Predators

Skinny, wimpy Adrien Brody is the highly unlikely choice to bulk up, pull on the bullet belt and rasp out military-style commands in this reboot/remake of the fondly remembered invisible-alien jungle-hunt masterminded by Robert Rodriguez. Unlike Jake Gyllenhaal or Robert Downey Jr, two other recent transplants from the edgy-indie camp into the action-blockbuster firmament, Brody can't really hack it, his nostril-flaring sensitivity always undermining the machismo. Otherwise this is a stolid, uninspired imitation of the original, garlanded with a faintly annoying opening when an assorted group of international killers, soldiers and hitmen fall out of the sky on to an alien planet, seemingly plucked at random from their earthbound lives. That set-up out the way, it's business as usual, with Rodriguez's innovations largely confined to inconsequential details of who's hunting whom. It doesn't get anywhere near the snap of the original, even though Arnold Schwarzenegger is thankfully nowhere to be seen. This is Hungarian director Nimród Antal's third Hollywood project, and he still hasn't bettered his stylish, creepy debut, Kontroll, filmed on Budapest's tube network.