Predator Tracking Issue 01: Predators
They say everything has its season.
Maybe I’m growing up, but lately I’ve started finding new celebrity crushes outside of Topher Grace. A few weeks ago, it was Cillian Murphy. This week, it was someone who’s been in the industry even longer (since the 80’s). Someone who, like Topher, is often typecast, but I believe he is an interesting performer with hidden range.
I’m talking, of course, about The Predator.
Do I even have to explain it? Predator is over 7 feet tall. He has starred in his own franchise, so we know he’s got money. He’s mostly under the radar when he doesn't have a project to promote, which gives him a mysterious vibe.
Predators (2010) is a collaboration between Predator and Topher Grace, so obviously I had to watch it to ease my audience into the inaugural Predator Tracking review.
Topher was apparently jazzed by the script, saying “when I read this, I thought, 'What Aliens was to Alien, this is to Predator'. Because Predator never really got its due; it never really got that sequel"1
Without showing my cards, oh honey NO.
My viewing journey began with learning that, for just $5.99 I could own Predators forever, it seemed like too good a deal to pass up. In the end I rented for a dollar less, but I’m still questioning if I made the right decision.
The Troublemaker Studios immediately logo lets you know this isn’t your daddy’s Predator.
We open in media res with Adrian Brody free-falling through the air. An automatic parachute opens at the last second, and he lands deep in a jungle. Moments later, Danny Trejo falls from the sky (which is how Danny Trejo should enter every movie, tbh).
More characters parachute down, including a Russian Soldier and a LADY sniper. Walton Goggins, playing a creepy racist for once, immediately starts fighting baby Mahershala Ali, which is pretty hot. There’s also some spy asshole in a suit sneaking around the brush like it’s happy hour in Murray Hill. No one knows how they got here.
They find Topher Grace stuck hanging upside down from a tree, screaming for help. But wait, he’s just a scrawny doctor boy with glasses in a maroon hoodie and a buzz cut that is not working for him.2 What’s he doing here with all these killers???
Everyone teams up and wanders around the jungle, discovering creepy things along the way like skulls, booby traps, and even more empty parachutes. All red flags, tbh.
Topher finds a plant and cuts it open to expose its sap, doctor-splaining that the sap could cause paralysis.3 They arrive at a clearing and see multiple moons in the sky. UH OH, looks like this isn’t Earth! Red flag #2!
Walton Goggins starts freaking out and yelling at people to give him a gun then holds a shiv to Mahershala Ali’s throat. Omg just kiss already!!!!
Before they can kiss, a bunch of alien creatures (NOT Predators) come out of the forest and chase our gang around.
I’ll be honest, at this point in the movie, with no Predator in sight, I pulled out my phone and got distracted reading about the bronzer Cillian Murphy uses. At some point, Danny Trejo dies and the Predators mimic his voice to trick the rest of the humans.4
FINALLY they find a Predator! But it’s all chained up and asleep and the humans are like ???
But THEN Predator wakes up and absolutely skewers Mahershala Ali, which is sad but at least we’ll have Moonlight in 6 years.
More Predators attack and everyone escapes by jumping off a waterfall. Adrian Brody, the group’s de facto leader because he’s white and sounds the most like Christian Bale playing Batman, decides they should set a trap and ambush the Predators. And I’m like, aren’t you hungry??? Personally, my priority would be finding out what I can eat on this planet.
Naturally, they make Topher run through the forest as bait. He gets chased by a thing and the lady sniper shoots it. Suddenly a figure in armor appears.
It turns out It’s good old Larry Fishburne! He’s hiding out in a bunker in the jungle for over a year (but what has he been EATING?)
Larry shows them to his bunker and explains that the Predators have a spaceship. Then he gets all snarky when Adrian Brody gravel-suggests commandeering it. Well then, why bring it up dude???
Then somehow a fire starts in the bunker and they all have to scurry out.
TBH I kind of zoned out again here. This movie was hard to follow at times, but that not have been entirely the movie’s fault. I was watching it with full daylight streaming through the windows and my attention split between the movie and my mind-blowing realization that Peaky Blinders and Penny Dreadful are two different shows.
Laurence Fishburne gets blown up. I hope he made so much money from this movie.
Everyone else escapes through a back tunnel, but Topher gets separated from the group, and starts getting chased by a Predator. This is where I perked up again because it’s such a gift to see two of my favorite actors sharing the screen.
The Russian guy saves Topher, but Topher doesn’t save him back! Seems pretty cold-blooded for a scrawny doctor, huh? The Russian guy pulls a grenade and explodes both himself and the Predator.
Walton Goggins and suit guy also get picked off, leaving just Adrian Brody, Topher Grace, and the lady sniper alive. 5
Topher gets his leg caught in a leg trap (How does that exist here? Was a 19th-century fur trapper parachuted down to this planet at some point?) The lady sniper decides to stay with Topher while Adrian Brody peaces out and goes to visit the tied-up Predator from earlier.
Topher and lady sniper get trapped in a net and thrown down into a hole by a Predator, who’s saving them for later, I guess
The lady sniper is all like “whew well at least we’re both good people” And then Topher cuts her with his pocket knife that’s covered with the paralyzing goo from earlier! Topher tells her, “back home, I’m a murderer, I’m a freak.” Is there anything Topher can’t do?
Adrian Brody returns and drags Topher and the paralyzed lady sniper out of the hole. Topher tries to convince Adrien he’s a good guy, but Adrian stabs him! Then he explodes Topher and some more Predators with grenades. That’s a wrap on Topher Grace, I guess :(
Adrian Brody fights one more Predator and he and the lady sniper survive the night. The next morning, more parachutes are dropped. When do they eat though???
Anyway, this isn’t the most successful Predator movie nor the most successful Topher movie, but I love that Topher took a part with a twist and got his very own Villains Wiki page (him comparing this script to Aliens does make me question his judgment a bit, though).
Happy Halloween!
All my quotes/research are, as always, from Wikipedia.
Not to get all CinemaSins here, but how is there a plant on this Alien planet that’s recognizable to Topher? Was it also parachuted in?
Is the Predator camp?
This actress’s name is Alica Braga btw.