Predators
(2010/Fox Blu-ray)
Picture:
A- Sound: A- Extras: B- Film: B-
Whereas
the recent additions or Alien vs.
Predator have been a far cry from the quality fans expect from an Alien or Predator film, Predators somewhat
redeems the floundering franchise.
Whereas the aforementioned Alien
vs. Predators catered more to action fans with total disregard for
continuity and substance, Predators uses
elements from the original Predator (which
was never as deep/interesting as Alien to
start with). Predators gives modern action fans what they want, but uses great
acting talent and a solid (enough) script to do the franchise justice.
The story
kicks off with a crew of earth’s biggest baddies being dropped on a distant
planet somewhere in the galaxy. It seems
that a group of three Predator creatures are looking for an extreme challenge,
kidnapping these men to hunt down. The
objective is for the men to escape the planet before the Predators can take
them down one by one. The earthly bad
asses are composed of a US Black Ops Agent played by Adrien Brody, Alice Brager
as an Israeli Sniper, Danny Trejo as a Drug Cartel Enforcer, Walter Goggins as
a Serial Killer, Louis Ozawa Changchein as a Yakuza Hit Man, and finally Topher
Grace as a Dentist (not everything is as it appears). So essentially these people are in for the
fight of their life, but there is a twist.
The group is so deeply psychotic that not only must they dodge the
Predators, but each other as well; hence the films clever title of Predators.
The film
didn’t have much success in theaters and was gone in the blink of an eye; which
is sad because it is cleverly filmed and the script is extremely
entertaining. Granted it is more of a
popcorn film than an Oscar winner, but nevertheless it is leaps and bounds
above the atrocious Alien vs. Predator film.
The
technical features for this Blu-ray are surprisingly astounding, as the
dark/shadowy film is rendered wonderfully for home theater entertainment;
perhaps even being demo quality. The
picture is a 1080p AVC encoded MPEG-4 that is perfectly balanced with
(surprisingly) no light/dark issues, beautiful colors, great shadows, and solid
blacks. The level of detail is jaw
dropping as the jungle seems to explode with life. The fast paced action sequences demonstrate
no motion blur and the transfer to Blu-ray here has the right amount of depth
with both enough grit and sharpness. The
sound is a fantastic 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio that booms with bass from
beginning to end and like the picture is total demo quality. The feature is well prioritized and nothing
gets lost in the mix, the film requires a fair bit of panning effects and the
directionality is spot on.
Extras
include an Audio Commentary with Robert Rodriguez and Nimrod Antal that is both
entertaining and full of details that you could get no where else; all in all
being a must hear. Also included are
Motion Comic Prequels; Deleted/Extended Scenes; Trailer; The Chosen featurette;
Evolution of the Species Featurette; Fox Movie Channel Presents: Making a
Scene. Outside of the commentary the
other features were merely adequate, but worth a look.
An
underrated film that I hope gets a second chance on Blu-ray.
- Michael P. Dougherty II
