Word-of-Mouth

‘Predators’ (1987) was so much fun…

Hey guys remember those days of 80s and 90s when action films used to be not just an art but also fun. They weren’t just action films!!! No attempts were made at being smart or very funny, no romance, and no horror. Just action, with a little suspense and dry wit sprinkled in. With Arnold and his masculine buddies wandering into the jungle, fired off a lot of big guns, and an invisible alien killed them one by one. No plot. Little dialog, little character, just fun…

- Bloody Mary

What the hell *are* you?

I love Predator. I love everything about it. It has hell lot of action with it’s well paced, brutal and pulse pounding suspense!!! You just know at the very beginning that everyone is going to get their balls chopped off, metaphorically speaking.

And you know the original concept for this film originated as a joke. Someone said that the only person Rocky Balboa of the Rocky (1976) series of films had yet to fight was E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982).

A super powerful awesome looking predator is stalking hard core special ops and killing them off one at a time… You never know who will be the next victim. It kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time even though I basically knew everyone was screwed except Arnold, I just didn’t know the extent of how screwed they were until they died.

Do you know why Predator works so well???

It is because there wasn’t anything hunting us humans, until it came along and tossed a great big ugly curve ball our way. Humans have always been at the top of the food chain, and this movie makes people stop and think about what it’s like to be the prey for once. It makes you think about how horrible it would be to be the hunted one day. Did you know that, in the wild, predatory animals don’t always kill their prey prior to feeding on them? So that’s a pleasant thought for you.

Anybody want to go camping???

- Ravi Iyer

Predator is a classic

Right from the off we are thrown into a world of intrigue and mystery with a team of tough guys – “The Best”. They have a history, they’re good guys – “a rescue team – not assassins”. They have a great leader, with a moral centre and biceps the size of mountains.

For me arguably one of the film’s best scenes is the chopper journey into the jungle. Everyone gets a turn, something that allows them to be established, their roles, and their place in the group.

The scene explodes with the music of Little Richard singing “Long Tall Sally” in such a memorable few minutes that fans will remember it forever. Then…. the music is off, it’s down to serious business and within seconds of this entertaining and relaxed scene of interaction and introduction, we’re literally dropped from a chopper into the thick jungle below. No way out, no idea where we’re going or how we’re going to get there. Thick foliage surrounds us in every direction, including up. However, we’re with these guys and we trust them, they’re cool and they know exactly what they’re doing.

These guys go from cool as ice to horribly uneasy when they discover a group of their military comrades skinned and hanging from the trees next to their downed chopper.

It sends everything into a crazy tail-spin. They know these men, but have never seen anything like this. They’re now on Alien Ground… yeah!!! Them being uneasy means WE are uneasy.

When we are met with this brilliant and disorientating Predator POV for the first time someone or something is there, and is watching you. It’s strange, primal the sound is distorted and creepy. Immediately things begin to move into suspense-filled horror, away from the tobacco-chewing laughs of minutes ago.

The film is crossing genres before our eyes. It’s turning into a sci-fi horror…

It’s something we’ve genuinely never seen, not like this. It truly is a “double-you-tee-eff” moment.

THAT’s what makes Predator (1987) special.

- Sandy Gujral

The Predator Arrives in the Urban Jungle…

‘Predators 2’ is a hard-boiled and hard-core action sci-fi flick with lots of gore, intelligence and intensity. It’s a slick, pulse-pounding and hard-core action-packed thrill-ride. ‘Predators 2’ was an ultra-violent playground for the invisibility-cloaked alien. It’s a sequel that knocks the original out of the park. And a terrifying, suspenseful and exhilarating action-ride that packs a wallop. Danny Glover is excellent.
The story here is like the original except Predator seems to be hunting Mike throughout the film.

Everywhere Mike goes, the predator seems to follow and gets closer and closer to Mike. The acting and storyline were great. And the FX here, were excellent. Everything was as it should have been. For me 9/10, same as the first movie.

Nice action shots. The ‘Predators 2’ is awesome, with the new weaponry and stuff. The scene where he throws his disc that slashes the cadavers and finally separates that human… gabba gabba. The scene where he heals himself…jep there is cool stuff in the movie. And of course the ending in the trophy-room where you see the glimpse of the alien skull… I loved that.

My Suggestion would be Get to the Sofa—–>surround on extreme and prepare for the ride of your life… Watch ‘Predators 2’ hahahaha!!!

- Sharddha Singh

5 reasons why you would not watch Predators 2010 this week!

Are you confused? Wondering about which movie to go this week for? Here below are 5 reasons which would definitely help you make up your mind! Where ever you are whatever you do, please do not go and watch Predators this week….

1. Because, you really love watching the parade of glossy mannequins…common sense be damned!

2. Because, you are under-aged and may not be legally allowed to watch something like Predators!

3. Because, you are really scared to getting haunted by Predators in your dreams…..you sissy you….:-P

4. Because, it is your spouse who decides what you watch…our condolences fella….

5. Because, you are a psychologist researching on social effects of missing a good movie on a normal individual.

Whatever be the reason, in case we have failed to convince you, here are a few links which would help you come out of your rigmarole!

Don’t Watch it

Are you Serious!

Times of India: Predators Review

They first struck way back in 1987: the invisible, X-ray visioned, X-file creatures with an Xtra big yen for human flesh. But then, they had the X-factor to contend with: Hollywood’s favourite hunk and hit man, Arnold Schwarzenneger, who could fight them all, aliens, robots, rogues and terrorists with iron fists and an unsmiling `Hasta la vista, baby’.

Today, in its fifth instalment, the Predator series is no longer sexed up and has lost some of its charm. It might have worked, if the makers had tried to infuse an element of novelty in the script or the delineation of the blood thirsty creatures. True, Adrien Brody is an eminent actor and has an intensity that manages to transcend the mediocrity of script and scene. But, in a predictable cat and mouse game, there isn’t much that the brooding Brody can do, other than play the hunted-turned-hunter who is hell-bent on surviving, any which way. Even if it means, making some rash decisions and earning the scorn of the rest of the threatened brood. Army sniper, Alice Braga does try to rein him in and plays the voice-of-conscience team mate. Indeed, a difficult task when hungry predators are hounding you with salivating jaws and the terrain around you is absolutely unfamiliar. And Laurence Fishburne makes an iffy appearance as a survivor who’s managed to elude the killers for six seasons or more. But is that enough to carry the carnage forward?

The special effects do appeal intermittently, and the spook show does hold your attention, here and there. But, by and large, the film unfolds as predictable sci-fi formula, celebrating pulp and gore.

Review: ‘Predators’ is as a solid sci-fi action flick!

You have heard of them before and you know exactly what they are capable of. Only this time around they are more dangerous, gritty and deadly. A team of homosapiens are deployed as prey against an overwhelming threat.

‘Predators’ is a yet another game of death between the hunters and the hunted. It’s just that in earlier version (‘Predator’, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger), there was just one beast, here you have a number dreadlocked technically advanced monsters which pretty much explains the little ‘s’ in ‘Predators’.

Nevertheless, the simple twist of plurality does supply a whole bunch of them, in various shapes and sizes. This, the third ‘Predator’ film (there have also been two ‘Predator vs. Alien’ spin-offs), opens with Royce (Adrien Brody) in a free-fall crashing hard onto the floor of the jungle.

Soon he is joined by a group of eight who gathers to make sense of their situation. Most of them are mercenaries of various sorts, among them a Mexican drug cartel veteran (Danny Trejo), a Brazilian black ops sniper (Alice Braga) and a Yakuza assassin (Louis Ozawa Changchien).

Topher Grace, playing a doctor and the least muscular of the bunch, also drops in for comic relief. The always entertaining Grace does help enliven the purposeful grimness of ‘Predators’.

Unknown of what place they are in and why such motley crew have been assembled, it does not take much to sense of the lurking predators and notice the sky contains a few too many moons. It dawns on them that they`ve been transported to another planet to serve as little more than the game of a predator game preserve.

After countering an attack by a pack of quadruped alien beasts, the group meets Noland (Laurence Fishburne), an air assault soldier who has survived on the planet for years by scavenging and hiding in an abandoned structure. He explains that the Predators sharpen their killing skills by collecting warriors and dangerous beasts from other worlds and bringing them to the planet to hunt.

The “most dangerous game” thrill is so much the centre of ‘Predator’ movies that there`s almost nothing else to it. The hunter vs. hunted dynamic climaxes when the star — first Arnold Schwarzenegger, now Brody — covers himself in mud.

However, much of the drama in ‘Predators’ comes not from the aliens but from the infighting among humans, who are predators, too.

Rating: Two cheers for this one!

Here’s how the jungle world of Predators was created…

The film began production on October 12, 2009 in the jungles of Hawaii, and then the cast and crew completed the shoot at Rodriguez’ Troublemaker Studios in Austin, Texas.

To find the perfect exotic alien jungle that would complement the sets and locations in Texas, the filmmakers considered locations in Puerto Rico, Mexico, and even China, before settling on multiple sites near Hilo, Hawaii.

Geologically, The Big Island is one of the newest islands formed so it has very rough terrain and a unique vegetation. The locations were very alien, very extreme and very difficult to work in.

The Hawaiian locations had to visually flow with the Texas locations, as well as the elaborate Jungle and Hunting Camp set that was under construction back in Austin at Troublemaker Studios.

Local Austin landscape designers and nurseries helped the production source the living greens. Three fifty-two foot truckloads of approximately 4,000 tropical and exotic plants were initially shipped in from Florida, including 1,200 five-gallon pots of grasses.

‘Predators’ game based on the new movie makes ripping heads off fun

iPhone game lets you be the Predator

Summer movie season is here and that means it time for those summer movie tie-in games. And nothing inspires the meh in me like a movie tie-in game.

Anyone else excited about “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore” – the game based on the forthcoming movie of the same name? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Movie-based games are a hit or miss bunch, with an emphasis on miss. Far too often they’re nothing but a slap-dash cash-in to take advantage of folks who dig a film but don’t know any better when it comes to purchasing video games.

So color me surprised to report that the official game for the new “Predators” movie is pretty darn good. Color me even more surprised to report that it’s not only a good game, but it’s also an iPhone game.
That’s right, a big summer movie got nothing but a little iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch game — and lo and behold it works.
What I like most about “Robert Rodriguez Presents Predators” game (yeah, that’s the whole name), is the way it turns the movie around on itself.

You see, the movie (which opens in theaters Friday and was produced by Rodriguez) stars Adrien Brody, Laurence Fishburne, Danny Trejo and Alice Braga as a bunch of killers, thugs and criminals who find themselves on a kind of alien-world game reserve – and they’re the game. It would seem moviegoers are meant to cheer on these humans as they try to survive and escape this otherworldly jungle and its otherworldly hunters.

Now go and hunt some humans on your iphone.

Predators reboot a pleasant, gory surprise

Laramie Movie Scope: Predators

When “Predator” was released in 1987, it was a rather unremarkable science fiction action film, except for the fact that two actors in the film would later become state governors, Arnold Schwarzenegger (California) and Jesse Ventura (former pro wrestler, mayor and, to cap it off, governor of Minnesota, believe it or not). The movie defied its many critics and became a hit, spawning sequels, this one being the latest, the others were Predator 2 (1990) Alien vs. Predator (2004) and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007). The Blu Ray release of the original film came out less than a month ago, with yet another DVD package coming out later. Most sequels are inferior to the original film, but “Predators” is an exception, a film that stands on its own and is the equal of the original film.

The movie starts out spectacularly with the main character, Royce, (played by Adrien Brody of “Cadillac Records”) awakening from unconsciousness to find himself falling thousands of feet above the ground. He is wearing some kind of parachute, but it has no rip chord. Needless to say, he survives the fall and finds several other people, all of whom are unaware of how they have arrived in this strange jungle on an alien world. They have arrived in a kind of game preserve set aside for hunters, and they are the prey. Aliens are hunting them. All of the hunted are mercenaries, complete with their weapons of choice, save one, Edwin (played by Topher Grace of “Spider-Man 3”). One by one, the aliens pick off their prey until only the toughest, smartest people are left.

Royce is a loner, but becomes the de facto leader of the group, being the toughest, smartest and most ruthless. Royce seems to be utterly amoral, at one point leading the others into an ambush so he can stand off at a distance and judge the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses. Royce is a hero, but a very unlikely one. Another survivor is the lone woman of the group, Isabelle (Alice Braga of “I am Legend”) who is an expert sniper. Another survivor is Noland (Laurence Fishburne of “The Matrix” trilogy) a crazed man who has spent years in the game preserve hiding from the aliens. Royce is determined not to just survive like Noland has, but to escape this prison planet and get back to the earth. That means he will have to commander an alien spaceship, no mean feat because the spaceships, like the aliens themselves, are hidden by cloaking shields.

This film is a bit like some old World War II movies in that people from a cross section of society must learn to work together. Most minorities are represented in the group, including some from countries outside the U.S. The backgrounds of most of the people in the group are mysterious and first, some are revealed only at the end of the film, so we have to guess at what kind of people they are. Some of them cleverly hide their true nature and abilities for their own reasons. Some have backgrounds in organized crime. One, Hanzo (Louis Ozawa Changchien) a member of the Yakuza (Japanese organized crime) uses this situation to reinvent himself as a modern day samurai warrior. These are not the kind of cardboard characters one expects to see in this kind of film.

This business of discovering the mystery of each character in the film kept up my interest from start to finish. In a sense, this is a character-driven action film. As such, it helps to have high-powered acting talent like Brody (who won the Academy Award for best actor for “The Pianist”), Grace and Fishburne (award-winning actors in their own right) to play these characters. It is unusual to have this much acting talent in a sci-fi horror film. Brody is not the first guy you think of when it comes to macho roles, but he really nails his performance as a tough-as-nails guy in this film. The screenplay, by Alex Litvak and Michael Finch, is very clever in the way it reveals these characters, layer by layer. The film is also well-paced and it delivers on its implied promise of action. The ending is interesting and leaves the door open for yet another sequel.

Predators reboot a pleasant, gory surprise

Up is down and hot is cold during this summer movie season. Films that have looked like sure things have failed while those that shouldn’t work have come out of left field to deliver the goods. Case in point: Nimrod Antal’s Predators, a pseudo-sequel/reboot of the sci-fi action franchise that manages to pump new life into a series that many left for dead. Working from a story idea by producer Robert Rodriguez (Planet Terror), the film takes the action back to a locale similar to the one in the Arnold Schwarzenegger cult classic as it amps up the action and gore. To be sure, these are cosmetic concerns but what really makes the film work is its veteran cast and a clever script that’s far more entertaining than it has any right to be.

Exposition be damned, Antal drops us straight into the action with his opening shot of military mercenary Royce (Adrien Brody) plunging towards the earth. Gathering himself, he opens his parachute, lands safely and discovers seven others who’ve had similar experiences. Lost in remote but seemingly familiar surroundings, what they don’t realize is that they are all dangerous killers in their chosen fields and they’ve been placed in a hunting preserve so that the title alien race can sharpen their skills by hunting them down.

Antal keeps things moving at a decent clip until the overlong third act, and the special effects are quite good. A herd of alien boars that come a huntin’ are frighteningly real while the Hawaiian locales make for a tropical yet alien environment. However, the cast is what saves the day. Brody is convincingly stern and surprisingly pulls off the tough stuff while Alice Braga as a military sharpshooter and Topher Grace as a misplaced surgeon effectively play it straight. But it’s Laurence Fishburne as a long-suffering survivor who steals the show. Unbalanced yet wily, he brings a gravity to the proceedings that goes far in convincing us that the threat they face is real. Sure, it’s a B-movie premise, but the A-list talent on board makes Predators the most pleasant surprise of the summer.

Predators – Film Review

As soon as the movie starts, with Royce falling from the sky, Predators is declaring you’re going to have a fast, fun time. And for the most part, this movie totally delivers. I love the simplicity of having a bunch of characters (and almost caricatures) fall from the sky. It’s what fans of the original truly want, right? And a guy named Nimród delivers with help from Robert Rodriguez (executive producer and writer). Plus, there are nods to the original Predator with Isabelle reading a file of Dutch (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and the film ends with “Long Tall Sally.”

It’s thrills are fairly basic but well crafted (guns will be just out of reach, characters will almost meet their doom) but it’s that the fun of this franchise? We see tough guys (and a girl) fight something that we would have no chance against. This movie has adapted and grown from the original, just like a real-life Predator would. It is … learning. Predators is the fun you hope it would be in a summer that isn’t quite delivering the goods.

SCORE: 8/10

“Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter.” In “Predators,” that silly pronouncement by Ernest Hemingway is solemnly repeated by Royce (Adrien Brody), a grim, humorless mercenary who finds himself mysteriously transported to an alien hell.

As the movie opens, Royce is shown regaining consciousness while spinning downward in freefall; he has no idea of where he is or why he is there. Flailing and howling, he crashes into a jungle moments after his parachute finally opens.

So begins the newest of several spinoffs from “Predator,” John McTiernan’s 1987 sci-fi thriller starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. The fourth spinoff, if you count two “Alien vs. Predator” movies and “Predator 2” (1990), “Predators” looks like an attempt to reboot this B-movie franchise.

By the time Royce quotes Hemingway, he has long since realized that he is not in Kansas anymore or anywhere else on Earth, for that matter. He is one of eight humans dropped simultaneously by parachute into a lush, tropical jungle on a strange planet.

The other Earthlings are a brutal lot and include a Russian soldier (Oleg Taktarov), a fighter in a Sierra Leonean death squad (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali), a serial killer (Walton Goggins), a Yakuza assassin (Louis Ozawa Changchien), a Mexican drug gang enforcer (Danny Trejo) and an Israeli sniper (Alice Braga, the lone woman). They are the kind of people commonly referred to as monsters, and all but one carry heavy weaponry.

The only unarmed new arrival is a suspiciously clean-cut doctor (Topher Grace) who is not as he appears. Laurence Fishburne makes a cameo appearance as an earlier visitor to the planet who claims to have survived for “10 seasons” in this lush land of poisonous flowers and waterfalls, where the sun doesn’t seem to move across the sky.

This genre-savvy film, directed by Nimrod Antal (“Kontroll”) from a screenplay by Michael Finch and Alex Litvak, stuffs Mr. Brody’s mouth with handfuls of sticky verbal popcorn. As he leads his fellow visitors in a life-and-death struggle with an evolving race of invisibility-cloaked extraterrestrial hunters — the resident predators — he is the first to realize that they have been selected as game on a hunting reserve. The predators plan to toy with them, then pick them off one by one.

Noisy, overstuffed with special effects and embellished with pretentious visual quotations from “Apocalypse Now,” “Predators” might be taken as a karmic morality tale whose human predators finally get their comeuppance. But as its momentum accelerates, and its special effects transform it into a pulpy cartoon, “Predators” loses its judgment and turns into a frantic, clichéd chase film. This chaotic stew of fire, blood, mud and explosives is so devoid of terror and suspense that any metaphorical analysis is rendered moot.

The best installment in the series since the 1987 original.

Predators is the latest variation on the classic short story The Most Dangerous Game where hunters become the hunted. Opening like a Saw film, a group of strangers wake up in a remote location to find themselves pawns in a deadly game devised by their mysterious captor. They must forge an uneasy alliance with each other if they’re going to survive. This seemingly disparate group has one thing in common: they’re all killers.

American mercenary Royce (Adrien Brody) is a lone wolf who nevertheless finds himself taking on a leadership role in the group. The other members include: Isabelle (Alice Braga), an Israeli military sniper; Stans (Walton Goggins), a convicted serial killer; Cuchillo (Danny Trejo), a Mexican drug cartel enforcer; Nikolai (Oleg Taktarov), a Russian special forces commando; Mombasa (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali), an African death squad member; and Hanzo (Louis Ozawa Changchien), a Yakuza enforcer. The only one who appears out of place is Edwin (Topher Grace), a disgraced doctor.

They soon realize that they’re not on Earth at all but rather an alien planet, a game preserve where they’re the prey. A battle of wits ensues with the Predators. Can Royce and Co. outwit their hunters long enough to escape from the Predators’ planet?
Predators is one of this summer’s most surprisingly fun movies. It’s a solid if somewhat unremarkable sequel, but one that’s nevertheless the closest in spirit and execution to the 1987 original. As the best Predator movie since the first film, Predators successfully erases the odious memory of Predator 2 and those silly AvP movies. It makes the eponymous alien cool and scary again, and restores the franchise to its gritty and gory roots.

One of the best decisions made here was to set the story on the Predators’ hunting planet, even if it does look an awful lot like Hawaii or Honduras. That actually helps explain why the Predator chose Latin America for the first film — he was homesick! As in the original, this film takes its time to reveal the Predators, establishing its multi-national cast of human characters (a.k.a. Predator fodder) before bringing in the titular manhunters. This installment also introduces us to the social hierarchy on the Predator world, where Super Predators actually hunt and torture the “regular” Predators we’ve known of thus far. There are also “Predator dogs,” who are actually a lot cooler and scarier than they sound.

Brody is fine as the anti-hero whose understanding of how to hunt and kill men makes him understand the Predators more than he’d care to admit. One drawback, though, is that Brody speaks in a raspy “tough guy movie voice” throughout, which is a bit cliche seeing as how Christian Bale has now raised that (or lowered it, depending on who you ask) to an art form.

Laurence Fishburne appears in a small role as a survivor who’s been stranded for years on the Predators’ hunting world. And while Noland begins as a man who has ventured into his own personal Joseph Conrad-like heart of darkness, he ultimately becomes more akin to Tim Robbins in War of the Worlds. It’s a brief enough appearance that the movie isn’t derailed by this borderline over-the-top sequence.

Grace’s role isn’t as large as you might suspect, but he lends a darkly comic relief to the scenes he’s in. It’s Goggins who nearly steals the show as the sociopath Death Row inmate given a new lease on life. You can imagine that it’s a short-term lease. Braga brings grit and restraint to her turn as Isabelle, while Changchien, Taktarov and Ali all ooze macho-cool in their one-dimensional roles. Trejo may be basically playing his usual badass persona, but it would’ve been nice to have seen more done with his character.

While there weren’t as many inventive kills here as there could have been, director Nimrod Antal and writer-producer Robert Rodriguez have crafted a crowd-pleasing but familiar Predator movie that mirrors many of the beats of the original film even as it whets your appetite for more movies featuring everyone’s favorite intergalactic hunter.