The Predator
Year: 2018
Director: Shane Black
Starring: Boyd Hollbrook, Olivia Munn, Treyvante Rhodes & Jacob Tremblay
Runtime: 107 mins
BBFC: 15
Published: 27/09/22
Director: Shane Black
Starring: Boyd Hollbrook, Olivia Munn, Treyvante Rhodes & Jacob Tremblay
Runtime: 107 mins
BBFC: 15
Published: 27/09/22
You ever get those films where you hear so much negative press about it that eventually you start to think that people are just jumping on a bandwagon? Well I had that with The Predator, a film I missed at the cinema in 2018, but one I was somewhat looking forward to watching in my re-watch of the franchise surrounding Prey’s release. All the clips I had seen, and the trailer I remember vividly, depicted a film that I thought was genuinely going to be among my favourite in the franchise. How wrong I was, but is it as bad as Predator 2?
When Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook), a U.S Army sniper witnesses the crash landing of an alien spacecraft he is detained and sentenced to an insane asylum to keep him quiet. Casey Brackett (Olivia Munn) is a researcher who has been called in to inspect a live Predator, captured from the wreckage of the spacecraft, revealing that the creature has human DNA. When the Predator breaks free, in turn allowing McKenna and his fellow prisoners to escape, together with Brackett they must track down the Predator and protect McKenna’s son, Rory (Jacob Tremblay) who the Predator has an interest in.
When Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook), a U.S Army sniper witnesses the crash landing of an alien spacecraft he is detained and sentenced to an insane asylum to keep him quiet. Casey Brackett (Olivia Munn) is a researcher who has been called in to inspect a live Predator, captured from the wreckage of the spacecraft, revealing that the creature has human DNA. When the Predator breaks free, in turn allowing McKenna and his fellow prisoners to escape, together with Brackett they must track down the Predator and protect McKenna’s son, Rory (Jacob Tremblay) who the Predator has an interest in.
So, I didn’t realise until I watched this film, that director Shane Black was Hawkins in the original 1987 Predator film. I guess I just missed the obvious there but I guess it’s nice to see one of the actors from the original film return to direct a sequel a little over thirty years down the line. That being said, The Predator is not a good film.
I’m not even really sure where to start because the whole thing’s such a mess. The story is just so by the numbers that it feels like it was written by a robot. It genuinely felt like every beat from every major blockbuster action movie from the last half a decade was crammed into The Predator and the film was constructed around them.
The tone is so wildly inconsistent all the time, so much so that I feel like the film can’t decide if it’s a comedy or an action film. The action is so violent too (honestly surprised this film isn’t rated 18 with the level of gore on display), so when you’ve got this horrendous bloody action going on whilst someone is cracking ‘yo mama’ jokes it just feels so disconnected from itself.
Then there’s the characters. Everyone complained about the shallow characters in 2010’s Predators, but man The Predator is so much worse! They do at least try to make them three-dimensional people here, but they’re all so boring! I can’t think of another film where literally ever single character is written to be the dullest and least interesting person ever.
Then there’s the whole issue of the film’s depiction of autism and Tourette’s. The Tourette’s is just such a surface level depiction of it that you wonder why it’s there at all, the character who suffers from it, Baxley (Thomas Jane), just shouts obscenities every now and again and then it’s made into a joke. Rich of me to say as someone who doesn’t have Tourette’s but I think it’s kind of offensive to portray it in that kind of way. Then there’s the autism…oh boy. So, Rory is autistic, and the film portrays that as him being super smart, and it even goes so far as saying that autism is the next evolutionary step for mankind. Personally, that overstepped a line that I didn’t even know I had, as someone who has family members that suffer with autistic spectrum disorders, to see it being depicted so carelessly made me angry.
I’m not even really sure where to start because the whole thing’s such a mess. The story is just so by the numbers that it feels like it was written by a robot. It genuinely felt like every beat from every major blockbuster action movie from the last half a decade was crammed into The Predator and the film was constructed around them.
The tone is so wildly inconsistent all the time, so much so that I feel like the film can’t decide if it’s a comedy or an action film. The action is so violent too (honestly surprised this film isn’t rated 18 with the level of gore on display), so when you’ve got this horrendous bloody action going on whilst someone is cracking ‘yo mama’ jokes it just feels so disconnected from itself.
Then there’s the characters. Everyone complained about the shallow characters in 2010’s Predators, but man The Predator is so much worse! They do at least try to make them three-dimensional people here, but they’re all so boring! I can’t think of another film where literally ever single character is written to be the dullest and least interesting person ever.
Then there’s the whole issue of the film’s depiction of autism and Tourette’s. The Tourette’s is just such a surface level depiction of it that you wonder why it’s there at all, the character who suffers from it, Baxley (Thomas Jane), just shouts obscenities every now and again and then it’s made into a joke. Rich of me to say as someone who doesn’t have Tourette’s but I think it’s kind of offensive to portray it in that kind of way. Then there’s the autism…oh boy. So, Rory is autistic, and the film portrays that as him being super smart, and it even goes so far as saying that autism is the next evolutionary step for mankind. Personally, that overstepped a line that I didn’t even know I had, as someone who has family members that suffer with autistic spectrum disorders, to see it being depicted so carelessly made me angry.
The problems don’t stop there. The film has some great shots every now and again, but it’s marred by sloppy editing and half-baked CGI. The CGI really stands out too as there’s a number of shots of the Predator where it’s a real person, but then once it starts to move they’ve CGI’d it and it’s just so jarring. The choppy editing frequently got on my nerves because it hurt to watch with the number of cuts there were in action sequences, and often cuts would break basic rules of filmmaking that allow the visuals to naturally flow from one another. I’ve seen Black’s work before, and this isn’t it. I suspect studio interference, or at least I hope it, because the lack of care put into the production values of this film is disgraceful.
Despite having an abysmal time with The Predator, I think I still enjoyed it more than Predator 2…I can’t really put my finger on why, maybe because it wasn’t preaching to me about how bad drugs are all the time. But regardless, don’t waste your time with this film. It reeks of studio sheen and franchise baiting, not to mention its poorly written plot and horrendous representation of disabilities. The Predator is a film I would soon rather forget exists, and in this day and age I’m surprised it even made it off the cutting room floor.
Despite having an abysmal time with The Predator, I think I still enjoyed it more than Predator 2…I can’t really put my finger on why, maybe because it wasn’t preaching to me about how bad drugs are all the time. But regardless, don’t waste your time with this film. It reeks of studio sheen and franchise baiting, not to mention its poorly written plot and horrendous representation of disabilities. The Predator is a film I would soon rather forget exists, and in this day and age I’m surprised it even made it off the cutting room floor.