ILL WILL HUNTING
Jul. 17th, 2010 10:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogAnd then I went to the cinema. And then I thought, “That’s bloggable.” Etc.
Predators
I should confess up front – if this didn’t have Robert Rodriguez’s name on it, I wouldn’t have bothered. None of the Predator franchise sequels have ever lived up to the original, and it has to be said that even the original was at heart an excuse for Arnold Schwarzenegger to do Big Dumb Bare-Chested Violence for 90 minutes. It was classic 80s Homoerotic Big Dick Action War Pr0n with a gratuitous alien and even more gratuitous Jesse Ventura. It was also good, but it’s hard to make something like that work more than once.
So even with the new film's premise of humans being abducted to a Predator game preserve, I went in with relatively low expectations. I need not have worried – Predators is the worthy sequel we’ve been waiting for all this time.
Which isn’t to say it’s as good as the original. Two things Predator had going in its favor – besides Jesse Ventura with a General Electric M134 Mini-Gun – was the element of mystery. You weren’t quite sure what Arnold et al were dealing with, and when you found out, the film had suddenly shifted genres. With Predators, you already more or less know the situation and what they’re up against.
That said, director Nimrod Antal and the screenwriters do a good job of reworking the basic premise without simply copying it, and adding in a couple of new elements that promise to take the franchise in an interesting directon, though they may be pushing their luck. And while I think they could have taken a few more chances with the material, at least they had the sense to pretend all the other sequels never happened.
Credit also to Antal for putting together a decent cast of characters, and for knowing how to direct an action scene with a Steadicam. If we have to have more Predator films, this is a good start.
I’m game if you are,
This is dF
Predators
I should confess up front – if this didn’t have Robert Rodriguez’s name on it, I wouldn’t have bothered. None of the Predator franchise sequels have ever lived up to the original, and it has to be said that even the original was at heart an excuse for Arnold Schwarzenegger to do Big Dumb Bare-Chested Violence for 90 minutes. It was classic 80s Homoerotic Big Dick Action War Pr0n with a gratuitous alien and even more gratuitous Jesse Ventura. It was also good, but it’s hard to make something like that work more than once.
So even with the new film's premise of humans being abducted to a Predator game preserve, I went in with relatively low expectations. I need not have worried – Predators is the worthy sequel we’ve been waiting for all this time.
Which isn’t to say it’s as good as the original. Two things Predator had going in its favor – besides Jesse Ventura with a General Electric M134 Mini-Gun – was the element of mystery. You weren’t quite sure what Arnold et al were dealing with, and when you found out, the film had suddenly shifted genres. With Predators, you already more or less know the situation and what they’re up against.
That said, director Nimrod Antal and the screenwriters do a good job of reworking the basic premise without simply copying it, and adding in a couple of new elements that promise to take the franchise in an interesting directon, though they may be pushing their luck. And while I think they could have taken a few more chances with the material, at least they had the sense to pretend all the other sequels never happened.
Credit also to Antal for putting together a decent cast of characters, and for knowing how to direct an action scene with a Steadicam. If we have to have more Predator films, this is a good start.
I’m game if you are,
This is dF
