'Predators' falls prey to weak second half
Fast-paced, taut with tension, stuffed with suspense and mystery, "Predators" is easily the best entry in 20th Century Fox's science-fiction alien-hunter action franchise.
For the first 55 minutes.
Then, as if a key mechanism on a soaring rocket malfunctions, "Predators" sputters and fizzles.
It slows to a crawl, weighted down by too many zany plot twists, too many last-second rescues from certain death and too many "he's not really dead!" scenarios.
But for the first half, "Predators" is sublime summer monster movie nirvana, beginning with a classic homage to the old "Twilight Zone" TV series.
Eight strangers wake up in the middle of free-falling through the air with parachutes standing between them and fatal squishdom.
Most are military (Adrien Brody, Alice Braga, Danny Trejo, Oleg Taktarov, Mahershalalhashbaz Ali). One is a doctor (Topher Grace). One is a death-row inmate (Walton Goggins). One an Asian gangster (Louis Ozawa Changchien).
They don't know where they are, or how they got there. Braga's soldier says she doesn't recognize the strange jungle they're in.
When they finally notice the three moons above them, they know they're not even on earth.
Nobody uses names.
Brody's mercenary soldier becomes the natural, reluctant leader, the one who puts together the puzzle first: "This is a game refuge," he concludes. "And we're the game!"
Yep, those rascally alien sportsmen - uh, sportsthings - have turned the whole planet into their private catch-and-kill retreat, complete with a trophy display for all their intergalactic kills.
They don't even show up for the first 45 minutes, allowing plenty of time for the suspense to build and build.
Action-movie addict Robert Rodriguez coproduced this movie, and it was directed by Nimrod Antal, who gave us the underwhelming action features "Armored" and "Vacancy."
They constructed such an exquisite, promising first half, I could scarcely believe the same people made the second, lousy one.
The screenplay, by Alex Litvak and Michael Finch, includes the expected, bland Hollywood action movie dialogue ("I'm ready to die!" intones a soldier, "are you?"), but the storyline does contain an unexpected element of racial conflict.
Not between the humans.
There are two classes of Predators, and the bigger, uglier ones prey upon the smaller, less-ugly ones. It would have been inspired for "Predators" to use this device to comment on earthly race relations, but it's only employed as a way for the last survivors to get away.
No surprise about who they are. At least the original "Alien" shocked us by knocking off its traditional male leader halfway into the story.
"Predators" is no match for "Alien" -- no matter what happened in the "Alien vs. Predator" movies.
"Predators"Rating: #9733; #9733; #189;Starring: Adrien Brody, Alice Braga, Topher Grace, Danny Trejo, Laurence FishburneDirected by: Nimrod AntalOther: A 20th Century Fox release. Rated R for language, violence. 106 minutes