This small-minded reshuffling of the "Predator" franchise that began in 1987 is little more than a modern sci-fi B-movie filled with more plot holes than you can count. Adrien Brody is Royce, a special-ops-turned-mercenary who gets plunked down on a strange planet with six other killers from various backgrounds.
The most interesting one is a Yakuza assassin (played by Louis Ozawa Changchien) who's missing a couple of fingers. With more ammunition than anyone could reasonably carry, the team band together against a pack of spiky dog-like creatures before discovering the much more threatening dreadlock-haired, invisibility-cloaked, predators than hunt them in a seriously fixed game of cat-and-mouse.
The group's numbers dwindle more after meeting up with Noland (Laurence Fishburne), a heart-of-darkness survivor stranded on the planet, and the movie gets down playing its role-reversal trump card that isn't anywhere near as clever as co-screenwriters Alex Litvak and Michal Finch imagine.
Myopic in its thematic scope, "Predators" is the kind of cinematic white noise you might play as visual background at a loud party. There isn't much story here, but the jungle action scenes look pretty good. Adrien Brody is poised to be the next Nicolas Cage.
Rated R. 106 mins.
