I'll go ahead and be indelicate. I just saw a Predator get raped. No strike that. I just saw a dead Predator get raped-repeatedly. Now let me clarify. If Predator (1987) is a perfect B Movie with some not misplaced notions of grandeur, and Predator II is a likable but cheesy sequel and the AVP movies are disastrously passable for their mildly interesting monster moments, then Predators is near the perfect storm of everything that was ever wrong with all of them and then some. It is derivative in the extreme when it should pay simple homage, is woefully miscast, badly written. and most objectionable- it is boring emerging in the end as a bland rehash of the first film with all the testosterone and personality removed.  

A group of skilled warriors from all over the globe awaken to find themselves in a hostile jungle. As they discover each other one by one they realize they must band together to discover why they are there if they are to survive. Slowly they come to realize they are on another planet, one that is a game preserve, for a group of hunter aliens. 

This could have been a top notch return to form for a franchise that has lost its way but then again Fox has never been in the business of managing franchises well. The cast here alone is so interesting I could even forgive the miscasting if it came to anything interesting. I don't like the idea of Adrian Brody as the tough guy lead in this movie but at least he never winks and does seem fully present even though he's not given much to do except talk way too much (as does the rest of the cast) about how humans are basically predators, that they have to get off the planet etc. etc. If Predator was a masterpiece of exploiting the obviousness of its theme by showing Predators is masterpiece of doing less with more by telling. 

Danny Trejo has a too small role as one of the warriors, Topher Grace makes the most of badly written character as a doc whose presence on the planet is a mystery for most of the film and Alice Braga is curiously wasted in a role that demands her to be more or less the token female whose smarts and strength of character help teach the tough guy to be human. And to be clear the problem with Predators is not that its characters are simple or conform to genre expectations but that ultimately the film fails to establish meaningful relationships between them or deconstruct them or their identities or exploit the situation they are in for anything other than the smallest degree of payoff. 

Another big problem here is that director Nimrod Antal (Armored [2009]), Vacancy [2007]) and Kontroll [2003]), barely seems to know what to do with the preds themselves. We get none of the sense of majesty of these creatures, little sense of their culture and plenty of posturing but, like the humans, the creatures seem there only to fulfill the basest of sci-fi action thriller conventions in the blandest ways. The action sequences are, except for one or two, flat and murky, and the atmosphere, what litle of it there is, is on loan from the original film. Whenever Predators branches away visually it over relies on CGI such as when a group of Predator styled dogs attacks. Wasn't there a way to integrate this more fully with the look and feel of the practical effects that keep the preds themselves in the frame? 

The Predator franchise started with a simple idea offered up with high energy and some genuine gravitas and an understanding of why it was a little goofy anyway. "You are one ugly !@#$%&" That seminal line, from the original film, is befitting this re-envisioning of modern cinematic sci-fi iconography except that Predators is ugly in all the wrong ways.