"Watchers III" is a pure "Predator" rip-off.
**SPOILERS**
Major Ferguson, (Wings Hauser) an ex-special forces agent in jail, is asked to go into the jungle to recover important information regarding a crash of one of their cargo planes. With his team in place, Benetti, (Gregory Scott Cummins) Nat, (Daryl Keith Roach) Gomez, (Lolita Ronalds) and MacCready, (John Linton) head into the jungle and stumble upon a local boy (Ider Cifuentes Martin) and his pet, a Golden Labrador Retriever. When the team starts to get picked off by a strange creature, they have to mix their training and the dog's intelligence to get out alive together.
The Good News: Well, the film does get off to a great start here, with a pretty bloody attack less than five minutes in. It's the perfect way to open a film, as it gets the viewer into the film as early as possible. As opposed to the second one, the enemy creature has changed it's appearance all over, and this time has become a far more menacing threat. The minor design changes take it away somewhat from the Gillman previously seen and it now becomes a scarier creature. Still cheesy looking, but an improvement. We also get a large amount of gore in here. There is some amount of body dismemberment, one person has a chunk of their chest ripped off, exposing the bone plates underneath, and others are decapitated. The ways that they happened, though, is what's great about the kill. The head is closer to being ripped off more than anything, resulting in big bloody messes that look great. The impact of the story, which I'll explain later, is perfect for creating large scale action scenes, and this one has some good ones. The first forest trap is a good example, as well as the opening sequence.
The Bad News: It takes an extremely gullible person to not see the similarities between this one and "Predator." The jungle setting, the scared native pick-up, the events that lead the team members to get picked off, the rebel camp find, it all screams from having been lifted from it. This isn't all of the similarities, but it's just here to hive an example of what is in store. Add in a plot about an intelligent dog and switch the Predator for the creature in here and it would be pretty hard to tell these two movies apart. It's pretty obvious to see the resemblance between them. The gore effects were also pretty cheaply done at times, and while gory, hardly looked anything realistic.
The Final Verdict: If a movie's major crime is to be a cheap-o knock-off of another movie, then it's probably not that bad to begin with. It should be at least given a look see for fans of the series, but those that like a little more originality and creativity well definitely want to look elsewhere.
Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and scenes with animals in danger
**SPOILERS**
Major Ferguson, (Wings Hauser) an ex-special forces agent in jail, is asked to go into the jungle to recover important information regarding a crash of one of their cargo planes. With his team in place, Benetti, (Gregory Scott Cummins) Nat, (Daryl Keith Roach) Gomez, (Lolita Ronalds) and MacCready, (John Linton) head into the jungle and stumble upon a local boy (Ider Cifuentes Martin) and his pet, a Golden Labrador Retriever. When the team starts to get picked off by a strange creature, they have to mix their training and the dog's intelligence to get out alive together.
The Good News: Well, the film does get off to a great start here, with a pretty bloody attack less than five minutes in. It's the perfect way to open a film, as it gets the viewer into the film as early as possible. As opposed to the second one, the enemy creature has changed it's appearance all over, and this time has become a far more menacing threat. The minor design changes take it away somewhat from the Gillman previously seen and it now becomes a scarier creature. Still cheesy looking, but an improvement. We also get a large amount of gore in here. There is some amount of body dismemberment, one person has a chunk of their chest ripped off, exposing the bone plates underneath, and others are decapitated. The ways that they happened, though, is what's great about the kill. The head is closer to being ripped off more than anything, resulting in big bloody messes that look great. The impact of the story, which I'll explain later, is perfect for creating large scale action scenes, and this one has some good ones. The first forest trap is a good example, as well as the opening sequence.
The Bad News: It takes an extremely gullible person to not see the similarities between this one and "Predator." The jungle setting, the scared native pick-up, the events that lead the team members to get picked off, the rebel camp find, it all screams from having been lifted from it. This isn't all of the similarities, but it's just here to hive an example of what is in store. Add in a plot about an intelligent dog and switch the Predator for the creature in here and it would be pretty hard to tell these two movies apart. It's pretty obvious to see the resemblance between them. The gore effects were also pretty cheaply done at times, and while gory, hardly looked anything realistic.
The Final Verdict: If a movie's major crime is to be a cheap-o knock-off of another movie, then it's probably not that bad to begin with. It should be at least given a look see for fans of the series, but those that like a little more originality and creativity well definitely want to look elsewhere.
Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and scenes with animals in danger