It’s familiar, been-there-done-that, right?
Because it’s the final act of a three movie journey. Yes the theme in the third is the same as the second – Andy is getting too old for toys and Woody and the gang feel useless – but there’s a lot of newness to it, especially with the daycare center. And, the toys are on their own journey, finding out what happens once their “owners” throw them away.
There’s no bigger picture to Predators cause the characters are new and even the Predators are different.
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In the Saw Franchise, the victims are interchangeable, it’s Jigsaw who holds it all together. His journey keeps us interested.
So what’s drawing us to Predators?
Hope.
A.k.a. Robert Rodriguez.
We hope he can bring this franchise back to creative life.
But is the force still strong with this one. Contemporaries like Kevin Smith and M. Night have revealed that they’re powers are weakening.
So, what can Robert bring to this series?
Oh, wait. He’s NOT directing it?
He’s NOT writing it?
Producing only?
Jeez.
That’s another way of saying, “Collecting an easy paycheck.”
That’s something Michael Bay does when he’s re-raping old successful horror movies.
So who is the director?
Nimrod Antal?
Okay, let’s give him a chance. What’s he done before?
Control, Vacancy and Armored.
Okay, it could be worse. Those are at least very competently made movies.
How about the writers?
Alex Litvak & Michael Finch?
Again, let’s give em’ a chance…no, wait. This is their first Story Corp. produced screenplay. (WARNING SIGN 71 - The screenwriters do not have an impressive resume. Actually, they DON’T have a resume!)
Sh*t.
Who else, besides Robert, is a Producer?
John Davis who has orchestrated….oh jeez.
Got any Prozac? Pop it now because John has helped supervise cinematic classics like Marmaduke, AVPR, Daddy Day Camp, Norbit, Eragon, Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties, When a Stranger Calls, AVP, Fat Albert…ugh, let’s stop there, cause, I’m all out of anti-give-up-on-movie-hope-pills.
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The actors?
Oscar winner Adrien Brody! That’s a ballsy choice. Maybe he can bring some humanity to the screen.
Topher Grace? Wait. What? Eric Forman is in a Predator movie? I’m a big believer in giving actors a chance to stretch and prove they can play various styles. So, let’s see if he can make us believe him in this role. It’s unpredictable, so that’s a plus.
Alice Braga, okay, I guess they couldn’t get Michelle Rodriquez, cool, she was in Blindness and gave a solid performance, that’s another plus.
Laurence Fishburne - say no more.
Danny Trejo, the badass looking dude from Robert Rodriquez’s Machette, that’s a plus.
Well, the acting seems like it has potential, as well as the directing, but the script is written by big screen virgins.
It all adds up to - Good enough.
There is an insight to be gained from Predators. It mirrors the current movie making process.
Story Corp. has taken the risk out of the Predator species. Instead of going off and adventuring, they bring prey home to their safe and predictable hunting grounds, where they have the advantage.
What’s the fun in that? Where’s the honor? Where’s the growth? Where’s the challenge?
Maybe this game preserve is sort of like a Predator retirement home? Only, instead of golfing the elder Predators spend time killing weaker, easier prey? Maybe they have to have a certain amount of kills in order to be members of the I’m-A-Predator-Club?
Hey! Cocoon meets Predator! There’s a pitch!
What happens when Predators get old and can’t hunt as effectively anymore? No, wait, that’s too risky. This has to be safe…even though the story deals with one of the deadliest, most reckless species ever.
Studios today need a certain amount of predictable box office hits to maintain stockholder happiness. So they take familiar property that’s already brought in the dollars once, bring them back, dress em’ up a little different and release them in the box office hunting grounds of the theater for shooting-fish-in-a-barrell-results.
I’m sure the Predators hunting in this game preserve know it’s a simulation. It’s not a real challenge. So, there’s something inside of them that isn’t a 100% proud. Same thing for movie making. Very few artists can be proud of what’s coming out of Tinsel Town at the moment. Maybe when the economy turns around more risks will be taken. Until then, it’ll be easy pickins’.
I know it seems like I’m being hard on this movie. Robert Rodriquez has got a ton of skill and that Wild Wild West attitude when it comes to taking risks and making movies (though he has made like fifteen Spy Kids movies) and this does look better than all the other sequels.
And, like everyone, I want to see a fun, exciting Predator movie on the big screen. I’m just hoping there are some surprises and creativity to balance out the familiarity.
I really wanted to end this review with a play on the famous Arnold, “Go! Get to the Chopper!” line by saying, “Go! Get to the theater! See this! It’s going to be awesome!” But, instead I feel like it should be, us the audience grabbing Robert by the collar, like Dutch did to Dillon when he screamed, “You set us up! It was bullsh*t! All of it!”
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The Movie Preview Critic rates Predator 3:
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Predator 3’s PLACE IN MOVIE HISTORY:
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