The Hunt Is On
Adrien Brody stars as an American merc named Royce. The film begins with Royce falling, still asleep, from the sky. The scene grabs your attention immediately as Royce suddenly awakens and struggles to get his chute open and land with some safety in an area completely unknown to him. Moments after he lands, several other people — Edwin, Isabelle, Stans, Nikolai, Cuchillo, Hanzo, and Mombasa — land in
the nearby area. This is a group of strangers, all unfamiliar with each other and all unsure why they are here. A variety of different nationalities are represented here but one thing these people do have in common besides their predicament is that they are all warriors of one kind or another.
Royce, a merc, packs an assault rifle with drum magazine. Isabelle is a soldier with a dead eye and sniper rifle, Edwin a doctor (okay, so he’s not a warrior), Stan is an inmate, Nikolai a heavy gunner for the Russians, Hanzo a member of the Yakuza, and so forth. The group doesn’t get along at first but they’re all interested in getting out of wherever they are and back home.
As you might guess, they start getting picked off by the Predators as the film carries on. You’ll notice similar tactics and technology in use by the Predators that were used in the previous films. More time and effort is made in this film than the previous one to explain and elaborate on the Predators’ race. For Predator purists, who revel a bit in the idea that the Predator is just some unknown, highly advanced alien, these details can be a little much and maybe somewhat distracting or uninteresting. Despite that, the movie maintains a good pace and structure that sees Royce, the makeshift leader of the group, working towards and ultimate solution of survival and escape while the group’s numbers continue to dwindle.
They eventually meet Laurence Fishburne’s character, Noland. Noland provides much the explanation of the Predators and he also has an intriguing, although brief role as a scavenger who has managed to stay alive on this planet for many years. His knowledge about a Predator ship may be the only chance this makeshift group has to escape.
I thought Predators did a fine job for a modern day action movie. Far too often in today’s action films — The Losers, Transformers, The A-Team, and GI Joe for example — humor and licensed products and stupid music take a center stage. Predators felt like much more of a focused movie, one that was intent on combining suspense and action together. To that end, it does so very well, and it does a pretty good job of balancing nearly a dozen characters as well.
Predators On Blu-ray
The image quality for Predators on Blu-ray is nothing short of excellent. Fortunately, the sci-fi thriller also features plenty of scenes to flex some HD muscle and it does so nicely. Expect a massive color palette, indoor and outdoor scenery, lots of nicely done CG, and all around great sets, too. It’s safe to say that the image quality of Predators is one of the best looking Blu-rays I have seen this year with every scene being crisp, vibrant, and popping right off the screen. The audio — a DTS-HD 5.1 track — is also outstanding and once again, the film provides ample ground for the Blu-ray transfer to impress you. The snarls of the Predators, the whirring of a chaingun, and all of the action and dialogue are faithfully captured here and presented very nicely.
In addition to a second disc which contains the Digital Copy, this release contains the following extra features:
-Robert Rodriguez presents Motion Comics (HD, 11m) – Motion Comics, which I was introduced to recently with an Astonishing X-Men DVD, are growing on me. There are two included here, both of which help tell the backstory to the film. The first is “Moments of Extraction” and it shows us what each member of the group was doing when they were suddenly kidnapped before being hunted. The second is “Crucified” and in this motion comic, we learn how one Predator gets hung out to die. If you have seen the movie, you know which Predator that is.
-Audio Commentary with Director Nimród Antal and Producer Robert Rodriguez
-The Chosen (HD, 5m) – This feature examines the members of the group who were brought to the hunting ground planet.
-Evolution of the Species: Predators Reborn (HD, 40m) – A interesting feature that documents the making of the film from a variety of angles; from the initial planning to production footage, casting, and plenty of interviews with cast and crew.
-Making A Scene (SD, 7m) – This feature focuses on the ‘Predator dogs’ scene with comments from the actors.
-Deleted/Extended Scenes (HD, 11m) – About ten additional and extended scenes.
-Trailers (HD) – The trailer for the movie as well as some other Fox films. Annoyingly, the Blu-ray starts off with the trailers for the other Fox films rather than getting viewers to the actual movie or the menu. Of course you can skip these, but still…
With that, lets get to the summary…