Predators (2010)

Director: Nimród Antal

Cast: Adrien Brody, Topher Grace, Alice Braga, Walton Goggins

Have I Seen It Before: Nope. I distinctly remember wanting to go see it during its theatrical run, and that it was even a strong candidate for my birthday movie that year, but I couldn’t get the a good screening time, and went to go see The A-Team (2010) instead.

Did I Like It: I’m not sure I would have been any happier if I had gone the other way in that decision. It’s might be unfair to view Predators as fundamentally flavorless in 2025. At the time of release, we had seen hide nor hair out of the Yautja* in twenty years, and the two preceding films were testosterone-fueled, basic action movies. This may have a slightly stripped-down, almost Twilight Zone-esque set up to the carnage that will inevitably follow, but once that action is set up, that’s all there is. More testosterone. We know now that this series can do better, after the revelation of Prey (2022).

It isn’t helped at all that by the time the film is no longer content to check off action-movie boxes, it goes into a series of a plot twist revelations that serve only to underline how little I cared about these characters, as those revelations ended up so inconsequential, that I’m not going to mention them here not so much to avoid spoilers, but because it couldn’t possibly matter less.

Like I said, I came into this film at precisely the wrong time. Had I watched it fifteen years ago, I might have viewed it as a fun-enough diversion for a lazy afternoon. Now, it seems like the least essential entry in the series.

*Outside of a couple entries of Alien vs. Predator, which incidentally the wikipedia article for this film only tangentially links to, and so I think we all decided we’re not going to count it.

Predator 2 (1990)

Director: Stephen Hopkins

Cast: Danny Glover, Gary Busey, Rubén Blades, María Conchita Alonso

Have I Seen It Before: Yeah, but with only the thinnest of memories. As we approach Predator: Badlands I feel that need to run through the series.

Did I Like It: And I’m not entirely sure why. All the films in the series are so pointedly different, only the faintest wisps of a canon is built from entry to entry. We’ll probably never get to this film on Beyond the Cabin in the Woods, but for listeners of the show I had to have Kenzi explain to me the rich tapestry of the Yautja that came to a head in Prey (2022), and how most of it happens in the background of this particular film.

And that would pretty much wrap up the “what’s good” section. A xenomorph skull is the kind of thing films are filled with these days, and apparently there’s more. The film certainly makes an attempt to be different than the original Predator (1990), and I can’t imagine spending any more time with Dutch (Schwarzenegger) would feel derivative in any franchise outside of those created by James Cameron*. The rifle at the end is the seed from which the mighty oak of Prey.

That’s about it.

The rest of the film is an action movie for action movie’s sake. Run, run, run. Shoot, shoot, shoot. Who are we running from? Who are we shooting towards? Why does it matter. These are not the kinds of things we can address in a 108 minute runtime, and you wouldn’t be particularly interested in the answers. This is made all the more aggravating when it becomes clear that this Predator film is only fitfully interested in being about the Predator. It’s a hodgepodge of warmed over ingredients from other franchise sequels of the era. I’ll bet all the money in my pocket that Bill Paxton was cast mainly to tap into the energy he brought to Aliens (1986), and nearly every second of this film is consumed with the same lack of amiability that weighed down RoboCop 2 (1990), released only a few months earlier.

*If you do ignore the Terminator films, Arnold really has a lot more restraint about sequels than I think we ever give him credit for.

Predator (1987)

Director: John McTiernan

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Jesse Ventura, Kevin Peter Hall

Have I Seen it Before: Heck, you’re talking to the guy who started a Facebook group in support of the idea of Carl Weathers becoming Governor of Oklahoma because, apparently, the cast of this movie is where we need to get Governors.

Did I Like It: There’s a problem that happens when a long-running film series has a complete revelation with a later entry. I’m looking in your direction, Prey (2022). The original film can start to feel a bit stripped down, a bit tame. I have a real hard time really getting into A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) when I know that Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994) exists.

Can this film possibly hold up?

Yeah, pretty much. It accomplishes what the series lost to certain degree as time went on (and especially when they were set up on a series of blind dates with xenomorphs for a couple of movies. The Predator films are at there best opportunities for seamless genre mashup, and accomplishing this by simply giving us a well-made example of one genre*, and then injecting the Predator into the mix. Prey did it by giving us a well-crafted epic in the pre-colonial world of indigenous America… and then threw a dreadlocked alien into the mix. Here, this film would work perfectly well as the group of paramilitary soldiers enter the jungle with a mix of motivations and understanding about their mission, only to reach disaster. Come to think of it, what the hell was Schwarzenegger’s name in Commando (1985)? Is this a sequel to that? I’m sure someone would have noted that before I did, but it sure as hell could have been**.

*Probably doesn’t work for every genre, though. And, just as soon as I type that a Kindergarten Cop (1990) riff where one of the students is a Yautja would be watchable as hell.

**I keep lamenting that Rambo: Last Blood (2019) didn’t follow the rumored plot line of Stallone squaring off agains a malevolent alien. I had apparently forgotten that this film is essentially that, and way better than we could have expected if Stallone had gotten control of the works.

Alien vs. Predator (2004)

Director: Paul W.S. Anderson

Cast: Sanaa Lathan, Raoul Bova, Lance Henriksen, Ewen Bremner

Have I Seen it Before: Probably?

Did I Like It: That’s likely the problem. It definitely doesn’t feel like it would be a movie I would watch twice. In fact, I only started running it because after running through the entire Alien series in the lead up to Alien: Romulus (2024), I found myself re-charmed by those acid-filled critters. Where else was I going to get a fix? Playing Alien: Isolation, the most frustratingly hard game created in recent times*? Suddenly start getting into expanded universe novels and comics? That seems like a crazy move, especially when my life is already filled to the brim with barely coherent EUs**.

And yet, I probably have seen it before, although most of the film has disappeared into the ether of being unmemorable. The entire film has a familiar sameness throughout, and any surprise—the only one I can readily point to is the inclusion of Henriksen as the pater familias of what would one day become the Weyland Yutani—I met with less of an “Oh, really?” and more of a “Oh, that’s right.” Maybe it’s a film made up of dim references to other things that work. Great films can do that, even in this series. Aliens (1986) is just a war movie in space, but it feels like a great war movie in space. This is just a list of films I wish I would have watched instead.

I just wanted some sci-fi cheese, and even on that level I found the endeavor to be a little bit underwhelming. Limiting the scope to the then present day of 2004 and keeping things limited to Earth tries desperately to harness <The Thing (1982)>, but that also just adds one more tepid reference, and limits the scope of a film series whose main attraction is easily the gnarly, fucked up things you’re likely to find in the vast, unforgiving abyss of the cosmos.

Maybe I should just start re-watching the Predator films. That’s probably the most sensible way forward.

*I have been watching a lot of Youtube videos of people eating it in Isolation. And, yes, I am thinking of getting back into the game.

**I did start picking up EU novels and comics. Sometimes I just can’t help myself.

Prey (2022)

Director: Dan Trachetenberg

Cast: Amber Midthunder, Dakota Beavers, Michelle Thrush, Dane DiLegro

Have I Seen it Before: Na. Glancing at the archives of reviews on the site, I was surprised to the point of mystification to learn that I’ve not only seen the net most recent The Predator (2018) and wrote a whole-ass review of it. I have almost entirely no memory of the film.

Did I Like It: Any cursory glance at Film Twitter over the past couple of weeks will treat the reader to literally anyone’s ranking of the Predator series, usually putting the original Predator (1987) as number one, this film as number two, and the various Alien vs. Predator films and the aforementioned The Predator picking up the rear. Occasionally a non-conformist will pull Predator 2 (1990) as the leader of the pack.

Here’s the thing: Every last one of these lists has been dead wrong. Not only is Prey the best movie to feature a Predator since the original. It is the best film of the entire series. It is one of the best science fiction movies since the year 2000, and that’s with the knowledge there have been some absolute gems in the 21st century with which this film would have to compete.

I had half a mind to re-watch the series after catching up with this film, but now I think I’m content to leave the others dim in my memory and the entire series as one superlative film. No mythos, or at least, any mythos was so embedded that it didn’t distract from the film. Just action and character and almost entirely believable (minus an occasional bear, which can certainly be forgiven) special effects.

Some might (and, honestly, have) complained about a seemingly primitive girl with no training taking on an alien whose entire culture ensures he is a nearly perfect killing machine. To those people I say: fuck you. Naru could kick your ass too, and any struggle she had on her quest to fell the Yautja only made for a more interesting movie.