Predators/Characters

The cast of Predators, in order of appearance:

Royce

Played By: Adrien Brody "There is no hunting like the hunting of man. And those who have hunted armed men long enough, and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter."

A mercenary dropped in the game preserve. Cold and ruthless, he slowly and relunctantly emerges as the leader of the group.

• Anti-Hero: Type V.
• Awesome By Analysis: He makes judicious use of the Sherlock Scan and Batman Gambit.
• Badass
• Blood Knight: He loves to kill and has no moral qualms about it.
• Changed My Mind, Kid: After apparently turning his back on the other survivors to get to an alien ship, he comes back and saves Isabelle's life.
• Combat Pragmatist
• Cultured Badass: With the Hemingway quotes to prove it.
• Dangerously Genre Savvy
• Dyeing for Your Art: Brody packed on quite a bit of muscle to play Royce.
• Lightning Bruiser: A heavily muscled guy with a big gun, (although definitely not a BFG) he is still impressively quick, as he showcases when one of his teammates tries to backstab him.
• Made of Iron
• Noble Demon
• Pet the Dog: Goes all out to save Isabelle from a pit trap early in the movie, one of the early signs that he's not entirely heartless.
• Private Military Contractor: He plays all the negative stereotypes straight, though Isabelle also pegs him as former special forces.
• Shirtless Scene: Serves up double-barreled Fan Service by showing off Brody's astonishing abdominals and giving an unsubtle Homage to the first movie.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: His weapon of choice is a combat shotgun.
• The Unfettered: Royce takes everything thrown at him in his stride, recognising quickly that they were abducted by an enemy force who wish to hunt them. When it revealed that they are on an alien planet, his immediate reaction is instead of utter shock, to try to figure out where the ships that brought them and contained their hunters landed.

Cuchillo

"Does this look like a team orientated group of individuals to you?" Played By: Danny Trejo

A Mexican enforcer for the Los Zetas drug cartel. He is killed off-screen by a predator and used, unsuccessfully, as bait.

• Adam Westing: Danny Trejo plays a gunslinging, scenery chewing, Mexican gangster named after a sharp implement.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Reacts this way to Stans in a deleted scene.

When I kill someone, it's for the payoff, the big money. You do it just 'cause.

• Gang-Bangers: Identified by Royce as an enforcer for the Zetas Cartel.
• Guns Akimbo
• Only in It For the Money
• Rogue Agent: Possibly. The Zetas were initially founded by Special Forces deserters from the Mexican Army.
• Straw Misogynist: In the deleted scenes.

Nikolai Fedorov

"Ну и рожа у тебя!" Played By: Oleg Taktarov

A Russian Spetsnaz agent. Tough and courageous with a family back home, he's one of the more co-operative members of the misfit team.

• Badass
• BFG
• The Big Guy: Class 2.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: He's the only one to introduce himself and offer a handshake like a normal person, and he also treasures his...
• Fatal Family Photo: Oh Nikolai. If only he'd seen TV Tropes, he'd know not to proudly pass around a photo of his kids in a combat zone.
• Gatling Good
• Genre Blind: By this point, shouldn't everyone know about the family picture cliche?
• Heroic Sacrifice/Taking You with Me
• Husky Russkie
• Odd Friendship: With Edwin.

Isabelle

"We're the monsters of our own world. It's probably better that we're never going back." Played By: Alice Braga

A sniper for the Israeli Defense Force. Suffering from Survivors Guilt, she takes it upon herself to keep the team's moral compass pointed in the right direction.

• Action Girl
• The Atoner: The reason she's so nice is Survivors Guilt.
• Badass Israeli: Royce identifies her as IDF.
• The Chick: She's the most compassionate by quite a wide margin.
• Final Girl
• Friendly Sniper
• Hot Amazon: She's tough as nails, and the guys explicitly find her attractive for it.
• Morality Pet: Isabelle's faith in Royce is the only external sign the audience gets that he's not an irredeemable prick.
• Small Girl, Big Gun: Though not of cartoonish proportions, it's a long-barreled, high-caliber sniper rifle, and she's rather petite.
• Survivors Guilt: She is haunted by the loss of her spotter, who was killed in action shortly before she was kidnapped by the Predators.
• Token Good Teammate: Only Nikolai comes close to being as unambiguously good as she is.

Walter Stans

"Who do you think you're dealing with, hoss?" Played By: Walton Goggins

A Death Row inmate responsible for killing 38 people. Played by Walton Goggins.

• Ax Crazy
• Badass
• The Berserker
• Blood Knight: Why was he attacking Mombasa in their intro scene? For the Evulz, apparently.
• Brother-Sister Incest: Pretty strongly implied, considering his tattoo.
• Deadpan Snarker
• Even Evil Has Standards
• Evilly Affable
• For the Evulz: His reason for killing 38 people? "Well my lawyer said I was crazy, but you want to know the real reason; why the fuck not?"
• Heroic Sacrifice: Already wounded, he throws himself at an Black Predator with a knife and slows it down enough for the others to escape.
• Knife Nut: He complains about all the others getting guns when he only has a knife, but like the others he has been equipped with his most proficient weapon.
• Laughably Evil
• Pet the Dog: Even as the most obvious Token Evil Teammate, he gets a few of these to avoid Complete Monster status: his What the Hell, Hero? to Royce, for one--and, of course, the Heroic Sacrifice.
• Sociopathic Hero
• Token Evil Teammate: There are quite a few people on this team that would probably qualify as evil or close enough to count, but he's probably the most evil and deranged. He provokes Even Evil Has Standards from multiple characters.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Of all people, he joins Isabelle in directing a minor one at Royce after Mombassa's death.

Royce: I needed to know who we're up against. Now I do. Stans: A man is dead because of that. Royce: This morning you were ready to kill him. Stans: Well it ain't this goddamn morning, is it?

Mombasa

"I am ready to die. [[[Beat]]] Are you?" Played By: Mahershalalhashbaz Ali

An RUF member and a Sierra Leone Death Squad officer.

• The Atoner: Maybe.
• Badass
• Black Dude Dies Second
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice
• Not Afraid to Die: See quote, if you are uncertain.
• Knight Templar
• Scary Black Man: Big, check. Black, check. RUF Death Squad Member, check.
• The Stoic

Edwin

"Can someone please just tell me, uh, what the fuck is going on here?" Played By: Topher Grace

A doctor with no combat background.

• Action Survivor: He's the only one who makes no active contribution to the firefights.
• Combat Medic: It's the teams' only explanation for why he is there at all.
• Deadly Doctor
• Deadpan Snarker
• Even Evil Has Standards: Sure Edwin is a serial killer, but even he seems to find Stans assertion that when they get home, Stans will do a ton of cocaine and rape women, more than a little horrific.
• Kick the Dog: Even before The Reveal, he pulls a real dick move. When he's injured and trying to convince the others to help him, he goes all I Have a Family, and pulls out the photo Nicolai had shown him of Nicolai's kids. Keep in mind that Nicolai died to save this guy.
• Non-Action Guy: He mostly gets through combat by ducking behind Isabelle or Nikolai.
• One of These Is Not Like the Others: It's a team of soldiers, mercenaries, murderers...and a doctor.
• Serial Killer
• The Smart Guy: He can identify plant life, and knows their toxic properties.

Hanzo

"...I talk too much." Played By: Louis Ozawa Changchien

A silent member of the Yakuza.

• Badass Beard: He sports a close-shorn stubble that is almost painfully stylish.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: As any self-respecting mob enforcer should be.
• Bald of Awesome
• Deadpan Snarker: He manages to be this with only one line.
• Katanas Are Just Better
• The Quiet One/The Silent Bob: His only lines of dialog are to note how long the Predators must have been doing this when he finds a katana, and to indirectly explain why he doesn't talk more.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Complete with a Waistcoat of Style!
• Shirtless Scene: He does a Battle Strip before taking on a Predator.
• Yakuza: So naturally he has the trademark tattoos, a suit that is straight pimpin' by any objective standard, and three fingers on one hand. Eventually, he even acquires a katana.
• Yubitsume

Classic Predator

"RRRRAAAAARRGGGGHHHHH!" Played By: Brian Steele

One of the traditional Predators, he's found trussed up by the larger Predators.

• Badass in Distress: He's first introduced chained to a pillar in the enemy Predator camp.
• Blood Knight: Natch, since all the Predators are, canonically.
• Blue and Orange Morality: The Predators live by a strict moral code; that code happens to endorse hunting, killing and taking trophies from human beings.
• Enemy Mine: He loosely allies with the humans after being freed.
• Honor Before Reason: Rather than try to escape, when he's freed he attacks the Berserker Predator. Head on.
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: Again, canonically.

Berserker Predator

Played By: Derek Mears

Berserker is the leader of the Black Predators, who spend the entire film hunting the protagonists for sport. He decorates his mask with a trophy's jawbone.

• Big Bad
• Blue and Orange Morality: The Black Predators clearly do not share the Classic Predators strict code of behavior. It's possible their actions would in fact be frowned upon by their own culture, though that is not explicitly stated.
• Combat Pragmatist: He accepts the Classic Predator's challenge to a fist-fight, but once Classic starts scoring some hits, Berserker resorts to using his plasma blaster.
• Dramatic Unmask: The only one in the entire movie (at least from an actual Predator).
• Obviously Evil: The eyes on his mask glow Hellish-Red, compared to the yellowish glow of all the other Predators. His red-stained dreadlocks don't help much either.
• Unflinching Walk: When he detonates his own ship he just walks away casually without even looking back at the end results.

Ronald Noland

"I'm the one that got away. The one you don't fuck with." Played By: Laurence Fishburne

A veteran warrior who's survived in the game preserve for many seasons.

• Badass: Sure, he may be focused on keeping a low profile rather than constantly fighting Predators, but he claims to have survived at least 7 hunting seasons on the world (or as his imaginary companion asserts, it's actually closer to 10). Either way, that's still pretty impressive.
  • Even more so when you consider it's implied that the conflict he was plucked from was Vietnam.
• Crazy Survivalist
• Death Seeker: Possibly. He seems either resigned or even glad to see the Predator who kills him.
• Dirty Coward
• Face Heel Turn
• Imaginary Friend: Talks to one frequently.
• Legacy Character
• One-Scene Wonder
• Shell-Shocked Veteran