Future Film Of The Year?

Prometheus is looking like a strong contender for "Film Of The Year" already.

Predators (2010)

The biggest surprise in the latest addition to the Predator franchise is how well Adrian Brody can pull off the 'hard man' act. Beyond that, no matter how exciting the film is, and it is, we've seen it all before.

Brody is Royce, a tough mercenary, who awakes in freefall over - what he soon discovers is - an alien jungle. He's been dropped in among a group of similarly bewildered and confused strangers, who all turn out to be soldiers, psychos, gangsters or criminals.

They have been snatched from Earth to be hunted by the Predator aliens on a planet-wide 'game reserve'... and that's about it as far as plot goes.

There's running, there's fighting, dodging traps, tangling with Predator-hounds and Predators, references to the original Predator movie, more running about, more fighting, a surprising cameo, some more running and finally some more fighting.

Of course, there's also a bit of crafty trickery along the way, but from the opening scenes it's pretty easy to single out which of the gang of hard nuts will survive until the final conflict and which will be fodder for the planet's killing machines.

Never dull, Predators is competently directed by Nimrod Antal, and the script by Alex Litvak and Michael Finch takes a stab at expanding the culture of the Predator aliens, while using them as dark mirrors for the 'predatory' nature of the humans, but it's simply not meaty enough to generate more than a shrug of passing interest.

Disappointingly forgettable, with no memorable set pieces, Predators - pedestrian as it may be - is perfect beer and pizza fodder for an undemanding audience who just want to wallow in some mindless, and ultimately pointless, sci-fi violence.

Pandorum (2009)

A welcome addition to the "spaceship as haunted house" sub-genre of horror sci-fi (which also includes Alien and Event Horizon), Pandorum sees flight crew member Bower (Ben Foster) awaken from suspended animation on a massive starship heading to the planet Tanis - which is supposedly future-mankind's last hope for survival after Earth's resources have been sucked dry.

The suspended animation has left Bower with temporary amnesia, but he quickly discovers things aren't right on the ship and he is not the only person awake.

There's very little originality in Pandorum (and it's great for a 'spot the homage' drinking game), with the majority of the important plot twists being very predictable, but the film is well made and well acted, with some great scenery, interesting ghoulish monsters and nicely-paced excitement and thrills throughout.

It was a movie I'd wanted to see since it came out and I wasn't disappointed.