Plot
Eight people find themselves in mysterious jungle. Each of them have no memory of how they got there, and by all their combined investigations – it almost appears ‘other worldly’.
They also discover a group of monsters are hunting them one by one, and now they must try to work out a way to not only survive – but get home.
Direction
Directed by Nimród E. Antal. It is fine, but not as good as what has come before.
Cast
Adrian Brody plays the lead of Royce. He seems completely miscast, with a terrible ‘gruff’ accent. Royce is a Special Ops who puts himself in charge. Brody tries, but ultimately struggles in the tough as nails role.
Topher Grace plays Edwin, a Doctor who finds himself mixed up with a group of seemingly mercenaries. He has an… interesting… character development in the last minutes of the film.
Alice Braga plays Isabelle, who knows a little something about the first movies attacks… She is a member of the Israeli Defense Force.
Walton Goggins plays Stans, another non soldier – but a death row inmate days away from execution. He is a fun addition to the film, who brings a spark of comedy.
Oleg Taktarov plays Nikolai – a Russian soldier, who befriends Edwin when the Dr stops him from touching a poisonous plant on arrival.
Danny Trejo plays Cuchillo, a Mexican solider and member of the drug cartel.
Louis Ozawa plays Hanzo, a member of the Yakuza. He has a great moment later in the film where he goes up against a Predator and uses his Katana.
Mahershala Ali plays Mombasa, a West African Soldier
and
Laurence Fishburne in a very small (and underused) character Nolan, who the survivors find who has been living on the alien planet for a long time… alone…
Breakdown
Starts quickly – where we are introduced to Adrian Brody’s gruff soldier Royce while he is in free fall – and thankfully awakens just moments in time to pull on his parachute. We then get a quick progression of introductions to all the characters – but the ‘why’s are left in limbo – such as why are they here, and where exactly are they?
The second question is answered soon after (it’s an alien planet) but how they got there, and why they are chosen is never explained. At least with all the other movies, even the ones not as good as this one those questions are answered.
The set up for tension is okay – with the characters finding some empty cages that clearly are holding something else – and then a series of booby traps and dead soldiers that have been there for some time.
There is the standard ‘one by one’ they die trope – which is typical in movies like this – and some get some great ends (especially Hanzo), while others are somewhat anticlimactic.
I didn’t care too much for the character of Royce – his knowledge of whats going on feels contrived and as much as Brody tries to play the tough guy – he struggles.
The addition of Laurence Fishburne in an all too short 15m role, should have been expanded – and fleshed out his ‘antagonism’ more – as he felt more like the ‘poor guy whose been here by himself’ for years than the guy trying to kill all the new humans.
The final arc, in which we discover that Grace’s Dr Edwin is in fact a bad guy. He’s a serial killer back on Earth – lasts all of five minutes from reveal to his death. It adds nothing other than to, ‘just be there’ for a lazy plot line. Dumb.
I didn’t hate the Royce teams up with tied up Predator too much, as this gave a fairly decent Predator v Predator fight sequence which we haven’t really seen before.
The open ending in which more people arrive via parachute has never been continued.
Overall
Returning to a ‘stand alone’ in the Alien/Predator franchise – is not anywhere near as good as some of the films coming before it.
Some less than spectacular performances bring this down a peg too.
Go into this with an open mind. It’s passable. Just
2.5/5
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