Saw the movie last night- 2 hours of fan service and I loved it.
Though I did find the Super Predator a bit stupid and unnecessary. There are plenty of reasons why they'd have an imprisoned Predator in their camp if they needed one to 'fly' the ship (in one of the comics one Predator tries killing another to take credit for his kill and gets left sans-gear on an alien infested planet), no need to come up with a pointless plot point for it.
Also, my reaction to him activating the ship wasn't "now get to the ship, which will fly itself to Earth!", it was "okay, the ship is on. What about a pilot?". There's really nothing to indicate the ship has an autopilot to the character.
Still, minor quibbles, enjoyed the movie immensely.
I instantly perceived the "super predator" as a bad blood. According to generic Predator (to be referred to Yaujtas hereafter) lore, a bad blood is a Yaujta that is overly homicidal and aggressive by nature, has different physical features, and kills other Yaujta, despite the fact that pointless Yaujta-on-Yaujta violence is nearly traditionally and genetically impossible. Bad bloods are never mentioned in any of the movies, and I think they're only rumors in most of the comics and books. I'm not sure, but I believe this is one of the rare times that they were actually portrayed.
Also, sure, having the normal Yaujta there to pilot the ship was a bit of a plot device, but consider the fact that the hunting Yaujta weren't normal in having him strung up. I believe the normal Yaujta served more than a plot device; he also served as symbolism. It showed that the hunting Yaujta, even if they weren't intended to be actual bad bloods, were unrestrained in their hunt, and that they were extremely dangerous and insane by Yaujta standards.
Unfortunately, I think a lot of people took it as "MAN, WE'RE GOING TO TAKE IT TO THE EXXXXXTREEEEME WITH EXXXXXXTREEEEME PREDATORS THAT KILL EVERYTHING", when it should have been taken as "hey, we're expanding on Predator lore. Pay attention".
Eh, for me it was just that it was expanding something I don't feel was necessary. While not nearly as bad, it's kind of like Highlander 2- making them all aliens may have expanded the lore, but it was just stupid.
(just an example, I'm a long, long way from comparing this movie to HL2 :P)
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VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
Saw the movie last night- 2 hours of fan service and I loved it.
Though I did find the Super Predator a bit stupid and unnecessary. There are plenty of reasons why they'd have an imprisoned Predator in their camp if they needed one to 'fly' the ship (in one of the comics one Predator tries killing another to take credit for his kill and gets left sans-gear on an alien infested planet), no need to come up with a pointless plot point for it.
Also, my reaction to him activating the ship wasn't "now get to the ship, which will fly itself to Earth!", it was "okay, the ship is on. What about a pilot?". There's really nothing to indicate the ship has an autopilot to the character.
Still, minor quibbles, enjoyed the movie immensely.
I think you could argue
the predator showing him earth was him saying 'I can make the ship fly to here'. once royce went off that's what I thought was gonna happen
I honestly don't believe so, concerning the silliness. I wanted to make it very obvious that I'm a bit of a Predator geek, and as such, I really, really loved the scenes. I can understand that a lot of people wouldn't feel the same way, though.
I instantly perceived the "super predator" as a bad blood. According to generic Predator (to be referred to Yaujtas hereafter) lore, a bad blood is a Yaujta that is overly homicidal and aggressive by nature, has different physical features, and kills other Yaujta, despite the fact that pointless Yaujta-on-Yaujta violence is nearly traditionally and genetically impossible. Bad bloods are never mentioned in any of the movies, and I think they're only rumors in most of the comics and books. I'm not sure, but I believe this is one of the rare times that they were actually portrayed.
Also, sure, having the normal Yaujta there to pilot the ship was a bit of a plot device, but consider the fact that the hunting Yaujta weren't normal in having him strung up. I believe the normal Yaujta served more than a plot device; he also served as symbolism. It showed that the hunting Yaujta, even if they weren't intended to be actual bad bloods, were unrestrained in their hunt, and that they were extremely dangerous and insane by Yaujta standards.
Unfortunately, I think a lot of people took it as "MAN, WE'RE GOING TO TAKE IT TO THE EXXXXXTREEEEME WITH EXXXXXXTREEEEME PREDATORS THAT KILL EVERYTHING", when it should have been taken as "hey, we're expanding on Predator lore. Pay attention".
Yeah... let's not get the Expanded Universe involved. Better to judge the movie on its own merits considering most of the audience isn't likely to have read the comics and novels. According to the film, these Super Predators were a subspecies, but the whole "like wolves are to dogs" angle never really amounted to anything and certainly didn't seem evident in the movie.
Seriously it took three of them to down a small group of uncoordinated misfits and mercenaries in a jungle they're supposed to be familiar with. And they failed. This wasn't even an organized military unit like the first film, which was slaughtered to the last man by a single weaker, "classic" Predator operating in an Earth jungle. Super Predators went from "bigger and meaner" to feeling more like posers.
If anything, they should've made them young Predators in training. That would've at least made their incompetence a little easier to suspend disbelief over.
I instantly perceived the "super predator" as a bad blood. According to generic Predator (to be referred to Yaujtas hereafter) lore, a bad blood is a Yaujta that is overly homicidal and aggressive by nature, has different physical features, and kills other Yaujta, despite the fact that pointless Yaujta-on-Yaujta violence is nearly traditionally and genetically impossible. Bad bloods are never mentioned in any of the movies, and I think they're only rumors in most of the comics and books. I'm not sure, but I believe this is one of the rare times that they were actually portrayed.
Also, sure, having the normal Yaujta there to pilot the ship was a bit of a plot device, but consider the fact that the hunting Yaujta weren't normal in having him strung up. I believe the normal Yaujta served more than a plot device; he also served as symbolism. It showed that the hunting Yaujta, even if they weren't intended to be actual bad bloods, were unrestrained in their hunt, and that they were extremely dangerous and insane by Yaujta standards.
Unfortunately, I think a lot of people took it as "MAN, WE'RE GOING TO TAKE IT TO THE EXXXXXTREEEEME WITH EXXXXXXTREEEEME PREDATORS THAT KILL EVERYTHING", when it should have been taken as "hey, we're expanding on Predator lore. Pay attention".
Yeah... let's not get the Expanded Universe involved. Better to judge the movie on its own merits considering most of the audience isn't likely to have read the comics and novels. According to the film, these Super Predators were a subspecies, but the whole "like wolves are to dogs" angle never really amounted to anything and certainly didn't seem evident in the movie.
Seriously it took three of them to down a small group of uncoordinated misfits and mercenaries in a jungle they're supposed to be familiar with. And they failed. This wasn't even an organized military unit like the first film, which was slaughtered to the last man by a single weaker, "classic" Predator operating in an Earth jungle. Super Predators went from "bigger and meaner" to feeling more like posers.
If anything, they should've made them young Predators in training. That would've at least made their incompetence a little easier to suspend disbelief over.
Every kill the humans made was by someone deliberately committing suicide (or being turned into a human claymore.) I'm fairly certain that in the first one, the only person who deliberately stayed behind to fight while the rest of them high-tailed it was Billie, and, well, he was pretty much out of his goddamn mind at that point. The point made - in the movie's dialog, no less! - was that Predators simply aren't wired to think of someone deliberately throwing themselves on the grenade; that's just (apparently) not in their culture.
I think my biggest "errm, no" moment was when Jawmask just fucking blew Lawrence Fishburne into chum. You'd think, if he was such a big catch, that the pred would try to take him as intact as possible, for trophy reasons. Had much the same reaction to the dead soldier who'd set up all the traps - this guy was the last survivor, he set up a veritable gauntlet, and you just leave him to rot?
I think my biggest "errm, no" moment was when Jawmask just fucking blew Lawrence Fishburne into chum. You'd think, if he was such a big catch, that the pred would try to take him as intact as possible, for trophy reasons. Had much the same reaction to the dead soldier who'd set up all the traps - this guy was the last survivor, he set up a veritable gauntlet, and you just leave him to rot?
Frustration maybe? He wasn't exactly a great catch, just the one that got away. You take trophies from the ones you respect, or the kills you're proud of. Fishburne was the coward who ran and hid, when the Predators are looking for prey that fights back.
Every kill the humans made was by someone deliberately committing suicide (or being turned into a human claymore.) I'm fairly certain that in the first one, the only person who deliberately stayed behind to fight while the rest of them high-tailed it was Billie, and, well, he was pretty much out of his goddamn mind at that point. The point made - in the movie's dialog, no less! - was that Predators simply aren't wired to think of someone deliberately throwing themselves on the grenade; that's just (apparently) not in their culture.
Really? A species that has nukes strapped to them just in case they have to self-destruct aren't wired to think that someone might bite the bullet to take out an enemy?
Every kill the humans made was by someone deliberately committing suicide (or being turned into a human claymore.) I'm fairly certain that in the first one, the only person who deliberately stayed behind to fight while the rest of them high-tailed it was Billie, and, well, he was pretty much out of his goddamn mind at that point. The point made - in the movie's dialog, no less! - was that Predators simply aren't wired to think of someone deliberately throwing themselves on the grenade; that's just (apparently) not in their culture.
Really? A species that has nukes strapped to them just in case they have to self-destruct aren't wired to think that someone might bite the bullet to take out an enemy?
That's a good point. They probably haven't observed a whole lot of that behavior with us, though.
-Loki-Don't pee in my mouth and tell me it's raining.Registered Userregular
edited July 2010
Saw it and liked it.
The only real problem I had with the movie was...
... that it just started. Like, no introductions or anything, just BOOM they're on the planet and within 5 minutes fighting amongst each other. Though it did leave more time for killing, which is good.
The best part...
... was the swordfight. As someone who used to do kendo, I appreciate that they tried to make the Yakuza guy fight properly with the Katana, and it made it all the more awesome for me. Seeing how kendo as a martial art would do against a Predator was a cool touch.
The internal logic of the universe also made no sense. Even at the start the weapons were only effective if it's dramatic. All of them were shooting at one dog-thing with shotguns, chain-guns and everything they had and the dog was just waddling over and then exploded. Remember when guns use to be useful? Maybe they didn't kill shit outright but I do recall Painless clear-cutting an entire forest, and if it can't kill a dog at point blank range, then there's just no point to having it.
Also, how does one guy build so many traps by himself? You'd need an army to hoist up such huge logs, and then there's the pits and flying spikes... You're better off building a diamond shooting bazooka out of bamboo.
Every kill the humans made was by someone deliberately committing suicide (or being turned into a human claymore.) I'm fairly certain that in the first one, the only person who deliberately stayed behind to fight while the rest of them high-tailed it was Billie, and, well, he was pretty much out of his goddamn mind at that point. The point made - in the movie's dialog, no less! - was that Predators simply aren't wired to think of someone deliberately throwing themselves on the grenade; that's just (apparently) not in their culture.
Really? A species that has nukes strapped to them just in case they have to self-destruct aren't wired to think that someone might bite the bullet to take out an enemy?
That's a good point. They probably haven't observed a whole lot of that behavior with us, though.
The difference is that they kill themselves out of spite for dyeing. It's like a very badly designed dead man's switch.
... was the swordfight. As someone who used to do kendo, I appreciate that they tried to make the Yakuza guy fight properly with the Katana, and it made it all the more awesome for me. Seeing how kendo as a martial art would do against a Predator was a cool touch.
Yakuza guy was easily my favorite character. He had what, four lines in the entire thing? Yet he still has just as much of a screen presence as the others.
Louis Ozawa Changchien is definitely on my list of actors to pay close attention to.
The internal logic of the universe also made no sense. Even at the start the weapons were only effective if it's dramatic. All of them were shooting at one dog-thing with shotguns, chain-guns and everything they had and the dog was just waddling over and then exploded. Remember when guns use to be useful? Maybe they didn't kill shit outright but I do recall Painless clear-cutting an entire forest, and if it can't kill a dog at point blank range, then there's just no point to having it.
Also, how does one guy build so many traps by himself? You'd need an army to hoist up such huge logs, and then there's the pits and flying spikes... You're better off building a diamond shooting bazooka out of bamboo.
For the spoiler the movie explains exactly how and why that character could do what he did.
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... that it just started. Like, no introductions or anything, just BOOM they're on the planet and within 5 minutes fighting amongst each other. Though it did leave more time for killing, which is good.
I actually really liked that.
Generally, this was a decent film. It felt like it could had been made in 1989, which is clearly what they were going for.
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Wee! This was my first Predator movie that I saw in entirety. Gotta watch the old ones.
Definitely the first one. The second one less so, I enjoyed it but it wasn't as good as the first one.
The second one is campy fun. It's a bit stupid and more than a bit silly... but it has Danny Glover and voodoo and drug kings and if you can get into it it's really good fun.
The VS movies are pure shit, however. Can't even be enjoyed in a bad movie sense due to being dreadfully uninteresting.
There was no fucking one liner before he finished off the super pred.
Thank god.
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KayWhat we need...Is a little bit of PANIC.Registered Userregular
edited July 2010
So about the...
Tied up predator. I felt he was there because the three bigger ones were hunting him (and perhaps his pack of hunters and he was the last survivor?) and caught him, not that he was there to pilot the ship. The fact that he could hack into the ship's controls and set it on autopilot to earth was just a favor it did for Royce for untying it. I mean, normal-predator-honour and stuff.
Tied up predator. I felt he was there because the three bigger ones were hunting him (and perhaps his pack of hunters and he was the last survivor?) and caught him, not that he was there to pilot the ship.
I meant that that was the plot reason for him being there.
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VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
... that it just started. Like, no introductions or anything, just BOOM they're on the planet and within 5 minutes fighting amongst each other. Though it did leave more time for killing, which is good.
The best part...
... was the swordfight. As someone who used to do kendo, I appreciate that they tried to make the Yakuza guy fight properly with the Katana, and it made it all the more awesome for me. Seeing how kendo as a martial art would do against a Predator was a cool touch.
The internal logic of the universe also made no sense. Even at the start the weapons were only effective if it's dramatic. All of them were shooting at one dog-thing with shotguns, chain-guns and everything they had and the dog was just waddling over and then exploded. Remember when guns use to be useful? Maybe they didn't kill shit outright but I do recall Painless clear-cutting an entire forest, and if it can't kill a dog at point blank range, then there's just no point to having it.
Also, how does one guy build so many traps by himself? You'd need an army to hoist up such huge logs, and then there's the pits and flying spikes... You're better off building a diamond shooting bazooka out of bamboo.
can you go further with the 'bad character, bad action and bad pacing' bit? because I didn't see any of that.
also yeah, a shocker that a movie built some tension in that scene by having the guns not hit things. oh no!
Saw this on friday, enjoyed it a lot but had a few complaints. Possible ending spoilers in there.
Yakuza guy
Everyone in my theater lost it when he randomly stopped and decided to have a sword fight. To me it just broke up the pacing in a part of the movie that was going quickly and building towards a climactic final battle, I really didn't like that scene.
Characters
The second they introduced what each person was it was pretty obvious to me who wasn't going to make it,
sierra leone death squad guy, spetnaz, cartel hitman, yakuza, fbi most wanted criminal, all characters the general viewing public are immediately going to consider bad guys they did a good enough job making most of them likable though.
One thing I really felt the movie needed was a scene to make us feel like these guys were badass and that the predators were just more badass. Predator had that scene where they went in and took out that whole compound with just the 7 of them. This had them missing dogs from 100yds and then having to run away.
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Tied up predator. I felt he was there because the three bigger ones were hunting him (and perhaps his pack of hunters and he was the last survivor?) and caught him, not that he was there to pilot the ship. The fact that he could hack into the ship's controls and set it on autopilot to earth was just a favor it did for Royce for untying it. I mean, normal-predator-honour and stuff.
I was talking about the above spoiler with a movie-nerd friend of mine, and we came to about the same conclusion that...
Besides the essential plot role, the writers probably put that character in very intentionally for two reasons. First, they are trying to expand the predator culture--this movie obviously wasn't about exposition, but they did do a decent job of adding things like the rift between the "larger" and "smaller" predators. Second, the tied up predator looks really damned similar to the predator from the first movie--for people who have seen these movies before and know how bad-ass the original predator was, that the new predators have him between and tied up says that they are fucking bad-asses.
Edit: One thing I did like about this scene was that you actually got to see the fight--I think that was a good service for fans, because in the first movie you just heard Billie's death yell and didn't get to see him and the predator duke it out.
The one thing that really got me about the movie was all of the things that were blatantly taken from the first film. None of them were bad things, and thank God they didn't try to pull a "get to the spaceship!", but there were a few things that went further than an homage.
Example:
The set-up for the Yakuza's sword fight. He stops in an open area. He takes off his shirt. He draws a melee weapon. The others stop for a moment, then keep running forward (not to mention the group running forward consists of two men and a woman). If you listen to this scene and the one from the original, even the music for the two scenes is exactly the same, probably down to the time signature. This was the most blatant one, I thought, and it just sort of rubbed me wrong.
Or this:
Fishburn's entrance with the: "Over here, turn around."
As far as characters go? I liked them--I think the writers did a great job of making the human characters matter, whereas in the AvP movies all the humans were retarded teenage fodder. The weakest performance for me was Brody's--he sounded like he was trying to be Christian Bale's Batman. He didn't necessarily do a bad job, it just felt like of all the characters, he was the one that was trying to act instead of just acting.
All in all, I gave it an A-, with wiggle room to go down to a B+.
The internal logic of the universe also made no sense. Even at the start the weapons were only effective if it's dramatic. All of them were shooting at one dog-thing with shotguns, chain-guns and everything they had and the dog was just waddling over and then exploded. Remember when guns use to be useful? Maybe they didn't kill shit outright but I do recall Painless clear-cutting an entire forest, and if it can't kill a dog at point blank range, then there's just no point to having it.
Also, how does one guy build so many traps by himself? You'd need an army to hoist up such huge logs, and then there's the pits and flying spikes... You're better off building a diamond shooting bazooka out of bamboo.
can you go further with the 'bad character, bad action and bad pacing' bit? because I didn't see any of that.
Characters started interesting but then got aborted. They maybe had one good line in each one but none of them got developed beyond that except for the main guy. A lot of the performances just killed scenes.
Mediocre execution and a lot of un-used potential... there's just a ton of things that took me out of the movie and frankly I just stopped caring after the middle.
also yeah, a shocker that a movie built some tension in that scene by having the guns not hit things. oh no!
Yeah... that's not what happened.
-Think back to Predator, you had a nice showcase scene where the group went out and slaughtered a group of rebels/terrorists/what ever. You got to see just what these guys are capable of. Predators, you get them shooting at dogs and they can't even do that, so you get the immediate lesson that these guys are inept.
-Predator, you had that first appearance of the alien and they try and kill it. They ultimately fail at it but it showed just how much effort it took by clear cutting half the rain forest. Predators, they must have unloaded all their ammo for ten minutes and not only did most of the dogs walk away but they didn't even show the bullets have effect. It just looked like they were shooting blanks.
So both examples earlier work showed how you can easily build tension without castrating the protagonists. This isn't a new thing or anything limited to Predator, it's in any effective action/thriller movie.
edit: Oh, and is there like one Predator sitting at an office looking through craigslist for people to kill? I mean I get some of the guys, you just go to a war zone and abduct a bad ass, but finding guys on FBI's most wanted list? These guys are hard for humans to find, let alone aliens.
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VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
edited July 2010
you don't see this as being a different case than predator?
they aren't a strike force. they were very much out of their element, don't even know what planet they're on. we should be scared of everything. that scene built the HELL out of the predators. 'look how strong their dogs are, imagine if that was actually them'.
as for the characters and action I disagree but I don't know where else to go with that. I thought the archetypes that you expect in a movie like this (group action movie) were present and strong, and some of the characters were obvious references to Predator itself. Also I think they were each more developed than you are saying.
and, thems hooting guns and not hitting things IS what happened.
and, thems hooting guns and not hitting things IS what happened.
and in Predator they shot the same gun, hit no one, and made it look awesome.
Over all, it's the same technical issues as that Knight and Day bullshit movie. Stuff works, only when the plot allows it.
so it didn't look awesome enough, got it.
can you accept that this is a different movie and they were in a different situation than in predator? maybe building up this crew of badasses wasn't the intent, but instead it was to show us how likely it was that they'd all die.
stuff only working when it suits the plot can be said of nearly any movie ever made, certainly a lot of action movies, even ones considered great.
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Also, sure, having the normal Yaujta there to pilot the ship was a bit of a plot device, but consider the fact that the hunting Yaujta weren't normal in having him strung up. I believe the normal Yaujta served more than a plot device; he also served as symbolism. It showed that the hunting Yaujta, even if they weren't intended to be actual bad bloods, were unrestrained in their hunt, and that they were extremely dangerous and insane by Yaujta standards.
Unfortunately, I think a lot of people took it as "MAN, WE'RE GOING TO TAKE IT TO THE EXXXXXTREEEEME WITH EXXXXXXTREEEEME PREDATORS THAT KILL EVERYTHING", when it should have been taken as "hey, we're expanding on Predator lore. Pay attention".
(just an example, I'm a long, long way from comparing this movie to HL2 :P)
I think you could argue
Yeah... let's not get the Expanded Universe involved. Better to judge the movie on its own merits considering most of the audience isn't likely to have read the comics and novels. According to the film, these Super Predators were a subspecies, but the whole "like wolves are to dogs" angle never really amounted to anything and certainly didn't seem evident in the movie.
If anything, they should've made them young Predators in training. That would've at least made their incompetence a little easier to suspend disbelief over.
I digress, though. We're not getting into the expanded universe.
I think my biggest "errm, no" moment was when Jawmask just fucking blew Lawrence Fishburne into chum. You'd think, if he was such a big catch, that the pred would try to take him as intact as possible, for trophy reasons. Had much the same reaction to the dead soldier who'd set up all the traps - this guy was the last survivor, he set up a veritable gauntlet, and you just leave him to rot?
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That's a good point. They probably haven't observed a whole lot of that behavior with us, though.
Now let's play who is going to run for governor?
The only real problem I had with the movie was...
The best part...
Bad characters, bad action and bad pacing.
The internal logic of the universe also made no sense. Even at the start the weapons were only effective if it's dramatic. All of them were shooting at one dog-thing with shotguns, chain-guns and everything they had and the dog was just waddling over and then exploded. Remember when guns use to be useful? Maybe they didn't kill shit outright but I do recall Painless clear-cutting an entire forest, and if it can't kill a dog at point blank range, then there's just no point to having it.
The difference is that they kill themselves out of spite for dyeing. It's like a very badly designed dead man's switch.
Louis Ozawa Changchien is definitely on my list of actors to pay close attention to.
Steam | Twitter
Also I had an idea for the next predators movie "Predators vs the third Reich"
Definitely the first one. The second one less so, I enjoyed it but it wasn't as good as the first one.
Any title containing "Alien Vs..." can and should be ignored, or killed with fire.
For the spoiler the movie explains exactly how and why that character could do what he did.
ok, i have bought my popcorn, now where is this movie?
Oh absolutely. As soon as Nikolai showed up, my buddy leaned over to me and whispered "I am Heavy Weapons Guy."
And it just escalated from there.
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Inglorious Basterds?
I actually really liked that.
Generally, this was a decent film. It felt like it could had been made in 1989, which is clearly what they were going for.
Just set it in Poland and recast Adrien Brody as the main character and you're good to go.
XBLGT:Banzeye SC2: Apollo.394
The VS movies are pure shit, however. Can't even be enjoyed in a bad movie sense due to being dreadfully uninteresting.
I thought it was just a really fun action flick. It can be nit picked to death, but that's pointless with a movie like this.
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It's been out for three days dude, jesus christ.
your first spoiler was one of my favorite things.
can you go further with the 'bad character, bad action and bad pacing' bit? because I didn't see any of that.
also yeah, a shocker that a movie built some tension in that scene by having the guns not hit things. oh no!
Everyone in my theater lost it when he randomly stopped and decided to have a sword fight. To me it just broke up the pacing in a part of the movie that was going quickly and building towards a climactic final battle, I really didn't like that scene.
Characters
The second they introduced what each person was it was pretty obvious to me who wasn't going to make it,
sierra leone death squad guy, spetnaz, cartel hitman, yakuza, fbi most wanted criminal, all characters the general viewing public are immediately going to consider bad guys they did a good enough job making most of them likable though.
One thing I really felt the movie needed was a scene to make us feel like these guys were badass and that the predators were just more badass. Predator had that scene where they went in and took out that whole compound with just the 7 of them. This had them missing dogs from 100yds and then having to run away.
I was talking about the above spoiler with a movie-nerd friend of mine, and we came to about the same conclusion that...
Edit: One thing I did like about this scene was that you actually got to see the fight--I think that was a good service for fans, because in the first movie you just heard Billie's death yell and didn't get to see him and the predator duke it out.
The one thing that really got me about the movie was all of the things that were blatantly taken from the first film. None of them were bad things, and thank God they didn't try to pull a "get to the spaceship!", but there were a few things that went further than an homage.
Example:
Or this:
As far as characters go? I liked them--I think the writers did a great job of making the human characters matter, whereas in the AvP movies all the humans were retarded teenage fodder. The weakest performance for me was Brody's--he sounded like he was trying to be Christian Bale's Batman. He didn't necessarily do a bad job, it just felt like of all the characters, he was the one that was trying to act instead of just acting.
All in all, I gave it an A-, with wiggle room to go down to a B+.
Characters started interesting but then got aborted. They maybe had one good line in each one but none of them got developed beyond that except for the main guy. A lot of the performances just killed scenes.
Mediocre execution and a lot of un-used potential... there's just a ton of things that took me out of the movie and frankly I just stopped caring after the middle. Yeah... that's not what happened.
-Think back to Predator, you had a nice showcase scene where the group went out and slaughtered a group of rebels/terrorists/what ever. You got to see just what these guys are capable of. Predators, you get them shooting at dogs and they can't even do that, so you get the immediate lesson that these guys are inept.
-Predator, you had that first appearance of the alien and they try and kill it. They ultimately fail at it but it showed just how much effort it took by clear cutting half the rain forest. Predators, they must have unloaded all their ammo for ten minutes and not only did most of the dogs walk away but they didn't even show the bullets have effect. It just looked like they were shooting blanks.
So both examples earlier work showed how you can easily build tension without castrating the protagonists. This isn't a new thing or anything limited to Predator, it's in any effective action/thriller movie.
edit: Oh, and is there like one Predator sitting at an office looking through craigslist for people to kill? I mean I get some of the guys, you just go to a war zone and abduct a bad ass, but finding guys on FBI's most wanted list? These guys are hard for humans to find, let alone aliens.
they aren't a strike force. they were very much out of their element, don't even know what planet they're on. we should be scared of everything. that scene built the HELL out of the predators. 'look how strong their dogs are, imagine if that was actually them'.
as for the characters and action I disagree but I don't know where else to go with that. I thought the archetypes that you expect in a movie like this (group action movie) were present and strong, and some of the characters were obvious references to Predator itself. Also I think they were each more developed than you are saying.
and, thems hooting guns and not hitting things IS what happened.
and in Predator they shot the same gun, hit no one, and made it look awesome.
Over all, it's the same technical issues as that Knight and Day bullshit movie. Stuff works, only when the plot allows it.
so it didn't look awesome enough, got it.
can you accept that this is a different movie and they were in a different situation than in predator? maybe building up this crew of badasses wasn't the intent, but instead it was to show us how likely it was that they'd all die.
stuff only working when it suits the plot can be said of nearly any movie ever made, certainly a lot of action movies, even ones considered great.