Predators (2010)

Written by LastCaress1972 on August 11, 2013

Disparate bunch of tough-guy types plucked from various dumb action sub-genres (a black-ops mercenary, a Spetsnaz operative, a drug cartel goon, a yakuza, a killer, a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker), all of whom get an opportunity to do their "thang" at some point during the movie, get picked off one by one in typical fashion, in a setting designed to evoke the 1987 original's jungle shenanigans. Meh. Can't say that I entirely buy into Adrian Brody as an action hero lead, either. Arguably the worst leading tough-guy since Danny Glover in, um, Predator 2.

Something else bugged me about it, too. It's a petty quibble, but it irked me nonetheless:

SPOILERS AHEAD:

Did you ever see the trailer for Predators? At the 1.23 mark is IMO the most effective shot in the trailer: Brody's character has one of those iconic triangulated laser sights (from the predators' shoulder-mounted guns) pointed at him. It moves up his body to his head. As it does, many more sights appear, all over him. More than a dozen. He has about fifteen predators all training their guns on him. How's he going to get out of that? He's fooked. Well, no, he's not, because that scene DOESN'T HAPPEN in the film. The first laser sight happens, yes, from the ONE predator of three (?) that are chasing them, but fifteen? No. All those other sights are added in just for the trailer, to make the film look more Predator-filled than it is.

As I said, a rather petty quibble, but it's one thing to edit the best bits of a movie together into a trailer to make it look more exiting than it maybe is over the course of two hours, and quite another to lie about what one can expect to see in said movie.