Greetings again from the darkness. If you are a fan of the 1987 original film directed by John McTiernan (Die Hard) and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, you couldn’t help but be a bit excited about this new one since Robert Rodriguez is involved. What a letdown. It plays more like an episode of Lost, or even The Twilight Zone.
With films from Mr. Rodriguez, we have always been able to count on creativity, ingenuity, humor and excitement. This one lacks all. Now to be fair, the director is actually Nimrod Antal, whose resume includes Armored and Vacancy, both of which are as empty as this one. But Mr. Rodriguez was very involved in the details.
Of course when your cast is minus Arnold, you start with a major handicap. When you replace him with Adrien Brody, you appear to be aiming for disappointment. Sure Mr. Brody did a few sit-ups to prep for this role, but he is no action hero, regardless of how he mimics the Christian Bale Batman voice in order to seem tough.
The rest of the bad luck cast of characters is rounded out by Laurence Fishbourne, Alice Braga, the great Danny Trejo (a Rodriguez staple), Topher Grace and Walton Goggins (so great as Boyd Crowder in Justified, TV’s best new series this past season). Just to add to the misery, the film score is simplistic and a bit of a joke itself. It certainly misses the excellent work of Alan Silvestri from the first film.
Not much need to discuss the lack of any real new material here. The bad guys are pretty much the same. The weapons are pretty much the same. The cast and script are weaker. The real money with this one lies in a “making of” documentary in which the first “pitch” meeting takes place and the producers are presented with the idea to make a thrilling new action movie … a new Predator movie … starring … Adrien Brody and Topher Grace!
Movie Reviews from the Dark 