Predators Review

There’s some pretty stiff competition for the title (that I’ve just made up) of “Unlikeliest Summer Movie Action Hero of 2010.”

By my completely arbitrary count, Jaden Smith took an early lead with “The Kung Fu Kid” (I know what it’s actually called, and I choose to ignore it), and Michael Cera might have the last say when “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” comes out next month.

However, the leader in the clubhouse right now is Adrien Brody in “Predators.”

Obviously, Brody is a really good, Oscar-winning actor who has dabbled in action before, most notably in 2005’s “King Kong.” Still, seeing Brody looking like a jacked-up junior Sylvester Stallone and leading a team of elite miscreants is a VERY far cry from this.

Brody plays Royce (and this is SO the type of movie where characters only go by one name), who gets dropped from a plane and into the middle of a strange jungle along with seven other undesirables.

Eventually, the group finds itself hunted by the deadly, dreadlock-y creatures we know as Predators.

There really isn’t a lot more to the movie — and that’s exactly how it should be.

“Predators” plays like a horror movie where the actors with higher billing (with one notable exception) survive until the end. The movie also smartly sticks close to the formula — jungle setting, rag-tag group, an unlimited amount of ammo — that made the original “Predator” an action classic 23 years ago. In fact, the movie appears to directly follow “Predator” and “Predator 2”, while ignoring the events of the “Alien vs. Predator” movies, which is perfectly ok with me because no Predator (or Alien) movie should ever be PG-13, and the best thing to come out of “AVP” is the tagline, “Whoever wins, we lose.”

Though it’s definitely jarring to see Brody in action-hero mode, the actor eventually inhabits his character (who doesn’t give a damn about anyone else and is perfectly willing to lose some people to gain a strategic advantage) well enough that you stop thinking about it.

It also helps that the movie is never boring, thanks to director Nimrod (snicker) Antal, who keeps things moving at an appropriately brisk pace once the characters have been introduced and the action kicks in. (If the first 20 minutes of the movie were always going to be everyone walking around wondering where they are and what’s going on, the commercials probably shouldn’t have repeatedly shown Brody saying, “This planet is a game preserve — and we’re the game.”)

As you can probably guess, there isn’t much to these (cardboard) characters. Alice Braga probably fairs the worst as the most sympathetic member of the bunch (she’s a woman, so she MUST be compassionate, right?) Walton Goggins (“The Shield”, “Justified”) keeps his streak of playing rednecks alive with a lively turn and giving us much of the comic relief. The rest is provided by Topher Grace, as the one member of the team who doesn’t quite seem to belong. (Maybe he should’ve buffed up like Brody so he would fit in more.)

Finally, there’s Laurence Fishburne who is both amusing and wildly miscast as he performs his best Marlon Brando-in-“Apocalypse Now” impersonation.

The gold standard for action/sci-fi sequels that merely added an “s” to the original’s title is “Aliens.” “Predators” isn’t anywhere near that good, but it’s still an entertaining summer flick that zips right along and doesn’t take itself seriously.

Predators…B