Predators

This is the sequel that John McTiernan and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1987 original deserved, as director Nimrod Antal delivers enough hard core sci-fi, explosive action and monster mayhem to justify its  belated arrival. Forget the official sequel and the lame ‘Alien vs Predator’ spin-offs, this ‘Predator’ sequel deserves one of its own. Armed to the teeth but unknown to one another, a multiracial group of military/criminal killers (plus Topher Grace’s anomalous wimpy doctor) find themselves on a Predator hunting planet where they are the game. Faced with an evolved  generation of super-Predators, Adrien Brody’s Hemingway-quoting, self-appointed leader (“There is no hunting like the hunting of men . . . “) insists that their survival depends upon pooling their own killer instincts. Alice Braga’s svelte sniper is a tough yet tender foil for the buff, brainy Brody; with one notable exception, the remaining ‘dirty half-dozen’ are merely disposable. Channelling Brando’s unhinged Colonel Kurtz, a well-padded Laurence Fishburne pops up halfway through as a surprise sole survivor, a striking cameo that nods to his youthful debut in ‘Apocalypse Now’.