Predators lacks originality

Predators is perfectly serviceable, but not engaging enough to prevent the mind from wandering away from the plot and onto a moviegoer’s ongoing, large and vexing questions like, “Is originality now just a matter of making old properties fresh and feeling like new?” The director of this picture, Nimrod Antal, has a keen eye (a moonlit sword-fight with a predator is exquisite) and feel for action, but is a reliable filmmaker, not memorable one. Where has that excited anticipation for big movies gone? If 2008’s Iron Man was the beginning of a summer of love for blockbuster aficionados then perhaps last month’s The Last Airbender was Altamont. What chance does a serviceable action-picture like Predators have when you almost resent being in the theatre in the first place?