Rodriguez Pimps PREDATORS

Director Robert Rodriguez finds himself in a curious place this morning after releasing a sneak preview of his upcoming Predators film. Geek site owners like Alex Billington over at FirstShowing are shitting Skittles over this glimpse at the film, but could we ever expect anything else from Alex? He's the Ben Lyons of movie bloggers. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Wells has yet again gone on the attack, calling Rodriguez a "bottom feeder" in an article this morning. I must admit that this glimpse at the film, opening this summer, gives me a bit of relief. Rodriguez, the epitome of the indie spirit, has been wallowing in kid movie Hell for the last decade. The movies he's made during that period are loud, painfully silly, and chintzy-looking. They're the film versions of those primary-colored plastic trucks in the markdown bins at WalMart. Yet I cannot fault Rodriguez like Wells has on several occasions. Rodriguez has built his own studio on his own land. He owns it all. He does everything on his films, making him the only true auteur out there. His films, good or bad, are handcrafted in a way that even directors outside the studio system cannot replicate. Rodriguez is living the dream of pure and complete creative independence. He's basically a Mexican-American version of George Lucas with more creativity and less jowl. While I'm glad that Rodriguez is giving his garish kiddie films a momentary rest, I'm not sure I really like him moving to do Predators. In this preview/infomercial for the project, Rodriguez attempts to sell this film as something radically different from the original series or the films that followed. I don't buy it. Rather than being truly different, Predators simply looks like MORE. More explosions, more stars, more running. Hell, more Predator aliens. Rodriguez seems to think that adding an "s" to the first film's title makes a massive and bold creative statement. It doesn't. But the film teased here looks like it'll be fun in the same vein as the first film, and I have no doubt that Fox is throwing gobs of money at it so that the whole thing will explode well. Perhaps, like Lucas, Rodriguez has simply lost the edge he showed in his earliest works, and a film like Predators is the result. I don't know. I just wish Rodriguez would use his remarkable independence and directorial skill and make something with a bit more creative merit. Here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqJnYvqFvLk