Predator: Dark Ages (2015)

An Exercise In Nonsense

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This 27 minutes independent fan film stands shoulder to shoulder with original franchise and it is totally unbelievable what they did without support of high budget studios. Smart choice of epoch made it possible to have very convincing scenery and costumes with minimal expenses. Movie is short, fast, and without any introduction or background story it puts as straight to action, and still succeeds to show pretty strong characterization. Without any doubt the best fan film I have ever seen.8/10

I had my doubts at first, but got into it really fast.Very good casting, production value, environments, mood, music, props, etc ... I quickly forgot I was looking at a rather low budget movie. In fact, I've seen plenty of movies with far bigger budgets that were just awful and didn't feel anywhere near as good as this short one.Just imagine what these guys could do with a bigger budget.Make it happen!I just wish I had come across it during the crowdfunding phase. As a huge predator fan, I would have loved to back it. And I'm sure there are many other fans like me who feel the same.

As if crusades, plagues, famine and mud weren't enough, the poor people of medieval Europe now have to deal with one of sci-fi's most chillingly endearing creations: a near-invisible Rastafarian alien warrior who hunts worthy prey for sport. A posse of knights and warriors is hastily assembled to deal with this menace, but they are going to have to learn to trust each other first. This 30 minute Kickstarter-funded fan film drew me in with its technical excellence, surprised me by packing a sincere and coherent emotional punch, and left me eager to see the movie expanded onto the big screen.I should probably disclose that I am a huge fan of the first Predator (1987) which I think is one of the best films ever made in terms of its ability to transition seamlessly between genres and take the best parts from each one. It started as a gung-ho action flick, turned unexpectedly into a paranoid, nerve-shredding Vietnam war movie, and ended up as a highly effective sci-fi horror film. Predator 2 (1990) was a worthy addition to the series, although it was noticeably lighter in tone than the first film, and towards the end I felt that it was almost being played for laughs. Alien vs Predator is not worth mentioning. Predators (2010) was better than I had expected, but perhaps suffered from too many new ideas, like having multiple Predator races. From the first minute through to the last, Dark Ages felt professional through and through. The medieval setting was a good move, and worked well with the limited budget (can you imagine trying to create a futuristic setting with the same money?) It also surprised me by consistently hitting the same emotional notes that the first Predator managed to hit. Camaraderie, brotherhood, fear, horror, and facing one's death with honour. Using Alan Silvestri's original soundtrack - one of the best and most original scores ever made - as a basis to start composing the music was a very good decision, and helped establish a similar feel to the first Predator.The movie continues playing to the strengths of the first Predator by creating approximate equivalents to its most memorable characters. Obviously, the main knight, Thomas (Adrian Bouchet) is the Arnie stand-in. More interesting is the Moorish sidekick Sied (Amed Hashimi) who has a difficult job to do as nobody trusts him, but he has vital information about the beast that they are hunting. In this sense, he has to do the jobs of both the characters of Dillon and Anna in the original. Not only that, but as the "new guy" to the team, combined with his diminutive stature and inexperience in combat, he becomes the audience surrogate as well. By the film's conclusion, he's become the unlikely hero. As an actor, Hashimi had a lot to pull off here, and I look forward to seeing him in action again.Also notable is the elf-like archer Freya (Sabine Crossen) who is a great screen presence with her cold, steely, detached demeanour and a refreshing lack of dependence on male characters to let her kick ass in her own style. Dark Ages wisely follows the format established by guy-friendly films such as the original Predator and 300 by not wasting time setting up characters with long, complex backstories. Strong, simple characterisations are used, and we can tell a surprising amount about each player by simple things like how they stand, walk and speak. The quality of the film's storyboarding, framing and editing really shines here.Moving the action to medieval Europe made a surprising amount of sense in the context of a Predator movie. They hunt for sport, after all, they enjoy putting themselves on an equal footing to their quarry to make it a challenge, and it follows that battling foes armed with swords, shields and some rudimentary bows and arrows makes for an entertainingly balanced brawl. The referencing of the various real wars and factions of the medieval era helped to establish the world, and make the characters and their motivations much more realistic.The action was very well done too. The director and fight choreographers show skill way above what we would expect in terms of helping the audience see who is swinging what at who. And yet it never feels too overly-balletic either, a trap that the later Star Wars and Matrix films fell into.In conclusion, this was a very entertaining movie in of itself, and also made a coherent and self-evident case that this could easily be developed into a full Hollywood movie. In today's heavily franchise- based world, execs must surely be looking for a way to update the Predator universe, and this could be the best way to do it.

First off, I had nothing to do with the making of this flick. I DO NOT write reviews and but had to create a profile just to write this one. I like the idea of fan films but they usually suck. It's not Lucasfilms or anything, but I was shocked at the quality. Great cinematography, directing and (most surprisingly) decent acting. Idk if these guys got paid or not, but the actors were good enough to drive the plot and cover up the budget restrictions without looking as if they were doing so. The costumes were believable and director had the common sense to keep it simple. And it worked. Alotta fan films could really take a Que from this one as it does nothing that isn't within reach of ANY fan film IF they pay attention to detail AND don't try to do too much. MAYBE SPOILER ALERT?This flick is basically a shot by shot re-take of the original "Predator", but that's brilliant as this story can be redone as many times as can be written and directed competently. This writer was careful NOT to overreach the budget and the director OBVIOUSLY knows what he's doing. I was expecting overacting or maybe the infamous "huuuh?" look that most cheap flick actors have, but none of that here. They don't try to explain too much, don't try to dazzle you, just delivers what you came to see.Worth the time. It's refreshing to see something "this" good NOT Hollywood.