Predators

I was never comfortable with the term "reboot" as it pertains to film, but I've come to decide that the industry is now so saturated with updates, remakes and sequels that we really do need to make up whole new terms in order to better categorise them. Reboot still feels more like audience positioning than an attempt to accurately describe the state, but then I suppose it does cover "returning to a previous iteration." "Load from restore point" would simply be unworkable. I'm happier with "re-imagining", which implies some semblance of the original within which anything may go, but that's not applicable here.

I consider Predators a straight sequel, but it avoided the numeral and was touted as a reboot in that it attempted to pretend, as many have, that the dissatisfying but essentially harmless Danny Glover movie, Predator 2 (In which he teams up with a wise cracking alien killing machine to take down a corrupt Gary Busey in order to stop him making Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms), never happened.

Our intrepid band of racial stereotypes and criminally underused character actors are stranded on an alien world and are forced to participate in a spectacularly one sided battle of wills.

I'm not sure I entirely understand the Predators thinking. Capturing someone alive within their own environment sounds to me considerably more challenging than standing invisible in a bush as they blunder past and letting your automated shoulder turret give them seven kinds of laser to the Chevy Chase. The hunt doesn't strike me as particularly sporting. Arnie and co. were proven masters of the terrain in which the Predator found them. Half of the chaps here have probably never seen two trees in the same place. Fish in barrels is an image that springs to mind.

The group are inevitably bumped off one by one in a variety of grisly ways. There is the requisite infighting because finding a bunch that would work together might have presented a challenge to the lazy aliens and then the film develops whiplash as it makes overzealous attempts to give nods to the original film which you liked better than this one and there's a twist at the end that leaves a subtle trail of giant flashing neon billboards right from the get go.

In essence, it goes out of it's way to tick all the boxes and paint according to the pre-established numerical scheme. It's another disposable, overly cautious, part baked attempt to turn our nostalgia into cold hard swag.

In the case for it's defense, there have been far, far worse cash ins, indeed, even within the same franchise, and much of my rage towards it's reluctance to gamble with it's investors millions of dollars is directed at an industry that has an unwillingness to experiment generally and perhaps is unfair to place squarely at these alien feet.

And it does contain a couple of decent set pieces. You'd have to have a heart of purest stone to not get some small thrill out of seeing a semi naked Japanese man take on an icon of 1980's cinema in one on one combat. The characters, while as obvious as a fart in an elevator are mostly pleasing and I thought Adrien Brody made for a promising protagonist, but ultimately ends up sticking too close to type.

But more, so much more could have been done with an essentially solid premise and decent cast of actors. As is so often the case, the potential was pissed away. Leaving it dry and smelling faintly of urine.