.: Roberts' Reviews - Movie Reviews :.

There are Star Wars fans and there are Star Trek fans. There are Sean Connery supporters and Roger Moore backers. But when it comes to our favorite space monsters, the Alien and Predator camps are pretty much equal in their appreciation for the other supporters.

It's been 20 years since the Predator had a movie to himself. Two decades since Danny Glover and Gary Busey almost destroyed a franchise before it ever hit its stride.

Executive producer Robert Rodriguez is trying to breathe new life into the franchise with Predators which is largely a sequel to the two Predator films and ignoring that the Alien Vs. Predator twin set of films ever happened.

In this stylish and action packed summer blockbuster, we are introduced to eight humans who are fall from the sky on an alien planet. They are equipped with a parachute, but do not yet know each other or of their purpose in the hostile environment they are now surrounded.

The eight are an assortment of assassins and soldiers with Academy Award winner Adrien Brody leading the pack as Royce and Alice Braga channeling her inner kick-ass as Isabelle. They are accompanied by a diverse group which includes the always entertaining Danny Trejo and 70's Show Topher Grace who adds some light humor to the dark and dire circumstances they all find themselves.

But it's Lawrence Fishburne that really shines in Predators. His role as veteran Noland is being referenced to Marlon Brando's role in Apocalypse Now and it is easy to see why. Fishburne steals just about every scene he is in and is definitely a highlight in a film that has many individual moments.

As the group assembles themselves and they slowly uncover their purpose, "This planet is a game reserve. And we're the game.", we get to see our Predators for the first time without them sharing film cells with other more famous outer space species. Here, the film does not disappoint. The creatures are back and look as ugly and menacing as they did back in 1987. They ability to become invisible and their various weaponry all come into the hunt as the humans get plucked off one-by-one in standard Sci-fi fashion.

Director Nimrod Antal does a comparable job of keeping things moving and the action sequences coming. There is nothing special about his directing, but we have seen how franchises can be sabotaged by weak visions or inferior action directing skills and Antal receives a passing grade for not fucking this up. Antal gives each human character a moment while orchestrating some violent kills that had our audience cheering out loud at the screen as heads, spines and blood filled the canvas.

Although the action sequences are cleverly crafted, the Predators franchise was never about the action or about the creature itself. The films try to focus on the human element - those individuals that are struggling to fight a superior by out smarting their opponent - and Predators stays the course and lets the characters keep the film afloat with razor sharp dialogue and believable interactions with each other.

Credit should be given to Rodriguez and writers Michael Finch and Alex Litvak for taking the fight to a distant planet. Comparisons to the original can be distanced and the possibilities on how the franchise can continue and flourish in an undiscovered environment are endless.

Predators wasn't the fantastic film that I wanted it to be - but how could it have been? Like heroin addicts, we continue to reboot and reimagine older franchises in hopes of eliciting the same feelings or rushes that we experienced decades ago. Predators fails to overtake the first film as the favorite in the franchise, but it is definitely a better than average companion piece and is exactly what you would want and expect from a summer release.