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I did get to see Predators and had a nice chat with the guy cleaning the theater after as he wanted to know what we thought and I actual gave a coherent answer, which elicited more questions. Something I found distracting was the racial subtext. Oh look! The white straight American is taking charge of all the POCS and foreigners! Look! Everyone speaks English! Look! Inscrutable Japanese person stereotype and not one, but two magic Negroes! Look! Brown people dieing first! Look! POCs dieing heroically for white characters! I loved the set up idea, I did, but I wanted something fresher, instead of the same old cliches. I think I wanted an ensemble approach, and instead it was Hero and Heroine with everyone else in the background.

It also bummed me right out that I spotted the plot twists so far in advance. I spent the whole movie waiting for the serial killer to betray the Russian and go after the woman. I figured out what the Fishborne character the moment he invited them home and I confirmed it by carefully studying the contents of his hidey hole.

Sorry, I couldn't list the things that got on my nerves without going into specifics. Here are some less specific things that are likely safe to read if you've seen some of the other films.I do think they figured out why the first two movies worked and the last one didn't. They have real actors actually acting. They have some interesting personalities, though I'd have rather had more of certain individuals and less of others. They are actually trying to reassert Predator culture stuff. This is not entirely successful, but I have to give them points for tying to make the Aliens vs. Predator movies actually make sense beside the predator culture as shown in the first two movies. again, I'd rather the AvPs had been written with an understanding of how Predators work and the retrofit was a bit sloppy, but it's easier to live with than the bad taste AvP left in my mouth. They do give us some new interesting Predator insight stuff, and the last scene was absolutely beautiful and perfect. This balances on one side of the scale with the racefail and telegraphing of key plot twists on the other.
With my long, long list of caveat, I still think it balances out to good and watchable, but I'd rather watch Danny Glover kick Predator a** still. (I'm the rare fan who thinks Predator II is better than Predator I). I think this could have been as good as the first two if they'd been braver, but they weren't that brave and some of this stuff is the sort of stuff I pick at and pick at (particularly the racefail. I mean I'm still bothered by the lack of POc in Despicable Me days later. Why couldn't one or all of the girls have been POC for example?). The performances were really, really good and I feel that a better script could have made even better use of that ridiculous amount of talent. Some of the cinematography and set design was so good I felt shivers. Gah! It's the near misses drive me crazy, but I'm glad I saw it on the big screen where set detail and performance detail was easiest to see.