The Predator (2018)
The Predator starts off with a spaceship that has crash landed in a forest somewhere in Mexico, resulting in Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook, Logan), a highly skilled sniper from the U.S. Army who is in the area on a hostage rescue mission, diverting his course to the spaceship for intel. He finds equipment of alien origin, which he sends back to his Texas home, but without the actual evidence in his possession, no one will readily believe him back home, resulting in him being sent off for rehabilitation. His rehab group consisting of a rag-tag bunch of disgraced ex-military types, as dangerous as they are damaged. Meanwhile, McKenna’s package gets received by his autistic and highly intelligent son, Rory (Jacob Tremblay, Shut In), who opens it to discover the alien armor that activates in a very big way when he puts it on. The crew at Project Stargazer commissions their specialist in exotic biology, Casey Bracket (Olivia Munn, X-Men: Apocalypse), to check out the DNA of a captured alien, whereupon they discover that it is some sort of alien/human hybrid. However, all are in jeopardy when the Predator makes his escape from their inadequate bonds.
1987’s Predator was a solid action/sci-fi/horror hybrid, becoming a beloved genre favorite among those who saw it at the time, and it has held up in popularity ever since. Alas, all attempts at following up this film have met with lackluster results, from the weakly conceived direct sequel in 1990 in Predator 2, to two terrible Alien vs. Predator films, and a sorry excuse to return again in 2010’s Predators. 2018’s The Predator would be a promising attempt to restart the “franchise that could have been”, as it puts fun-film favorite Shane Black, who actually appeared in the original film as one of the cast, into the directors chair. Despite his credentials, The Predator emerges as too unfocused to properly follow, culminating in a film that lacks even a tenth of the gripping action, intrigue, suspense, grit, and exhilaration of the 1987 film.
Perhaps the biggest saving grace for some people is that it is a gleefully absurd movie, sufficiently so that bad movie lovers will embrace it for being so odd, both in its dialogue as well as its characterizations. There are funny moments in between the rudimentary and often incoherent plotting to make the lackluster story-line occasionally engaging for those who might otherwise have checked out of the characters weren’t doing or saying anything amusing. That said, if you don’t find the humor to your liking, you’ll likely be in for a very long endurance test, and possibly even find it increasingly insufferable, as the story-line veers into elements that are grotesque and distasteful, while running with a snarky tone along the way.
The casting isn’t particularly strong. Boyd Holbrook is a likable enough actor, but such a far cry from the formidable presence of Arnold Schwarzenegger that he becomes the most instantly forgettable of the leads for any Predator film to date. Olivia Munn gives it her all in support, but her all is still too limited to make her character at all interesting. Most of the energy comes in watching Keegan-Michael Key, Thomas Jane, Trevante Rhodes and the rest of the Group 2 clan interact, but their screen time is too limited for them to elevate the film by carrying the load on their shoulders. The acting all around isn’t terribly noteworthy, though it’s doubtful that Black cares about the performances in a film that straddles the line between modern-day comic-book-caliber action and 80s b-movie embracing. All of the characters feel entirely disposable, to the point where we don’t have any vested interest in who lives and who dies when it gets to the point where they begin to expire in gruesome fashion.
The Predator delivers a modicum of expected goods, from action sequences to effects work to a motley crew of bad-asses who get picked off one by one. It stays just above water most of the way, in a low grade fashion, but the third act is a complete mess, sinking under the weight of too many bad ideas and terrible optics to justify. Black delivers meta moments that may please some of the more hardcore fans of the series thus far, and plenty of silly moments to show that we’re not at all supposed to take what we’re seeing on the screen as anything to take too seriously. That last part is a bit of a shame, as John McTiernan’s original succeeded in being both fun and actually gripping in its confrontations, whereas Black’s take jettisons suspense and dynamic mano-a-mano battles for upping the ante on ludicrousness. If the only thing you’re praising at the end of a Predator film is its banter, something is definitely amiss, coming across more like a variation on Suicide Squad than it does an attempt to continue the tradition of the 1987 action classic.
Qwipster’s rating: D+
MPAA Rated: R for strong bloody violence, language throughout, and crude sexual references
Running Time: 107 min.
Cast: Boyd Holbrook, Olivia Munn, Trevante Rhodes, Jacob Tremblay, Keegan-Michael Key, Thomas Jane, Alfie Allen, Sterling K. Brown, Augusto Aguilera, Jake Busey, Yvonne Strahovski
Director: Shane Black
Screenplay: Fred Dekker, Shane Black