R Rating Ep5 - Predators (2010)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello, everybody, and welcome back to our Rating the movie show where we take a franchise, break it down by film, give it an overall score, average the score out, and then put it on a board to see where that franchise lists according to all the other franchise that we've done. Now, for the month of September, we are going through the Predator franchise. This is week number three. So we're doing Predators, the one starred by Adrian Brody. This is a movie I'd never seen before. It came out fairly recently compared to the other Predator movies. And honestly, I'm super excited to talk about this one with our guests, who we've got Will and Brian. Brian, how are you doing this week? [00:00:31] Speaker B: I'm good. I'm real excited about this franchise. And this is going to be one of the funner movies to talk about, I think. [00:00:38] Speaker A: Excellent. How about you, Will? How are you doing? [00:00:40] Speaker C: I'm living the dream. [00:00:43] Speaker A: Excellent. Glad to hear it. Now, Will, we kind of force you into this Rolex. You did such a great job last week. Can you give us the rundown of what the Predators is all about? [00:00:51] Speaker C: Yeah. These are going to get decisively worse and worse as we go, just because you're forcing me to do it. So get ready. [00:00:58] Speaker B: Here we go. [00:01:00] Speaker C: Waking to find themselves in a free fall into an unknown jungle, eight highly efficient cold blooded killers form an unlikely and untrusting alliance. Adrien Brody, an overly gruff voiced mercenary, must decide between leading or leaving this band of lethal misfits as he discovers they have literally been dropped into the most dangerous game of intergalactic proportions. Proportions. Predators is the 2010 addition to the Predator action sci fi franchise that doubles down on action by giving the plural a whirl. [00:01:38] Speaker A: If you don't want to do this every week, you can't do them that well because I guarantee you I'm just gonna keep forcing you into that role. That's amazing. [00:01:48] Speaker C: A whirl. [00:01:49] Speaker B: All right. [00:01:50] Speaker A: Oh, my God. [00:01:50] Speaker C: Let's get into this beauty. [00:01:52] Speaker A: All right, first off, have either of you ever seen this movie before? Will, let's start with you. [00:01:57] Speaker C: I have seen this movie. I believe I saw it in theaters when it came out because I was like, hey, Predators, it's been a long time. So I do believe this is when I was still, you know, going to movie theaters. So I did check that out when it. When it was released. [00:02:14] Speaker A: Nice. What about you, Brian? I saw you raise your hand. [00:02:16] Speaker B: Yes. This is the third or fourth time I watched the movie. I too went and saw it in theaters. The trailer for this movie looked amazing, and I Wanted to see if on the big screen. And so I went and saw it in theaters. And then obviously, having watched it four times, you can tell that I, I, I enjoyed it at least a bit. [00:02:34] Speaker A: Nice. This is my first time. I'd never seen this movie before. I'd never really heard good things about this movie, to be perfectly honest. So it kind of just skipped it. I just didn't. Wasn't really on my radar. And so the fun thing about that is because I went into this one, I knew Adrien Brody was on. He's, like, on the front cover. I had no idea about the rest of the cast. So for the first, like, half of the movie, every, like, four to 10 minutes, you're just like, oh, that guy's in this. Oh, that person's in this. Like, the cast in this movie is pretty ridiculous. Like, it's got Adrian Brody again. You can make say what you want about him being an action film. You got Topher Grace again, action films. Lawrence Fishburne is in this. [00:03:10] Speaker B: Walton Giggins. [00:03:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. I know him from the Shield and other things, but, yeah, is he from that? And I want to say Mahershala Ali. Yeah, Mahershala Ali's in the Danny Trejo. Like, just an insane cast. [00:03:26] Speaker C: Yeah. Can I just throw in right out the gate? In the script, they described Chichilo or whatever his name is, Danny's character. They described him as a Danny Trejo like character. And Danny heard about it and called, saying, hey, I'm a Danny Trejo like character. Would you like me to be in the film? So it's super funny that he, like, reached out to them to be in the film. [00:03:51] Speaker A: Yeah, that one was a big surprise to me. I didn't realize we were going to get any more human characters by the time he showed up. And you're just like, oh, I wasn't expecting a human, and I certainly wasn't expecting him. [00:04:00] Speaker B: But that was the last time I saw Laurence Fishburne was in the Matrix. And so seeing him after putting on the pounds, I was like, oh, okay, you're, you're scavenging well on this planet. [00:04:15] Speaker A: Continues talking about how he doesn't have any more room for mouths to feed. He's like, you're doing okay, I think. [00:04:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I. [00:04:22] Speaker A: So each one of these characters is playing, like, a very specific character trope, and they even kind of go over that in the movie, where you've got, like, the serial killer, you've got the wanted convict, you've got the hardened military types, all that stuff. How did you feel these guys portrayed those roles because that was one of the things we gave a massive positive to in the original Predators. Like, yeah, you've got like the. The dorky type, the big muscular guy, the leader. And we all kind of felt that that worked out really well for that. How did that work in this movie for you, Will? Did that. Did that kind of ring true or. [00:04:52] Speaker C: I. Yes, I think so. I feel like they took notes from the first Predator movie and. And having all of those kind of very slimmed down traits of characters and just like applied it in a different way here. Maybe there is too many characters at some points to make like them stand out as their own, you know, unique being, but I think overall they had simple attributes and they played them very well. [00:05:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. I think we'll see throughout a lot of this movie where they went back to the source material and completely ignored Predator 2. And I think that was to its benefit. I think they. They stuck with what worked and they tried to do it again. I don't think they succeeded in many cases, but I did like that they went to these very one dimensional characters that you didn't need to get to know because they dropped in and you knew right away who they were. And I mean, we had a bunch of. Of badasses in the jungle. That's where we started from and that's what we went back to. We've even got the minigun again, which was really cool. We got to see that in action some more. And we did have very easy to understand characters. And a lot of them did a good job of getting into that role quickly and letting you understand it. We talked about Bill Paxton last time, how he was the only one who got into that one dimensional character who. You knew who he was right off the bat. And he played it incredibly well. There were a couple of actors in this that did that also. I thought Walter Goggins playing the. The criminal, he had some amazing lines and he was such a great character. I really enjoyed his character. Even though he was such a terrible human being. He was a great character. [00:06:48] Speaker C: Yeah, you love to hate him. [00:06:49] Speaker B: You love to hate him. You did. You were rooting for him even though he was such a horrible person. You know, like, when I get back to the world, I'm gonna do so much cocaine and some other things. [00:07:01] Speaker A: Stop. [00:07:03] Speaker B: Right, right. [00:07:03] Speaker A: The movies rated R. We are not. [00:07:05] Speaker B: Yeah. So, yeah, you really. You didn't like his. But I mean, that's what great actors do. They make you have a strong emotion for that character. These were one dimensional characters, but his character Stands was fantastic. I also liked Topher Grace's character, Edwin, who was a mystery. And we'll get to that when we get to the plot portion. But he was kind of a mystery and you're wondering where, where he is. And then when his character kind of reveals himself, there was a lot to it. And he did, he did a really good job. When the character reveal came about, I thought that was, that was good. Some points that really bothered me was Isabel's character was pretty bland. I, I didn't think highly of her. She seemed like. I was waiting for them to say that she was like the mother of Anna from the first one or something. It was such a ripoff of Anna. I thought she would be related in some ways what I was waiting for. That never happened. Thank goodness. And then unfortunately, Adrien Brody did a terrible job in this movie. I did not like his acting skills. I didn't like his character. I didn't like anything about him when it came to. To that. [00:08:18] Speaker C: He talked like this the whole movie. [00:08:19] Speaker B: Yes. His character was super one dimensional and they gave him too much screen time. I just, I mean, he's the lead of the movie. [00:08:30] Speaker A: I know, but I don't think he's got, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger care about him. [00:08:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I just didn't care about him. He didn't have a charm like Schwarzenegger. [00:08:39] Speaker A: Exactly what I was about to say. I don't think he can carry the lead quite as well as Schwarzenegger can. And honestly, even, even Denny Glover I think did a little bit of a better job of just like holding his own as the lead now. [00:08:50] Speaker B: I think so too. [00:08:50] Speaker A: The flip side of that is Danny Glover didn't really have anybody to compete with, whereas this guy had like nine different people kind of all vying for screen time. So maybe it's just a little bit of. Of that going. You really didn't have time to get to know June Brody's character. I'm okay with that. I like more of the other back characters more than his character. So I was kind of fun. [00:09:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:09] Speaker A: Walton Goggins is an actor that I've had my eye on for quite some time. As I mentioned, the Shield was like mid 2000s, I want to say, and I've really enjoyed him, his acting since then. And he is not afraid of getting his hands dirty as an actor. Like he will pick the weirdest roles and just go for it. Like there's no. He doesn't seem to be worried about his reputation or his name whatsoever. So, like, some of the stuff he says in this movie, you don't really seem to do anything too horrible. But some of the stuff he's talking about, you're just like, oh, that's the kind of thing you wouldn't necessarily see an actor, say, in 2024. And he's like, whatever. Like, that's who the character is. It's not me. Yeah. It's just the character. [00:09:43] Speaker C: There's a reason he is a prisoner inmate on death row. [00:09:46] Speaker A: Absolutely. And, yeah, and we'll get there. But now, as far as the rest character, I didn't have as much of a problem with Isabella, although I agree with you that it was just like, oh, this is like, clearly having something to do with. I forgot her name already. The. The woman from Predator 1. And even the fact that she knew about what happened in Predator 1. I was like, oh, is there going to be a connection here? Because she does reference it. She's the only one that knew about the predators prior to going to this planet. [00:10:10] Speaker B: Yeah. And that was a lot of story drop in that. In that sequence when she reveals that she knew prior knowledge about it. They dropped a lot of information in that dialogue segment that maybe didn't need to happen. I felt like they were over explaining a bit of stuff and it was kind of like, I would have been. [00:10:29] Speaker A: More okay with it. You say they. They kind of like Steppedo tiptoed around Predator too. It would have been kind of interesting if she had known about that and somebody else had known about the. The LA thing and then they could kind of like piece this together. Like, oh, has this been happening a lot? Like, you get the scene where Hanzo picks up the sword and is like, oh, this is a really old sword. They've been doing this. But that would have been that much cooler for me. Like, oh, there was a strike team in 1987 that got hit. And, oh, there was a. There was. There's underground stories of LA having something going on in, like, the summer of 97. Oh, there's a sword from, you know, 1700s or whatever. Like, that would have been a really cool way of, like, laying the breadcrumbs there, I think, as is. I was still pretty okay with it. My issue with the cast isn't so much that there was too many of them, because that's kind of what you expect from a movie like this. It's how many of them survived until the last, like, 25 minutes. Like, instead of people kind of, like dropping, like, I guess you literally had one Drop like a fly and die the second he hit the ground. But, like, other than him, most of them survive for a chunk of the movie, and then they start getting dying. [00:11:27] Speaker B: In fairly quick succession, especially with how bad a shot they are. The opening sequence, when the dogs come in and they unload half their ammo packs and barely hit anything. Like, how could they possibly survive this entire movie? [00:11:42] Speaker A: I refer you back to Predator 1 and the deforestation scene right now. Apparently those dogs. Maybe we can get to this later. But those dogs apparently were part of the original design of the original predator. Like, no, I don't think of that. Not entirely. But they took aspects of that from the original predator design. [00:12:02] Speaker C: Not what we saw. [00:12:03] Speaker A: But prior to that, I don't know. I saw that. [00:12:05] Speaker C: I remember. I think. I think what I remember is the other alien that was dropped off, the one that was like chasing Topher's character shots, shoots it. That was the specific one that was based on the first predator design with Van Damme. It was more like a long necked, weird thing. But the dog one I was wanted specifically to bring this up was the big skull that you saw in the spaceship of the second movie, Dan. And you were like, are we gonna see that skull? That's what these dogs were based on. Is that skull. [00:12:38] Speaker A: Okay. So I got my alien creatures mixed up when I was reading. I think. [00:12:41] Speaker C: Yeah, I think you had to. Yeah. Which is fine. But I. I would like to maybe address my thoughts on, like, why Adrian Brody didn't come across as a great lead in this. [00:12:53] Speaker A: Okay. [00:12:54] Speaker C: And I think there's two. Two problems in my mind. I feel like Adrien Brody is a charismatic. Can command the screen quite well. And I've seen him do it in many movies. [00:13:06] Speaker B: I think he's a great actor. I just. [00:13:07] Speaker C: For sure. So I don't know if it's his acting that was bad, although is his physical prowess suited for this movie? Maybe not. But I feel like the Isabelle character and the Royce character kind of shared what a typical single lead would share. So it kind of diminished. Diminished both of their roles a little bit. And then they also specifically made Adrien Brody's character a loner who didn't want to be a part of this group at all. So he didn't really say or do much aside from like, is he going to leave the group or isn't he? Is he going to help them or isn't he? So I felt that really took away from being able to like this character at all because he. He's not giving you anything to like. [00:13:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:54] Speaker C: So, again, I don't know. I hate. [00:13:56] Speaker B: It's. [00:13:57] Speaker C: Maybe it's because the actor in me, I'm like, I hate blaming the actor when I feel like it's a scriptural issue. But, I mean, great actors should find a little bit of way around that too. [00:14:08] Speaker B: But I see your point there. I think you're. I think you're right to a degree. I think that the two of them trying to share the screen did take away from each of them individually. And the loner aspect just didn't add any qualities that we could attach to. However, as to his acting skills, I refer you to the sequence where he drops the bombshell that. No, that was actually Hemingway. You should watch that scene because that is such a terrible delivery of lines. [00:14:35] Speaker A: You know what the difference between you and me is? [00:14:39] Speaker B: We both did the same thing. [00:14:42] Speaker A: You used to do it for a country, so you don't have to admit you like it. [00:14:47] Speaker B: What happened to you? I mean, just so up. [00:14:56] Speaker A: There is no hunting. [00:14:57] Speaker B: Like the hunting of a man. And those who have hunted armed men long enough and like it never really. [00:15:06] Speaker A: Care for anything else they're after. [00:15:12] Speaker B: It's pretty poetic. Did you come up with that all by yourself? No, actually. [00:15:21] Speaker A: That was Hemingway. [00:15:24] Speaker B: I mean, I felt like. I felt like the writers of this just felt like I was a total idiot and I'd be so blown away by this monumental piece of poetry that he drops. And he even looked like he was ready for her to be shocked when he admitted that. And it just felt terrible. It was so overdone. And there were a couple of sequences like that where I think somebody felt like we were getting more than I did as the viewer. And it was. It really just. I just. I just kept saying, could. Could he just be one of the extras? Could he be the one that dies and we just kill somebody else? [00:16:01] Speaker A: That would have been interesting if they went that route. Have, like, one of the more popular famous actors be the lead of the poster and kill him in the first 20 minutes. Like, oh, okay. Didn't see that coming. [00:16:12] Speaker B: Yeah, sometimes I'm okay with that, but sometimes I'm like, wait a minute. They were on the poster. I came here to watch them, and they're dead in 20. No. So it. But I don't know. [00:16:22] Speaker A: It depends on how they do it, because there's sometimes where they can do that and you're like, oh, everybody's. Everybody's on the table. Like, anything could happen. Like, quiet. [00:16:30] Speaker C: Yeah, quiet place. [00:16:31] Speaker A: Did that in a great place. Did that in a Great way by killing a little kid right off the bat. And then you're like, oh, nobody is safe. So if they can manage a way to do that with like the biggest star, you'd be like, oh, everybody's going to die. Which I guess in this kind of film you're expecting anyways. But really it's a matter of survive. [00:16:47] Speaker B: The tone for the movie. And if you kill somebody off, you're not expecting in that, in that opening sequence of the movie, it really sets a pace of, wow, I got to pay attention. Because anybody could go, anything could happen. And they started this movie off with an adrenaline rush of what is going on. Because they are literally falling from the sky. That's where it starts. [00:17:08] Speaker A: If we thought Predator 2 jumps straight into it. This one jumps straight into it. Like, it's not even opening credits, it's just like fade from black, you're falling from the sky. Go like, oh, okay, that's no setup at all. [00:17:20] Speaker C: I still feel they held off on revealing predators later than in the second movie. [00:17:27] Speaker B: And I like that better than number two. You guys pointed that out and I was watching that this, this time around and I was like, you know what? The guys are right. I like this slow trickle of. And there were a bunch of aspects of the plot where we didn't know what was going on. Why are these people here? Where are they? Because something's amiss, right? They start going, hey, how come the compass is spinning around? And he's like, between that and the sun and, and so there's all these things that are amiss and you start to reveal more and more of what's going on. And it was a more intricate plot than any either of the two movies before it. [00:17:57] Speaker A: I would agree with that. I liked. Before we move away from the characters, I do want to mention I, I, the Topher Grace character who you're. The entire time you're like, why is this guy here? Because they mentioned like, oh, we're all like apex predators. I thought what they were gonna do is he was the healer, like he was the medic to keep them alive, to try and keep like. Well, because you want to hunt. [00:18:16] Speaker B: Like his other channel is a gaming channel if you haven't figured it out. [00:18:22] Speaker A: Yes, that's true. The you want to keep the hunting party alive so that it's that much more of a fair fight. So you give them somebody who can like heal their, their tiny little wounds, like stuff. He showed them the plant right off the bat. He was way too heavy handed with that. That was clearly, something was going to come back in the later part of the movie. [00:18:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:36] Speaker A: But, like, oh, don't touch this plant. Like, okay, so he could be, like, a bit of a herbalist, a botanist, a healer. Like, he has some role in this that is not to fight the predators, but just give the predators a better fight overall. And then that clearly isn't the direction they went. But that's kind of what I was thinking about when we saw him the first time. I was like, okay, maybe this is what's going on here. [00:18:53] Speaker C: So. Okay. Can I ask, did either. Did you guys like Topher Gray's character in this? Like, did you enjoy the story of it? [00:19:03] Speaker A: Okay, I'm the exact opposite. I. I liked him more before the reveal than I did after the reveal. After the reveal, I was like, oh, it's all right. It just felt. I hate to say it this way because it's 2,900. I feel like my idea would have been more interesting, and instead they went the obvious way. [00:19:19] Speaker C: I'm gonna say that's what I have issue with, because I remember when I saw it in theaters, I was like, oh, these guys are all highly trained killers, that these are people who have a body count. So I knew right away this guy was like, some serial killer doctor who's just offing his patients. [00:19:35] Speaker B: And. [00:19:36] Speaker C: And so his whole, like, I'm so innocent saved me. It just. Like, I. I hated him. Him throughout this whole thing. [00:19:44] Speaker B: And. [00:19:45] Speaker C: I don't know. I don't know. I. I just couldn't get away from it. [00:19:50] Speaker B: The first time I watched this movie, I didn't catch it. I guess I was so distracted. And so I. I never expected them to try for something like that in a movie like this, to try and have a twist, you know, it just. It just. It did. It caught me off guard. And when they did reveal him, I was like, wow, he's a creepy dude. Like, she's all drugged up, and she's seeing things blurry, and he's like, I like it here, and he's all weird and wiggly. And I was like, that is really cool. Doesn't fit this theme of the movie at all. Doesn't fit at all. I like what they tried to do, and I liked his character and stuff, but it just didn't fit this movie. [00:20:28] Speaker C: I agree. I don't think it fits any predator. Like, obviously, that they're gonna hunt. Yeah, obviously the predators had tabs on these people and are watching them closely and know that this guy is, like, not hunting people. [00:20:45] Speaker B: Really. [00:20:45] Speaker C: He is Just taking advantage. [00:20:49] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [00:20:49] Speaker C: He. Well, yeah, at best, I don't even think he's that. No, he's like a vulture. But it just like, it seems like, why would they ever think that would be a challenge in this arena battle? Right? Like, it doesn't make any sense. [00:21:04] Speaker B: They just went purely by kill count. It didn't make sense to me. Exactly. [00:21:07] Speaker A: The only weapon he ever holds is a ton tiny little blade, which will never do anything to a predator. Although, that being said, it would have been cool if you actually paralyzed one of them. Like, I was kind of like, what? It was so obvious that was coming back and be like, all right, I guess that'd be kind of fun to see. But it never even got close that while watching this movie. And I even said at the beginning, it's got a great cast. It's got like a lot of well known actors. But the more I was getting into, the more I'm like, okay, I know Adrien Brody's name, but like, what have I seen him in that I actually like him in? And like, we all like that 70s show. But, like, what else have I seen? Topher Grayson, that I actually like him. Like, a lot of these actors have goodwill for me at least, but I don't know why. Like, it's unexplainable goodwill, you know, I mean, like, I can't point to something like, oh, I really like this character because of X. Walton Goggins is the one exception to that. I'd say maybe Mahershala a little bit, but like, a lot of these, like, Danny Trejo is so well known, but what am I, what am I looking at when I'm like, oh, that's why I really like this guy. For Grace, Adrien Brody. It was just one of those weird moments where I'm like, oh, do I like, where is this unearned love for these actors coming from? Like, I don't know. Just a weird little. [00:22:13] Speaker B: Dan thought the Pianist was Adrien Brody. And. And I thought he did a pretty good job in the Pianist. [00:22:19] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:22:21] Speaker B: This movie. [00:22:22] Speaker C: No, no. Yeah, the Darjeeling Limited. Very good movie. I actually really enjoyed his character in the Village. The Village. Maybe not such a great movie, but I really enjoyed his performance in it. So, like, as far as Adrian Brody, like, I get the appeal for, like, I. I understand where I enjoy him from, but that all the more reinforces the question as to why he's in this movie. [00:22:48] Speaker B: Right. [00:22:49] Speaker A: And brings up the jacket, which is a movie I completely forgot about, but I really do enjoy that one as well. [00:22:55] Speaker B: Mm. Mahershala Ali. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right. His character was Mombasa. I think he's an actor with real talent and I kind of felt like they over explained his character and some of his dialogue was so kind of on the nose and it was a little bit unfortunate. He was, he's a great actor and everything and it's supposed to be a one dimensional character and I don't know, it was kind of an unfortunate mix because I guess I could have gone for a little bit more of him with less dialogue somehow. I don't know. I don't know. [00:23:37] Speaker C: He was show more instead of saying more. In some of those cases instead of. [00:23:41] Speaker B: Saying more is probably the way to go. Yeah, I think that was it. [00:23:44] Speaker A: Fair enough. What do you think of the overall look of this movie? The feel of the alien planet? How did that work for you, Brian? [00:23:53] Speaker B: Okay, for me, this one steps it up a little bit. Like the special effects, the jungle setting. I think we went back to Predator 1 with the jungle setting, of course, and we took it up a notch with crazy science fiction, planets in the sky kind of stuff. I thought the special effects with the predators phasing in and out all the time really looked good in this one. I think we had some yellow eyes but they toned it way down, which was an improvement. Is a step in the right direction. We never liked the yellow eyes. There was no lightning bolts hitting these guys, thank goodness. There was a little bit of crackle of electricity on them but they toned that way down. I feel like they, they pushed everything at least in the direction I wanted it to go, if not made it happen completely. I thought everything looked good. They probably overplayed CGI a bit, but it was used well when they needed it. I would have loved to have seen like, like a real dog made up somehow. That would have I think been kind of cool because the dogs, they looked pretty fake and it felt really fake when they were shooting at them. And some of like the, the gunfire didn't really line up with the dogs and there was a lot of times when they're shooting a million rounds at the dogs and not hitting anything and then they're taking like one or two shots with even pistols and KN him down and it was like this doesn't really make sense. So that was kind of a low point. But overall I thought this movie looked great. The sun never moved except for when it became night time. I don't know how that was. Suddenly it was nighttime. Okay, whatever. [00:25:37] Speaker C: Because you always kill predators at night time. [00:25:40] Speaker B: No, but, man. And, and this one. And we're gonna talk about this in the next movie. There were two types of predators, okay? And we had, like a bigger predator instead of the classic predator. We also had these three bigger predators. And I thought those guys looked great, which is kind of unusual to go away from the original, which I already thought looked great. I thought these guys were scary. When they took the mask off, they were even scarier. The problem was these guys are bigger and Adrien Brody was smaller. And so it was like. It didn't. It didn't match up for me. So I thought. I thought it looked great is what I wanted to say. I thought it really looked great. [00:26:26] Speaker A: Fair enough. What about you, Will? Does this world bank work for you? [00:26:31] Speaker C: I enjoyed the world, except for I hated the preferential treatment that humans got. There was nine humans that dropped down in this season of the Predator and Hunt or whatever they call it, and only one other alien. [00:26:54] Speaker A: There were a lot of crates. So I assumed the other aliens had already been killed off. [00:26:59] Speaker C: Well, that even, that makes it even worse that all the other aliens are worse than Toby, Dr. Oz over there, like, so. Humans should never be apex predators is all I'm saying. [00:27:17] Speaker B: Not. [00:27:18] Speaker C: Not the majority. [00:27:19] Speaker B: I have, I have no doubt in. [00:27:21] Speaker C: My mind, if predators are out there, there's got to be other high technology creatures out there that can give us a run for our money. [00:27:30] Speaker B: So. So would you have rather had them have encounters with the other species on this planet and duke it out a little bit and maybe have a tough time or. [00:27:39] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:27:40] Speaker C: Especially because they all seem to get dropped down at the same time in similar areas. So, like, I would think there would been more scramble and chaos at the beginning between different species and it, it would further push the reason why the humans would band together, because they can at least find common ground being the same creature. You know, even if their personality and their killer instincts don't line up how they kill or what they kill, but it would just like drive home this. Like, oh, we have to stick together or we are going to get obliterated by whatever the hell else is out here. But instead it kind of just like, oh, let's all band together and oh, we saw some dogs. Oh, we saw one other good thing. Okay, it's about the predators now. I just, it seemed. It just seemed lopsided to humans and maybe I just don't like people that much. [00:28:32] Speaker B: I don't know. [00:28:33] Speaker A: Neither do they. They hunt them all the time. [00:28:36] Speaker B: Did you Guys see at the end when the next season, I guess started and they were dropping everybody in. There were crates, there were large looking quadrupeds, bipeds, there was a humanoid. There was a variety of things coming down on those parachutes. [00:28:51] Speaker C: Why wasn't that this season? Like, what? [00:28:53] Speaker B: Come on. [00:28:55] Speaker A: I, I don't know. I, I like the idea of that. And I get you had to do it now because when else would you do it? But some small part of me was like, oh, like these seasons, as I guess we're calling them, like they haven't fast. Like it was like, yes. And now we're dropping down like a. [00:29:08] Speaker B: Whole bunch more crazy, actually, because the days are 24 hours or 52 hours. [00:29:14] Speaker A: But there's only theoretically three hunters and all three of them are dead. So. So who's even. [00:29:18] Speaker B: Well, that's the thing. [00:29:18] Speaker C: Is it, Is it like, are there predator ships above just watching this like a big sporting event? So like, they're like, oh, that episode's over. Let's drop in the next crew, bring. [00:29:28] Speaker B: In three more hunters of season 10. I don't know, I don't know. [00:29:34] Speaker A: Round three, because we had again those other aliens in the crates before the humans got there, I guess. [00:29:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:39] Speaker A: Now, out of curiosity, they never went into this, so I'm assuming not, but did it ever feel like maybe they were in an artificial environment with the compass not working and like the, the alien sky and whatnot. The, the sun not moving, but then all of a sudden it's night time again. They didn't go into. [00:29:55] Speaker C: So you like, you're saying like a Truman show, kind of like a contained area. [00:29:59] Speaker A: You're gonna get hunted in this area. You don't actually. [00:30:03] Speaker B: Well, spent three seasons walking in one direction and didn't reach the edge of the preserve. [00:30:10] Speaker A: There you go. [00:30:11] Speaker B: However, he's still in the same location that they dropped in. Is this the, like, are the. [00:30:19] Speaker A: Giant. [00:30:19] Speaker B: Seasons in one direction? Didn't he have to walk three seasons back to get where they're dropping him in? I don't understand. There were a lot of like, weird stuff. I don't know, maybe he's walking circles. The compass doesn't work. [00:30:33] Speaker A: So he was also crazy. Let's remember that. [00:30:35] Speaker B: Yeah, that too. [00:30:37] Speaker A: Now the other thing is, I'm looking at the skyline right now. I brought it up just because I wanted to see it again just to make sure. I am so torn on the look of this skyline when they get to the top of that mountain and look over top, because on one hand I want to Set up a lawn chair and just sit on that skyline and just stare at that for hours. And on the other hand, that looks like something out of, like, early 2000s desktop wallpaper. Like, you just kind of like, oh, look up space, and you just kind of get that. I'm not saying this, it looks bad, but, like, I'm looking at the logistics of these planets being as large as they are, as close as they are. [00:31:05] Speaker C: And I'm just like, pretty busy. [00:31:07] Speaker A: I don't think gravity works the way you think it's going to in this universe. I think things are going to go badly. [00:31:11] Speaker B: Like, they should have gone more subtle and just had like two moons. Just enough that you know they're not on Earth. But they don't have to make it so freaking weird because there were multiple planets in different orientations that would completely tear this planet apart, gravitationally speaking. Yeah, I'm not to nerd out on you guys, but the physics of that background do not work. [00:31:33] Speaker C: Exactly. [00:31:33] Speaker A: It was cool to see, and that's what I mean. Like, them up. What is the website that I'm trying? It starts with a D. Like, whatever. It's an art website that you go and like, you can just find like a ton of different art projects. Anyways, never mind. [00:31:45] Speaker C: Easy. D dot com, I think. [00:31:47] Speaker A: No, not even close. Somebody in chat's gonna let me help me off. [00:31:53] Speaker B: I don't know. [00:31:57] Speaker A: Etsy. No, never mind. Any moving on it. Look, it reminded me one of those, like, where you go to look for, like, wallpaper from back in the day for your desktop or something. But at the same time, like, some part of me just loves it. Just like I'm looking at right now, even I'm just like that. It really is cool. Despite the fact that it makes no sense whatsoever. [00:32:15] Speaker C: It's full on sci fi, right? [00:32:16] Speaker B: Like, yeah, yeah. [00:32:17] Speaker A: Even the compass not working. Like, if you're on an alien planet, wouldn't it still point to, like, the magnetic pole? Even if it's not. [00:32:25] Speaker B: You know, if there's not. [00:32:27] Speaker C: Maybe not. If there's four planets all around there. Yeah, it can pull in all kinds of directions. [00:32:33] Speaker B: I guess other places, that planet may not even have a magnetic pole. The Earth has magnetic poles because we have a spinning core of iron and that's what creates the magnetosphere and the polarity. This, this planet may not. I mean, it has mountainous region, so it probably, probably has tectonic plates, which means it probably has a magnetic sphere. Yeah, but I mean, we're, we're trying to nerd out on On a movie, that's not going to make much sense. You know, why is there a big drill that Lawrence Fishburne lives in? Why is there. What is that machine? Why is it there? Why does the power source still work but the predators don't see the heat signature? Like, there was. What was that? They didn't explain any of that. Why was there this big drill in the middle of a preserve where there's nothing. [00:33:19] Speaker C: Like, I. I feel that's more of the planetary skyline. It's just like, let's make this more and more alien. The further we get into this movie, whether it makes sense or not is irrelevant. [00:33:35] Speaker B: Some sort of purpose. [00:33:37] Speaker C: Sure. Yeah, for sure. [00:33:38] Speaker A: We need to show you at a glance, you're on a very alien world, period. It doesn't make sense. You just need to know, oh, crap, we're. We're not anywhere close to Earth. [00:33:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:47] Speaker A: Because that's the other thing is you could also see it like another planet. Be like, oh, like, maybe they're just, I don't know, on the next planet over something. But you look at this skyline, you're like, we have no idea where this is. No clue whatsoever. [00:33:58] Speaker B: So we've got a location change that's very drastic. That's a bit of a reveal. When they pop out and see the skyline, there was some mystery to it, some different things making you question why this is. We've got Topher Grace's character that doesn't fit in, and we're wondering why. And that was a big twist that revealed, and they didn't pull that one off very well. It was interesting. They tried it. Then we've got Laurence Fishburne, who's there, and there's a plot twist with his character as well. Not to mention, we have now two warring factions of predators, which creates a different dynamic. We're now working with a predator instead of just working against them. And once again, now, Laurence Fishburne's character was a little weird. I kind of figured, like, I saw that coming too. So that was a plot twist that also failed. And then the predator. I was. I was looking forward to this. And the predators fought for all of 32 seconds, and that was over. And I was like, are you kidding me? We just got our gear on and they're gonna end that like, that was. So at every turn, they tried a more dynamic plot. And for me, every time, they failed. And so that's why I had a hard time grading this one's plot, because they shot for a lot and didn't get anything in My opinion. Will, what did you think about the plot? In different ways, different things that they were trying to tackle in this one. I'm curious what you have to say on this one. [00:35:23] Speaker C: Yeah, I. I kind of feel the same way you do. I feel like they just tried to add lots of twists and turns from the get, and it became redundant and, like, just, oh, here comes another one. [00:35:39] Speaker B: Right. [00:35:39] Speaker C: Like, Lawrence is there to help. [00:35:41] Speaker B: Oh, no, he's. [00:35:42] Speaker C: He's actually there to kill you because that's how he's surviving all these seasons. Right. Like, he entraps these players and takes them out himself and. And takes their stuff. I. I just felt like. And maybe that's why I hated Tophers so much, because I saw that one from the start, and it was the icing on the cake of the reveals, and it was like, the worst one for me. [00:36:04] Speaker B: And I saw. [00:36:05] Speaker C: I agree that I feel it took away from this being a fun sci fi action movie and instead was trying to be like, this. [00:36:14] Speaker B: A mystery. [00:36:15] Speaker C: Yeah, mystery. Or M. Night Shyamalan twist after twist movie, Right? [00:36:22] Speaker B: Yeah. They definitely didn't hit that mark. What? Okay. Do you think that maybe they added Fishburne's character simply to explain the warring clans of the two predators? Yeah, that's the only value I think he really added. [00:36:36] Speaker A: He also mentioned the ship, did he not? Like, he gave them a gold. [00:36:39] Speaker B: Oh, that's true. Yes. They do have a cloak ship. [00:36:41] Speaker C: You didn't see it. It's there. [00:36:42] Speaker B: Okay. [00:36:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:43] Speaker C: And that. He's like, I didn't. I don't know how to fly it, so I didn't ever leave. Little they know twist. They're just gonna blow it up anyway. [00:36:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:36:53] Speaker A: Spoilers going back a quick second before you say anything, I actually feel like the Laurence Fishburne reveal worked better for me than the Topher Grace one did. [00:37:03] Speaker C: Agreed. [00:37:03] Speaker A: It's one of those ones where once it happened, I'm just like, oh, of course that's what was gonna happen there. [00:37:08] Speaker B: Right. [00:37:08] Speaker A: But I didn't see that one happening until it was happening. And I was like, yeah, I'm dumb for not seeing it, but I didn't see that one. [00:37:15] Speaker C: So that was established, like, set up and executed than most of the twists in the movie. But unfortunately, it's just. There's just too many. [00:37:24] Speaker A: There's. [00:37:25] Speaker C: There's like five or six. There should be one or two. [00:37:28] Speaker B: And for me, Fishburne, like, so with Topher Grace, I liked his character, and I liked the reveal, and I liked who his character became when he revealed himself. But like I said, it didn't fit this movie at all, and it really took away from it. Now, Laurence Fishburne's character, it fit this movie. It helped the plot. It was kind of necessary, at least for the writing skills of this movie. But I didn't like Laurence Fishburne's character, and I felt like seeing what he's done in other movies, you know, being Morpheus and things like that, I. I didn't really like his character the way he played a crazy man and. And it wasn't as much fun for me as the Topher Grace reveal. Even though the reveal was executed better and more important for the story and. [00:38:16] Speaker C: Fit better, I feel they didn't give him time to develop or establish what he was. They had to rush be like, okay, this guy's surviving all these seasons. He's giving you all this information. He's obviously crazy because he's talking to an invisible person. [00:38:31] Speaker B: Right. I mean, he came in halfway through the movie. He had half the time to do it. Yeah. [00:38:35] Speaker C: And that's always a risky writing choice is to introduce a brand new character over halfway through your movie because it's like what you've already established should be enough. But that's a whole different writing tutorial. [00:38:54] Speaker B: It's a very valid point, though. Yeah, I think that kind of does explain. I. I didn't get to know this character, and he wasn't given the breadth he needed to really come into his own. And they. They did have to. They did have to kind of rush a lot on. On. On the Ronald character. On the Ronald character. [00:39:11] Speaker C: Ronald. [00:39:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:12] Speaker C: The only thing I really hated, like, I. Again, I agree with. You're saying. I didn't really get anything from the character, but he's been around for 10 seasons of this predator hunt, and he just dies immediately. [00:39:26] Speaker B: Yeah, once. [00:39:27] Speaker C: Once Adrian Brody shoots a grenade at the wall, and then he's like, yeah. [00:39:33] Speaker B: He'S not smart enough to go. [00:39:34] Speaker C: Like, he should have escaped easily escaped and just disappeared, never to be seen again. [00:39:40] Speaker B: Absolutely. Way better way to go with that. [00:39:42] Speaker C: Instead of just like, oh, just off him because he. He betrayed the people we're supposed to care about, so let's just get rid of him. [00:39:49] Speaker A: No, it was just fun death. They just obliterate him and move on. [00:39:52] Speaker C: Yeah, it was bad. It was bad, bad, bad. [00:39:56] Speaker A: No, I like. I like your idea way better of Jim was just like, oh, crap, they're onto me. And he just disappears into the ship and never to be seen again. You're just like, well, that's why? He's been around for 10 seasons. That makes sense. I like that a lot, actually. [00:40:07] Speaker B: Can we talk about Hanzo's character and his. [00:40:09] Speaker A: I wanted to so badly. I loved his little character. He didn't get a whole lot, but you, his character, to know exactly what's going on with him. He's exactly what you were talking about with the other characters where he's like. He's a little bit quieter. He's a lot more like show don't sell. You understand what's going on with. Very, very minimal. [00:40:25] Speaker B: Because I talk too much. [00:40:27] Speaker C: Exactly. [00:40:28] Speaker B: That you should talk more. [00:40:30] Speaker A: I talk too much. [00:40:31] Speaker B: I said so much. [00:40:32] Speaker C: He has what, like three or four lines in the whole movie? But you understand his character very clearly. You know, he's badass. Like, you don't question it at all. [00:40:43] Speaker A: And he gets one of the best scenes in the movie. [00:40:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:45] Speaker A: Amazing fighting the. [00:40:46] Speaker B: The scene to be a movie. That was great. [00:40:50] Speaker C: Exactly. [00:40:50] Speaker A: Well, we've talked about that before, right? With the Predator in like Feudal Japan. Like, this is as close as we've gotten so far, but give me that for the entire film. Hells yes. Sign me up. Right. [00:40:58] Speaker C: It was also what you wanted from the first Predator with the tracker. He's out there with his shirt off, Billy's ready to go. You don't get to see that fight. Yeah, we got to see it here, which was very, very nice. [00:41:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I really liked that scene. [00:41:13] Speaker C: And also, just a side note, Yakuza, they chop off the fingers. You all know why, right? [00:41:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I guessed. I didn't know for sure. [00:41:25] Speaker C: Removing the fingers makes it much harder to use a sword. [00:41:30] Speaker A: Okay. [00:41:30] Speaker C: So that you Will are not a good at combatant. So him having two less fingers and also still being that badass with a samurai sword. This guy. This guy was meant to be here. They picked the right guy, which is totally fair. [00:41:45] Speaker B: The final scene, when they're. When they both fall in the grass and the grass is blowing and you see the two combatants laying in the grass as the camera slowly moves up. That was amazing cinematography for me. That was such a great, well put sequence. And like you said, Will, it was everything we missed out from the first one that I wanted to see. It was. It. It was such a good. That was one of the highlights of the film right there. [00:42:08] Speaker C: Agreed. [00:42:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:42:15] Speaker C: I feel like this movie, like we've just been talking about the characters because that's all really there is to talk about in this movie. Right? [00:42:22] Speaker A: There's not. Yeah. I was thinking, like, there's not a whole lot to Say about sound effects or music or anything. It was all good. It was all fine. I love. I will mention I love they brought back the helicopter music at the very end. Yeah, that. That music where they're all like bonding. The very beginning, I was like, that's pretty cool. [00:42:37] Speaker B: One thing that I wanted to see more of with the predators, we didn't get to see many new toys with them. They had a drone that flew around that looked like it had like, I don't know, it was, it was okay, whatever. It was pretty quick. We had the dogs, which for me didn't seem to make a lot of sense. And. And I think a lot of that was. Was bothered me because of the whole opening fire on the dogs in the beginning. And there's like, there's like five or six dogs running directly at them and no one can hit them, even though they have a minigun. And that bothered me. And then later, they're shooting them and taking him down with one shot. Royce chops one's head off with his knife. I was like, come on, that was dumb. So, so the. And there, there weren't many toys other than the ninja Predator had like a cool looking like. Like more of a metal mask, right. And he had the big huge sword thing. That was kind of cool. And then the, the. The main predator, the crazy kind of predator guy, the berserker predator, whatever, he had that jawbone mask. That was cool. And like I said, he took that mask off and we got to see his face. And I thought this different version of the Predator looked really cool. And we're gonna talk about that in the next movie because they don't do it as well in the next movie. I'll just tell you that right now. [00:43:58] Speaker C: Okay, spoilers. [00:43:59] Speaker A: I haven't seen the next one either. [00:44:01] Speaker B: Breed of predator in this one, but I wanted to see more toys. I wanted spears, I wanted nets, I wanted all that stuff that we got in predators. The Frisbee. Yeah, sure, the Frisbee. [00:44:11] Speaker A: Whatever. Yeah. Now I will say you touched on this a second ago and I didn't get a chance to really speak on it. The predator on Predator Fight. I'm actually relatively okay with how that went because that's exactly how it was supposed to be. Like, that's kind of the feeling you should get is that the bigger ones just can completely outnumber, not outnumber out, strengthen little ones. And the little guy was tied to a post for at least a couple of days before doing that fight. [00:44:33] Speaker B: Right. [00:44:34] Speaker A: So the fact that he didn't put up too much fight I was kind of okay with because it's like, yeah, I wouldn't have expected him to come out the gate swinging and do something. It would have been cool if he was like, more agile or something. Like, you have to see a little bit of how they could compete. [00:44:47] Speaker B: Couple of times, man, he had the shoulder can and he never even, like, really fired it. [00:44:51] Speaker A: No, that's fair. I don't know if that's maybe like a. I think I keep putting honor into their. Into their DNA that doesn't necessarily actually exist in their DNA. Does that make sense? Like, I keep expecting the predators to be like, honorable hunters. And it's like the more I watch these movies, I'm like, no, they're just dicks. Like, they just want to go around and kill things. They don't really care about them. [00:45:13] Speaker B: They just want to. They just want a bad fight. I kind of feel like the only reason the small predator existed was to give Adrian Brody the option of flying home. And the only reason Laurence Fishburne existed was to explain the existence of the smaller predator. And otherwise it could have just been a newer, bigger breed. And we could have just had the explanation that this was a group of alpha predators who are out to train themselves to be tougher and tougher and tougher with every season. That would have been enough. We just needed a plane for Adrien Brody to fly home on. And so we have this cascade of kind of weird things that take place in the plot. I don't know. I think we could have benefited from. From some better plot and scripting. [00:45:57] Speaker A: I'm going to go one further on you then. Do we need the bigger predators at all? Like, is there any world in which we weren't already afraid of the predators? We've only seen predators attack on one. Now we've got three predators. They could have easily just been regular predators working together, and that would have been God damn terrifying. All right, so we've gone over characters, we've gone over the world, We've gone over what little music there is. We got over the plot a little bit. [00:46:20] Speaker B: Some of the visual we get to. [00:46:22] Speaker A: Go over into, like enjoyment and then kind of. [00:46:24] Speaker C: Yeah. I just want to add one thing about the predators, specifically the alien, whatever the predators. I didn't love having three predators. I didn't like. Their whole purpose is like it to me. And again, maybe it's me putting this on what I've seen in the previous movies, but it seemed to be like they're a solar solo hunter proving that they are the best. Collecting trophies as they go. [00:46:51] Speaker B: Yep. [00:46:51] Speaker C: So having three diminishes that greatly. And then having hunting pack dogs with them even further diminishes it. It really, like that whole idea really left a bad taste in my mouth compared to the first two movies. I didn't like it at all. I don't mind them adding different sizes of Predator. I wish we could see what made each one better or worse at hunting. I feel like they should both be equally terrifying threats in their own way. And we didn't really see that either because they would, you know, the smaller one was just, you know, weakened and just got obliterated. And that's fine. But I would have loved to be like, oh, here's the reason why. These ones are smaller, these ones are bigger. And this is why they're competing against each other instead of working together. Right. Like they're. They're different attributes and aspects that make them better at some things than others. But I just feel like that was a missed opportunity in the long run and was simply put in to have a 32 second fight scene between predators. [00:47:58] Speaker A: I just had a thought. So this isn't hard cooked. Literally. I've been thinking about this while, Will. Yeah. So let me know if this is horrendous. What if the twist of the movie. No, let's get rid of the big players and little trailers. It's just predators. There's three of them hunting them down and they are overpowering them in a lot of ways. Lots of the humans are dying, but eventually you do whittle them down. What if the twist, as you will at the end of the movie is that as terrifying as these things were, this is like, I don't want to use this from like daycare, but this is like a proving grounds and you have to earn your way to go to like Earth one on one. So, like, the predators that have gone to Earth are the ones that have survived this. And as scary as these things are, they've been wiping people out. They're not even apex predators yet. They're just like passing a test, as it were. They're just trying to like prove that they can deserve to go to another world and hunt down. Which I think is kind of the plot of Alien versus Predator, if I remember that at all. Isn't it like they kind of have to prove themselves by killing others, earning. [00:48:52] Speaker B: Their shoulder cannons, something. Something that I think would have been. Would have been better or okay with me if they wanted to have three predators do away with the dogs or Maybe just let one of the predators have a dog that. And that's like his thing, right? [00:49:11] Speaker C: That's their tool. [00:49:12] Speaker B: Yeah, Right. Maybe the other predator could have the drone. And then the. The third predator is just kind of like a badass or something, has a bigger shoulder cannon. I don't know. Right. Make them each individual stereotypes of themselves. [00:49:24] Speaker A: And then one of them has dogs, one of them sets traps, one of them close combat weapons. [00:49:28] Speaker B: And. And then we. We do it. It's just the predators, we don't have two classes of them. Right. But here's the thing. And we can have three, but they each go out individually and attack the group in a different way. And then they retreat and show off their trophy to the other two. And they take turns attacking one at a time to see who can kill the most or the. Or take down the biggest one or whatever. And that leaves the humans going, like, not knowing that it's three, but wondering, hey, they came at us with a dog this time. Oh, hey, they came at us with a drone this time. Like, what's going on? That would have been interesting to me. That would have been a different way to go. You could still have three predators, but you maintain this honorable trophy collector kind of status thing. And you. I don't know. I think it would have made for a lot more interesting story. I like that. [00:50:16] Speaker A: And to take it to the next level, if you have. If you are going that route, it would kind of make sense. They're taking out, like, Mahershala Ali first. They're taking out Nikolai first. Like, they want to go for the big trophies, so they're picking off the big people. And that's why you get left with Edwin, the Topher Grace character, like, right to the end, because they're just like, who cares about this guy? Like, I'm not hunting him. That's not a trophy that I want. I want to get this person. I want to get that person. Oh, predator's line of view. Oh, the female, she's not a threat. Oh, Edwin, he's not a threat. Oh, the. The Adrian, I want to go for Nikolai. That's the trophy I want. And you can kind of find them hunting them down. So you're losing the big. The heavy hitters, and you're being left with. [00:50:55] Speaker B: Yes. And less and less in a line of dialogue. They're going after the biggest of us first. Like literally going by size or something. I don't know. Because I agree with Will. They had overwhelming force and power against a group of people that don't Even know where the heck they are or who they're fighting with. They're fighting amongst themselves. It's chaos like that seems like easy pickings compared to going into human colonized territory by yourself. No dogs, no drones figuring it out. That sounds way tougher to me. [00:51:27] Speaker A: Nice. All right. [00:51:29] Speaker B: So did we enjoy this movie? [00:51:32] Speaker A: What do you think? Did you enjoy this? Did you have fun with this? For all the complaints we've got, for all the positives we have at the end of the day, did you enjoy watching it? [00:51:40] Speaker C: I feel like I enjoyed this movie more when it first came out and I watched it again. I think it was a time and place more than the quality of the movie. Watching it again now, I had trouble getting through this movie, to be honest. Just with all the weird twists and turns for. Just for twist and turn sake, it kind of took me out. The action scenes, there was lots of them, but they. I feel like they were stunted by, like, they had to be short because they had to put in all these other plot devices to move this movie forward. And then, just like we mentioned, the unlikable kind of lead character didn't do anything for me. I was rooting for the Yakuza. I was rooting for everybody who didn't make it. [00:52:32] Speaker B: Right. [00:52:33] Speaker C: The Russian with the heart of gold. You know, you want. You like those characters, you know they're gonna die, and it's unfortunate because you just want them to have more screen time than Mr. Gruff. I work alone. [00:52:47] Speaker B: Yeah, get out of my way. [00:52:49] Speaker C: Follow me if you want, but I'm not gonna wait. So I didn't really enjoy the movie all that much, even though I think, like, Run said, they. They tried to do a lot of cool things, and they pulled a lot of fun elements from the first movie. But to. To mirror what he said, I think they just kind of failed at a lot of them. So overall enjoyment wasn't super high for me. [00:53:18] Speaker B: I still had a lot of fun with the film, but, yeah, it's just like Will says, they. They tried a lot of stuff. They tried to pull from the best of the source material, but they. They definitely bit off way more than they could chew. And ultimately I ended up being very frustrated by the end of the film because the people I wanted to see do things didn't do them. And the people who I didn't care about did all the things that I wanted to see happen. You know, the. The fight with Adrien Brody and the. And the alpha predator at the end was an exciting fight. But I kept thinking this Predator's bigger and tougher by far, and Adrien Brody just doesn't do it for me. And he's trying to use his physique, which is less than previous leads, and it just. It didn't work for me. The Yakuza fight was probably the pinnacle of the movie. There are some ups and downs in the movie. There are some good lines. There are some good scenes. But when you put it all together, this movie left me a little bit frustrated by what could have been and what they end, what they tried to do and failed at, or what it could have been, but they didn't do it the right direction. They. They should have kept it a little bit more simple. They put too much into it. [00:54:36] Speaker A: Fair enough. I think for me, this one was kind of the opposite of Predator 2. Where I'd seen Predator 2 before, and I remembered really enjoying it. So I went into it with high hopes, and it didn't quite live up to it. I'd never seen this one before. I heard it was horrendous. So I went into this with no expectations whatsoever. And while there are definitely some weaker parts of the movie, weaker acting, weaker plot points, stuff like that, overall, I had a much better time with this than I was into anticipating having. There was a lot more surprising casting, I guess, more so than characters specifically, where I was just like, oh, this guy's in this. Oh, this guy's in this. I had no idea. So I did end up having fun with this movie. There's a couple of scenes I really did enjoy, a couple characters I did like lots of things I didn't. But overall, I. I found myself having much more. Much more fun with this movie than I thought I was going to. The one thing that I'm realizing sort of as we're talking about this, the more they leaned into the alien aspects of this movie, the more fun I was having with it. Like, a good chunk of this movie takes place in what just looks like a regular jungle. And you're kind of like, all right. But then you see, like, the crates everywhere, the alien life, the. Even the. The bonfire area. They had the drill. They had the skyline. You're just, like, reminded, oh, no, we're in a totally different setting. We're in a totally unique environment. That was really cool to me. And I wish they played into that a little bit more than they actually did. They kind of kept it. Most of the scenes, probably for budgetary reasons, was just regular jungle. But overall, at the end of the day, I. I enjoyed this more than I thought I was going to, and I'm kind of excited to watch the next one. I'm not assuming it's going to be as good as this, but just watching a movie I've never seen before, going into it with no expectations, really, maybe I'll walk away with it having more fun than I thought I was going to. [00:56:16] Speaker C: I hope you do, because it's, it's probably rough. Like, I don't know, maybe people like bitching constantly. How about reaming out films? But it's probably nice to hear some good things about some of these films too. [00:56:31] Speaker A: Well, it's just it, there's going to be people who enjoy them and why not? So. [00:56:34] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. [00:56:35] Speaker A: We'll see. I mean, this movie made money. Like, not like billions or anything like that, but for the budget it had. It like tripled it, which is pretty decent. I mean, way better than the second one did, unfortunately. So I don't know enough. They kept the franchise alive after it had been dead for what, 20 years up until this point. [00:56:55] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it proved that the success of Predator and the nostalgia for it, or maybe just the concept of Predator is a great concept and people are willing to buy the ticket. Yeah, that might wane as the movies go on. [00:57:13] Speaker B: And let's not forget, up until this point, I, I don't, I haven't heard you guys complain about the look of the Predators. In fact, previously movies, we said they all looked amazing. The practical look of the Predator costume, even these newer predators, to me, they looked fantastic. I would have been fine with them just being the Predator, you know, not a bigger and smaller one. In fact, the, the classic Predator looked smaller than before. If anything, like, he, he's, he only stood a few inches taller than Adrian. [00:57:51] Speaker C: Broder, whereas that's because they all were smaller, because there's no 7 foot 2 dude in the suits anymore. [00:57:57] Speaker B: That's true. That's, that's true. So. But they looked great. The Predator as a, as a thing is amazing and fun to watch. I enjoy the sequences where I saw the predators fighting and shooting and doing things. I, I, There were a lot of good points in this movie that were fun for me. It was just. There was so many things that just didn't go the way I wanted it to or were unnecessary or overly elaborate or undercooked. And so for me, I ended up really kind of just frustrated on what could have been with this because they, they took a good stab at things and just failed. [00:58:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:38] Speaker C: Well, expanding on that, Brian, should we get to your score then? [00:58:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So, Dan, what was my previous two scores for the total of. Of Predator 1 and Predator 2? [00:58:51] Speaker A: Oh, I see. You wanna. You wanna know what you're getting yourself. [00:58:53] Speaker B: I want to make sure. Because I've done this. Like, I haven't. Maybe I should maybe just do the math on my seven things here and average it out. [00:59:00] Speaker A: So Predator 1 or printer 1987. You gave 87 points. Okay. Predator 2, 79 points. And then Predators, you gave. [00:59:12] Speaker B: Yeah, that. That comes out to a 68 for me. 68, which I'm all over the board on this one. But ultimately, just the pure frustration, the fun score at the end really kind of brought this down because I was frustrated ending the film. [00:59:28] Speaker A: Yeah. So for me, just going really quickly, there's some. Visually, this movie looks really good. It's, what, 14 years old at this point? It looks significantly better, obviously, than the two that came before it. I don't know what it looks like compared to what's coming next, but, like, this, there's no real points, except for maybe the skyline, which I'm gonna give props to anyways just because I thought it looked cool, despite the fact it didn't necessarily look good or make sense. But everything else seems to be the practical effects. The visuals, the. The mining operation, the forest. Not the forest. The. The bonfire pit where they were all living, the aliens themselves, everything looked really good in this movie. And that helps draw me into the thing, which is really nice. The characters, some of them could have been fleshed out, Some of them could have been a little bit different, but a lot of them, even if they weren't my favorite tropes, got a good scene or something really cool to happen to them. Like Walton Goggins, really creepy little dude. But, like, when he jumps on the Predator and just starts stabbing him, like, just shanking him, like he's in prison. All of a sudden you're like, oh, that's why you're here. Fear. [01:00:31] Speaker B: I get it. [01:00:32] Speaker A: Because the entire time, like, he's not quite Topher Grace levels of, like, wimpy, but you don't really get the pressure that he's like a big, heavy dude, but you see him just start going to town on that guy. It's like, oh, this guy jumps people in present all the time. [01:00:45] Speaker B: Like, Andy stole the body armor which kept him alive. He's crafty. [01:00:48] Speaker A: True. This is more important for the aliens, but, like, the. I think it was Danny Trejo, where they had him in the trap and they, like, no, we just have to take him out because he's just gonna, like, lure them here. They shoot him, and then, like, the aliens are controlling his voice, and they still have him, like, help me. After he died, I don't know. It was a tiny little thing. Was like, that's cool. I like it. I, like, they're still just like, no, no. Come help your friends. He's. He's not dead yet. You can get him. The fight scene with Hanzo was, like, next level. Like, that didn't even belong in this movie. It was so much better than everything else we saw. But it did elevate this movie. I just. I. Is it perfect? No, not even close. But I had a lot of fun with this one. I'm gonna give it a 72, which is kind of in between Predator and Predator 2. Kind of nicely in the middle. I wouldn't be sad about watching this one again. It's not something I'm gonna put on often, but if I watch this again in, like, a year or two, I'm probably gonna have a good time. What about you? [01:01:39] Speaker C: That's great. I feel I parallel Brian a lot on this movie. I just feel like they're tried so many things that didn't really follow through with Save the Amazing Samurai Battle, which was glorious. Overall, I actually rated this slightly higher than the second Predator just because I felt the second Predator. I. I feel like the acting was just better in this one slightly. Even though Adrien Brody was the wrong actor for the job, the rest of the ensemble at least held this film up for me compared to Predator 2, where I feel like the ensemble that was there didn't really bring much to the table. So out of 100 points, this one got a 57, which is literally one point higher than I gave Predator 2. [01:02:35] Speaker B: All right. It's not. [01:02:35] Speaker C: It's not a great movie for me. [01:02:37] Speaker A: That's fair. Totally fair. Sorry, I was typing them into the spreadsheet. Let me just add these up. [01:02:44] Speaker B: It's amazing how much the Predator itself carries these films. The Predator itself, The idea, the look of it is just so damn cool that this movie ends up. It's like, it doesn't matter. Like, if they make another Predator movie tomorrow and the trailer looks like crap, I'm still gonna go see it. Like, I just. Eventually they'll get it right, and they have. And. And, you know, to. To kind of give a spoiler. I think the first and last are some of. Some of the most interesting to talk about, and we'll get there. [01:03:21] Speaker C: But I also feel like this franchise feels similar to me to Highlander. Believe it or not, where the concept of the Highlander, this immortal race. [01:03:32] Speaker B: Right. [01:03:33] Speaker C: You know, and they're battling throughout time until there can be only one, is a very cool concept that you can easily attach yourself to and is very interesting and intriguing, I feel. Predator dropping in randomly to find the best trophy it can find from the greatest fighter is also just a very cool concept. So, like, conceptually, I feel like they're in the same vein, and that's why these franchises kind of live on or stand the test of time. Not that they should be compared anywhere any other way, but I think the. [01:04:13] Speaker B: Concept of Highlander was amazing, and there wasn't much else in it for me. There's a few more things I can enjoy with Predator, but you're right, this concept is fantastic. And the execution of the look of the Predator was amazing. [01:04:28] Speaker C: They nailed it. [01:04:29] Speaker A: Yeah. All right. And with that, we have an average score of 66 for Predators, which brings it in one point less than Predator 2, which actually does kind of surprise me. What do you guys think? Does this make sense to you? Are you, like, both? I think Brian is the only one that scored this lower, but you must have scored it so much lower than Attack. The overall score. [01:04:52] Speaker B: Did I really score it that much lower than Predator 2? [01:04:55] Speaker A: 11 points. [01:04:57] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:04:57] Speaker B: That doesn't sound right. [01:04:58] Speaker A: Whereas Brian went up or, Sorry, Will went up one point, and I went up seven points. [01:05:02] Speaker C: But overall, to be fair, minus very low score. Still, though, like, I'm tanking these scores. [01:05:07] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. [01:05:08] Speaker A: You. You are the me of the Mad Max franchise. There's. However you want to word that. And the thing is, sometimes what I did to Mad Max, let's put it. [01:05:16] Speaker C: That way, I feel. I feel people. I feel like that's okay. Like, that these two movies are very close. Like, I rated them one point difference. [01:05:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:05:25] Speaker C: I feel like the second one was such a disappointment coming off the back of the first movie that it got a lot more heat than maybe it deserved. But this one was, like, 10 years later. They had so much time to get it right, but they just fumbled the ball so much that it just really doesn't hold up to the first one either. And so I feel like you can hate or love them, you know, in a similar vein for. For different. [01:05:51] Speaker B: I think they failed in different ways. Right. But ultimately they failed, unfortunately. [01:05:56] Speaker A: All right, and that has been our rating of Predators. What'd you guys think? Was the score way too high, way too load? We get it just about right. Something we missed. Let us know down in the comments below. It really does help out quite a bit. And speaking of, if you made it this far in the video, consider hitting that like button. You probably enjoyed it if you made it this far in. And if you want to, hit the subscribe button so you see more great content like this going forward. If you want to watch these live, we record these every Thursday night, 9pm Eastern Standard Time over on Twitch at Twitch TV. Themon Ghoulie show head over there, hit that follow button. You'll see when we go live, you can be part of the conversation. You can interact with us in real time as we're recording these. Until then, I hope you're safe, I hope you're well, and good night. [01:06:41] Speaker B: Sa.