Predators

Finally, a worthy 'Predator' sequel: Respect for viewers is at the heart of fun thriller

July 09, 2010|Wesley Morris, Globe Staff

I know what you’re thinking. The sight of Adrien Brody waking up to find himself plummeting from the sky in the opening scene of “Predators’’ is all too apt a career metaphor. How did a young star who seemed destined to save serious acting turn into another action figure? Who cares? Where do I get my hands on one?

Brody looks a bit like the muscled, vaguely human reptiles hunting him down, except he’s all Eastwood, Heston, and Stallone, too — hilariously, humorlessly macho. It didn’t seem like there was an American under 40 in the movie business capable of being persuasively masculine without a twitch of irony or pleading. We’ve been importing that guy from Scotland and Australia, and Pandora! But Brody makes an entertaining case for some kind of embargo.

He crashes down in a jungle. Seconds later, so do a few more bewildered, heavily armed actors — it’s Danny Trejo! And Alice Braga! And some Russian dude! — and a pile of limbs whose parachute failed to open. Soon eight strangers, including a Sierra Leonean (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali), a death-row hick (Walton Goggins), a natty Yakuza (Louis Ozawa Changchien), and an American doctor (Topher Grace, armed, with only his sarcasm), are trying to figure out precisely where they are. (By the way, Oleg Taktarov plays the Russian.) An awed gander at the planetarium-load of objects hanging in the heavens raises an important question: What is going on? (It’s better asked with expletives, the way our strangers do.)

Gradually, the characters give us a few helpful hints, and the wonderfully steely Braga, playing a Latin American guerrilla, rehashes the plot of “Predator,’’ that 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger hit to which this movie is a kind of alternative sequel to the installments that followed. Her recitation sounds like combat lore. But, again, I know what you’re thinking: Didn’t this show just end two months ago? Yes, “Predators,’’ with its tropical mystery; sweaty, confused cast; and no exit, is “Lost,’’ on the one hand. On another, it’s also “Saw III.’’ And on yet another — work with me, people; have you seen the creatures doing the hunting here? — it becomes “Rambo,’’ “Aliens,’’ and “Avatar.’’ Crucially, however, it’s a little bit Jean-Paul Sartre, as well: Hell is other people — and the monsters chasing you down.