Predators opens with a rush: battle-hardened men and women plummeting towards ground, desperately opening parachutes, snatched from separate lives across the globe. The underlying sci-fi concept – of warriors teleported to become the sport on an alien game reserve – is as old (and, I must say, as satisfying) as sci-fi itself. I haven’t seen the other instalments of what has become the ‘predator’ franchise, not even the original Arnie version, so I cannot compare, but this instalment is simultaneously banal and shallow, kinetic and exciting. Scenes of crap characterisation (Adrian Brody is formulaic as the head hero, Laurence Fishburne does a fine cameo, and the other actors are just passable), lame plotting, and ridiculous alien gore alternate with pell-mell action scenes (director Nimród Antal sure knows how to choreograph battles) evocative filming. In short Predators, is almost as bad as, but ultimately better than, the run-of-the-mill sci-fi thriller.
Not outstanding but a rousing refuge from D&M (‘deep and meaningful’). 2½ stars.