Predators

**1/2 – My dad thinks that 1987’s “Predator” is the best movie of all time. While my praise for it doesn’t reach quite that level, I do find it to be a highly enjoyable film to watch. It is the quintessential guy movie featuring big guns, big explosions, big muscles and lots of swearing, macho one-liners and off-color jokes. It’s like a cocktail of adrenaline and testosterone injected directly into the heart sack. The 1990 follow-up – “Predator 2” - starring Danny Glover and featuring the reprehensible Morton Downey Jr. is probably one of the worst movies of all time. After a lame two movie tangent into the world of “Aliens”, Robert Rodriguez brings the Predator series back towards decentness with this 2010 effort directed by Nimrod Antal (if that is his real name). The characters didn’t have the same interesting intangible qualities that the original had, and I’m not sure if that is because of the characters themselves, the actors or portraying them, the script, or a combination of all those things. It had plenty of explosions and gunplay - and even featured a rather unlikely sword fight – but it couldn’t quite capture the magic of the first movie. I think part of the reason is that in the end the final body count is 6 dead humans and 4 dead predators. That sort of death ratio removes some of the mystique of what used to be a nearly unstoppable alien killing machine.