In theory, the 2010 sequel Predators was supposed to do for Predator what Aliens had done for Alien – take an originally confined premise and expand it in scope and scale, then escalate the action to a new level of intensity, potentially a different genre entirely. Sadly, what we actually got was just a rote retread of the first film so pointless it’s barely remembered at all today, deservedly so.
Say what you will about the cheesiness of 1990’s Predator 2, or its inferiority to a certified action classic, at least that first sequel wisely made an attempt to shake things up and take the concept established in the original movie in a slightly new direction. Unfortunately, the box office disappointment of that picture scared the producers off from doing anything at all with the brand for more than a decade, and the pair of lame Alien vs. Predator spin-offs they gave us in the early 2000s didn’t help matters in the slightest.
| Title: | Predators |
| Year of Release: | 2010 |
| Director: | Nimród Antal |
| Watched On: | 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray |
| Also Available On: | Blu-ray Hulu Various VOD rental and purchase platforms |
By 2010, producer Robert Rodriguez jumped on board in an attempt to bring some fresh blood and hopefully renewed energy to the Predator franchise. Rodriguez’s own career was fairly buzzing at that time after the success of Sin City, as well as his contribution to the Quentin Tarantino collaboration Grindhouse. However, while he was instrumental to its development, he didn’t direct the new sequel himself, as he was personally tied up making the Grindhouse spin-off Machete. Directing duties instead fell to Nimród Antal, a Hungarian-American filmmaker known for the modestly-successful 2007 thriller Vacancy.
The one-sentence sales pitch for Predators may initially sound promising: Instead of coming to Earth yet again, a new group of extraterrestrial poachers from the same race we’d seen in previous movies kidnap a bunch of humans and (literally) drop them onto a game preserve planet to serve as prey in the hunting rituals there, on alien ground. Honestly, that’s not a half-bad setup. If done well, it should bring the Predator story to a new, much larger and very different environment than we’d seen before, by dragging the human heroes onto the Predators’ turf this time.
Disappointingly, as it plays out in execution, Predators turns out to be pretty much a carbon copy of the original Predator film. Right from the opening credits, even the musical score, technically credited to John Debney this time, sounds like a note-for-note retread of Alan Silvestri’s work on the first movie. Aside from a few weird plants here or there and a slight purple tinge to the photography, the alien planet is just another jungle, the same as on Earth. The plot then of course also proceeds to follow the same formula, in which hardened and cocky badasses find themselves picked-off one-by-one by a superior enemy they can’t comprehend until a single survivor proves himself worthy to stand toe-to-toe with the big bad Predator.
I’ve never particularly bought the casting of Adrien Brody as the toughest of these tough guys. He’s normally a fine actor, and I can understand his desire to play against type every once in a while, but he’s way out of his element trying to fill Arnold Schwarzenegger’s shoes in a part that clearly calls for another Schwarzenegger-type beefcake. The rest of the cast, including Walton Goggins, Danny Trejo, Alice Braga, and future Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali, are all stuck playing one-dimensional stereotypes. To be fair, the supporting players in the original Predator weren’t exactly much better developed, but they were a lot more colorful and less tedious than this group.
Topher Grace is somehow also in the mix as a different sort of cliché, the two-faced weasel who betrays his human partners at his first opportunity. That’s just another big yawn.
The final act then brings in Laurence Fishburne as a character who was obviously conceived for Arnold Schwarzenegger to reprise his hero Dutch. When Schwarzenegger dropped out, the part was rewritten and reworked so much it no longer serves any point being in the movie at all and should’ve just been cut out entirely.
This is, in my opinion, the worst kind of fan-service, that offers nothing but callbacks to a better work everyone likes more and brings little to nothing new to the table itself. Attempts to build out the mythology of the Predator race, by giving them scary hunting dogs and pitting two separate factions of Predator in conflict with one another, are negligibly interesting at best.
Predators may not be the worst movie in the Predator franchise, but it’s the one I personally hate the most. The whole thing is so utterly superfluous and dull, I see no purpose for it existing, and wish it didn’t. I’ve sat through it twice so far – when it first hit Blu-ray and then later on 4K Ultra HD – and didn’t like it even the slightest bit more the second time around.
Full disclosure: I actually started writing this review in late 2022, during what was supposed to be a Predator marathon. I wrote the introduction and all the technical aspects of the physical media review at that time, but was so bored with the movie I stalled out and never completed the article. I let it sit as a draft for two-and-a-half years and stopped the marathon right in its tracks at that point. Having decided to finally finish the review now, I simply could not bring myself to watch the movie again. The main body of this text is based on my memory and the notes I took in 2022, and that’s as far as I ever wish to go with Predators again.
The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
Predators was first released on Blu-ray in late 2010 and on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray in mid-2018. The latter was initially only available as part of a 3-Movie Collection with the original Predator and Predator 2. That box set was later supplanted a few months later with a 4-Movie Collection adding that year’s The Predator. To date, it’s still not possible to buy either Predator 2 or Predators individually on UHD, even though you can buy Predator or The Predator separately.
Photographed with 2K digital cameras, Predators has been upconverted to 4K and doesn’t offer much appreciable improvement in detail over the prior Blu-ray edition. In fact, shots with CGI visual effects stand out as particularly low-res and look worse than the rest of the live-action footage. However, the 2.35:1 image has been given a new HDR grade that improves contrast and highlights, which is helpful in a dark movie like this. Colors also look richer, especially the oranges and reds during explosions and other fires.
It appears that a decision was made to dial back a layer of fake film grain that had previously been added over the digital photography. Whether that was accomplished with Digital Noise Reduction or simply by going back to the original source before the grain effect was added, I’m not sure, but it doesn’t noticeably hurt image detail. I have mixed feelings about this; I hate the idea of revisionism, but the grain never looked natural and I think the movie works better without it.
Ported directly from the Blu-ray, the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack sounds very shallow and dull for an action movie, with weak gunshots and very little bass.
The only extra on the 4K disc is an audio commentary by director Nimród Antal and producer Robert Rodriguez. The Blu-ray in the case is a copy of the disc from 2010. It opens with a forced trailer before the main menu and has a BD-Live option that was disabled long before this UHD set was released. In addition to the commentary, the Blu-ray also has some dumb motion comics, a few pointless featurettes, a handful of deleted scenes, and a trailer.
The thick keepcase for the 4-Movie Collection is poorly designed and can barely hold the eight discs it’s burdened with. Many of mine keep popping off their spindles to float loosely in the case.
Related
- Predator franchise
- Robert Rodriguez (producer)
- Adrien Brody
- Laurence Fishburne
- Mahershala Ali
- Walton Goggins
Note: All screenshots on this page were taken from the standard Blu-ray edition of the film and are used for illustration purposes only.
The Video File Blog 
I remember really liking the first act of this movie but that it kind of fell apart as it went along.
Honestly, if there was a ever a movie that didn’t really need a sequel never mind be turned into a whole franchise it’s the original Predator. It works so perfectly as a standalone. I get it though, all comes down to money. Hopefully the upcoming Predator movie is a step-up in quality.
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A bit like ‘Home Alone’. Didn’t need to be a franchise. Although the second one is excellent. 3, 4,5 and 6 are horrendous.
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I agree with you, Chris. The movie was a lot of fun until Fishburne shows up with (and I’m being nice here) a dad bod when he subsists on the planet by scrounging for all his food.
I also never understood why he burned down his domicile to get the attention of the Predators…I haven’t watched the movie in like 10 years, but I remember it not making sense to me even when I saw it the first time.
This movie could have been a really fun creature feature, but it stumbled badly heading into the end. Even though I had a difficult time believing Brody was a hard ass, I did smile every time he spat out the tough guy dialogue in that ridiculousy husky voice.
I wish the filmmakers had gone with making a grittier movie; this one felt too polished. The idea was pretty cool, but it wasn’t executed as well as I hoped it would have been.
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