The Predator is a 2018 sci-fi action film about a young boy who accidentally triggers the universe’s most lethal hunters’ return to Earth, leaving only a ragtag crew of ex-soldiers and a disgruntled science teacher to prevent the end of the human race.
The giant, killer aliens who hunt for sport are back in director Shane Black’s newest franchise entry, The Predator. Leading up the films release, it was plagued by underwhelming trailers and then a serious controversy when Olivia Munn made a stunning discovery about part of the cast. Unfortunately for The Predator, it will now be suffering from poor reviews. What Black offers us is an uninspired film that is neither exciting nor original, and is another failed attempt at capturing the magic that John McTiernan once brought us over 30 years ago.
The movie begins with a fleeing Predator spacecraft crash landing on Earth in Mexico. Soldier-for-hire Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook) and his team are in the midst of a hostage rescue nearby when the Predator attacks them, leaving only McKenna alive. McKenna does manage to wound the Predator, allowing him to steal some of its gear before escaping to a local town. He then mails the gear to himself before returning stateside.
A government agency specializing in Predator research and led by a man named Traeger (Sterling K. Brown) come across the wounded Predator and take it back to their lab for study. To assist with their evaluation, they bring in biologist Casey Brackett (Munn) who discovers that Predators mix their DNA with the most elite of other species they kill. Soon after Brackett arrives and begins her analysis, the Predator awakens, kills most of the people in the lab, and escapes to track down its gear. Traeger comes to believe that the fleeing Predator was actually delivering something to humankind to help Earth avoid being taken over by the Predator race.
Meanwhile, the Predator’s gear is conveniently located not far from the lab with McKenna’s son, Rory, who accidentally activates a beacon leading another Predator ship to Earth. McKenna is being held by the government upon returning to the states, and is sent on a transport bus with a ragtag ex-military group that is under psych evaluation. After witnessing the Predator attacking outside the base, the group takes over the bus and heads to McKenna’s house to find the Predator’s gear. Once there, they learn that Rory has worn it out for Halloween, so they head out to track down Rory before the Predator finds him. All the while, the new Predator that has joined the hunt begins to track his prey, and he is bigger and badder than anything we’ve seen before.
Instead of putting a new twist on the Predator series by writing a unique and exciting plot, Black went for smoke and mirrors by adding a giant Predator and upping the humor. The story as a whole struggles to generate interest, and you find yourself just waiting for the next punchline to drop. This becomes problematic because the humor seems mainly intended for an audience of teenage boys, so it starts to wear thin rather quickly. I’ll admit I chuckled a few times throughout, but the humor was nowhere close to the quality of other Black movies like The Nice Guys. There were a few nice nods to the original movie that Black did manage to slip into his writing, such as the classic “get to the chopper!” line, but otherwise it seemed like a lazy effort.
Overall the acting was fine, but no one really did anything to stand out. Brown does a good job at playing the shady government scumbag with a great smile and a hidden agenda. Having said that, by the end of the film even his character suffers from cringe-worthy dialogue. Holbrook was given the tall task of trying to fill Arnold Schwarzenegger’s shoes, and he now joins the likes of Adrien Brody and Danny Glover as afterthoughts of the Predator franchise. A couple of bright spots included Keegan-Michael Key bringing a majority of the comedic relief, and Tremblay showed his acting chops once more here in portraying a child with autism.Had Black managed to up the ante with the action in this movie, a lot could’ve been forgiven. However, all we get is more run of the mill Predator violence that we’ve seen time and time again. Not to mention, the whole feel of the movie was way too similar to Alien vs Predator 2. The backdrop for the setting being a small town in the middle of the woods was all too familiar in a bad way. The one nostalgia aspect that I did enjoy was the music. There were a few times throughout when they’d play the theme of the original, and those were the moments that brought me back to 1987 with Arnold policing the jungle. I would recommend that all diehard Predator fans skip this rather disappointing franchise addition.