I'm a franchise fan. Predator was a masterpiece, Predator II was great, Aliens Vs Predator was alright and AVP:R was.... well absolutely awful but I watched it. That's how much of a fan I am.
I've had July's release of Predators set in my diary for a while and was really looking forward to it. Alas, it turns out to be yet another bitter disappointment.
The pacing was all wrong. In Predator, the slow parts were short and useful for building up the tension. In Predators, the slow parts of the bulk of the movie and were useful for story advancement but failed to build up the tension at all. I didn't feel the characters were in constant jeopardy, as they should have been, and I didn't feel excited or interested about their fates. Each death came with inevitability rather than surprise. Each death was in fact far from sudden. You knew it was coming. And you just don't care.
The acting was decent, the filming alright, the overall story had promise. But the weird, glaring errors (despite being out in the open often, none of them noticed the planets above their heads until they reached a scenic clifftop setting!!) and the total lack of pacing leads this movie to be on a par with AvP. Alright but not recommended. It's worth a watch if it comes on the telly, but don't part with any hard earned money for it!
