Probably the biggest revelation is that there are two kinds of Predators, the normal ones and the "bigger" ones (though the size difference isn't that big), and both hate each other. The bigger Preds are the ones doing the hunting in the film, and the only noticeable difference is that their faces are uglier, slightly elongated with larger face-tentacles. They hunt the humans using UAVs and 'hunting dogs' and have all the classic Pred gear, shoulder cannons, wrist blades, spears. The only 'normal' Predator who appears is found tied up and left to rot, but towards the end Brody chops him down and convinces him to help them escape on the other Preds' ships.
A few things of note
- Unlike what's shown in the trailer, Brody doesn't survive a freefall on his own, his parachute just opens late (for one of the others, it doesn't open at all)
- Also unlike the trailer, the scene where he's covered in laser pointers is bullshit; there's only one Predator aiming at his head during that scene in the movie
- Lawrence Fishburne is Noland, an Air Cavalry soldier who's survived "ten hunting seasons" and become quite crazy. However, he was able to kill "two, maybe three" and get his hands on a Pred helmet, wrist computer and oversized handgun, and figured out how to get the cloaking device to work for him
- The shoulder-mounted plasma guns display blatant "variable yields" - in one instance, a single shot from one turned a guy into fist-sized bloody chunks, while in another, it badly burned a person's back and knocked them flying forwards, but only temporarily stunned them.
- There were at least one other alien species being hunted besides the humans, roughly humanoid but larger with grey skin
- Predator Movie Reference: the IDF chick (Alice Braga) knew about the Preds beforehand, having read a debriefing given by the sole survivor of a spec ops team that was hunted by one in the jungles of South America in '87
- Brody tries the same "cover in mud to hide from IR vision" trick, but it only starts working when he sets massive fires to hide his body heat, and the Pred is still able to locate him by the sound of his heartbeat
- A Predator rips a man's spine out, head still attached, with his bare hands
- The only really bullshit scene is when the Yakuza assassin, having found an old Katana lying around in Noland's collection of stuff, gets into a swordfight with one of the Predators. More katana wank as the sword somehow withstands blows from another blade of supposedly superior material being wielded by a stronger opponent. The Predator sorta toys with him throughout the fight until the end, when they end up killing each other.
I LOVED that there was a combination of different styles of action, all of it over-the-top in its own unique way.
