Predators (2010)

The Predator franchise has had a complicated history since John McTiernan's 1987 original put a group of elite soldiers up against an alien hunter in a Central American jungle and, almost by accident, produced one of the defining action films of its decade. The sequels and spin-offs that followed spent years trying to recapture that particular combination of muscle and menace, with varying degrees of success. Predators, released in 2010, was positioned as something of a course correction: a back-to-basics reboot in spirit if not in name, produced by Robert Rodriguez and directed by Hungarian-American filmmaker Nimród Antal. The premise strips things down to a single, clean idea, that a collection of the world's most dangerous human killers wake up to find themselves dropped, parachute and all, into an unknown jungle environment being used as a game reserve by extraterrestrial hunters. It is, on paper, a strong enough concept to carry a film.

Antal came to the project off the back of the well-received thriller Vacancy (2007) and the action film Armoured (2009), so he was not an untested hand, though Predators represented a significant step up in scale and expectation. Produced through Davis Entertainment and Dune Entertainment for 20th Century Fox, the film runs at a brisk 107 minutes and assembles a genuinely interesting ensemble on paper. Adrien Brody, best known for his Oscar-winning dramatic work (you can read the review of The Pianist (2002) for a sense of what he is capable of at his peak, and he also appeared in King Kong (2005) in a rather different kind of blockbuster) takes the lead as a mercenary soldier, a casting choice that raised eyebrows at the time. Alongside him are Topher Grace, best known then for lighter comic work, Alice Braga as a military sniper, Walton Goggins, who was at this point building his reputation in television, and Oleg Taktarov among others. Each character is drawn from a different corner of the world's more violent professions, from Yakuza enforcer to death row convict, which gives the film a ready-made international flavour without necessarily requiring much in the way of backstory. For fans of the science fiction action genre, it is worth noting that the site has reviews of Fire in the Sky (1993) and Transformers (2007) if you want to see how similar genre territory has been handled elsewhere.

The worst of the Predator franchise (and I include AVP in that) This should’ve been a slam dunk. Drop a bunch of hardened killers on an alien planet and let the Predators hunt them down. Easy, right? But somehow, it just ends up feeling like a limp retread with none of the suspense, grit, or charisma of the original. Adrien Brody as the action lead is… baffling. He tries his best with the gravelly voice and tough guy act, but it never really lands. The rest of the cast is a mixed bag of clichés and each one feels more like a video game character class than an actual person. The setting’s cool in theory, and there are a few decent action beats, but it never fully delivers. The Predators themselves aren’t scary anymore, they’re just there, going through the motions. There’s no tension, no real sense of dread. Just loud noises and muddy visuals. A couple of interesting ideas buried under a whole lot of wasted potential. It's not unwatchable, but it's a far cry from what a proper Predator sequel should’ve been.

I keep coming back to the wasted potential of it all, and that is honestly the most frustrating thing. There are ingredients here that should have worked. Walton Goggins, in particular, deserved a far better script than this. For me, a Predator film lives or dies on whether it makes you feel the danger, that creeping sense that the hunters are something to be genuinely feared, and this one simply never manages it. If you are after science fiction that actually does something with its premise, you would be much better served looking elsewhere on this site. As for Predators, it sits in the pile of films that mistake noise for atmosphere and running time for tension. A shame, really.

Rating: ★½  | Year: 2010  | Watched: 2025-04-09

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Trailer

▶ Watch the official trailer for Predators (2010) on YouTube

Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: Disney Plus
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Related on Movies With Macca

More with Adrien Brody: King Kong (2005) · The Pianist (2002)
More from the 2010s: Wonder (2017) · Beautiful Boy (2018) · The Witch (2015) · What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
More science fiction: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) · Fantastic Planet (1973) · Nightmare City (1980) · The Long Walk (2025)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)