Released: September 2018
Director: Shane Black
Rated R
Run Time: 107 Minutes
Distributor: 21st Century Fox
Genre: Action/Science Fiction
Cast:
Boyd Holbrook: Quinn McKenna
Trevante Rhodes: Nebraska Williams
Jacob Tremblay: Rory McKenna
Keegan-Michael Key: Coyle
Olivia Munn: Casey Bracket
Sterling K. Brown: Traeger
Thomas Jane: Baxley
Alfie Allen: Lynch
Jake Busey: Keyes
While I’m sitting here typing this, I’ve also been reflecting on all the movies that I’ve seen and all the movie series that have been produced over the years. Every movie trilogy or series that has ever been made has at one time or another, been derailed by an entry that most reviewers and critics would describe as a complete train-wreck. Almost every movie series has at least one, while some have two or more. Terminator has Terminator Genisys; Star Wars has Solo; Star Trek has Final Frontier and Generations, and so on and so forth. So, why does it happen? From my perspective, it happens because movie studios have a tendency to run completely out of ideas and they try to do something that doesn’t really fit with the source material. The Alien films had Alien Resurrection as a particular train-wreck, because it really didn’t fit in logically or tone-wise with the other films. Does that mean that the train-wrecks aren’t entertaining? Not at all. The aforementioned Alien Resurrection is entertaining as an action and science fiction film, but not so much as an Alien film. When it comes to Predator, most people would point to either Predator 2 or Predators(the third film) as being train-wrecks. I can tell you now: the fourth entry into the series, The Predator takes the cake when it comes to derailing the franchise.
A sequel to the first two films, but ignoring the third, The Predator sees Army Ranger Captain Quinn McKenna, an expert sniper, attempt to rescue hostages in Mexico when an alien ship crashes near his position. Encountering the blood-thirsty Predator, McKenna takes some of the equipment from the crashed ship and escapes. Mailing the equipment to his home in the United States, McKenna is apprehended by US forces and is questioned about what happened. At the same time, government scientists recover the unconscious body of the creature and take him to a secret lab. When the alien gear shows up at Quinn’s house, his autistic son investigates it and accidentally activates a homing beacon which brings another Predator to Earth. I find it strange that Shane Black, who played Hawkins in the original Predator, would end up writing and directing the worst film in one of the most popular science fiction franchises in cinema. The story in the film is actually not that bad, but the execution was unbelievable. The original film was a straight-forward action flick with a science fiction/horror twist. Here, it seems like film-makers tried to throw shit at a wall to see what sticks. The wall must have been made of Teflon, because nothing stuck. Nothing here really works.
Shane Black is a fantastic writer as evidenced by the Lethal Weapon film series, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Iron Man 3, The Monster Squad, and The Nice Guys. As a director, he’s got three of those movies under his belt, so what the hell happened? His experience on Predator should have made this entry a home-run, and it wasn’t. I don’t know if it was Black’s idea to turn this film into an action/comedy, but whoever made the decision, the resulting film was a poor mish-mash of tones and genres. Looking back at the first three movies, they weren’t comedies. They had comedy in them, but they were mostly serious films, and it worked. Yeah, they were corny at times, but that added to the experience. Here, the humor is completely forced. I didn’t laugh one time. It also comes down to the fact that none of the characters are particularly likable. Not one. Throwing in an autistic kid to advance the plot was highly questionable. There were some interesting ideas here. The idea that Predators hunted people not just for trophies, but to use our DNA to upgrade themselves was fairly unique. There was just no real payoff. There were a lot of decisions made during the making of the film that really didn’t make any sense. Honestly, I would have taken another Predator hunting a specific person instead of the Predators trying to conquer planets. That was just….STUPID. It flies in the face of everything that we’ve learned about the species in the past three movies.
Not only that, there were some painfully obvious references to the previous films. One of the characters is named Shawn(Sean?)Keyes, the son of Peter Keyes from the second movie. What’s actually cool about that is that Shawn is played by Jake Busey, the real-life son of Gary Busey, the guy who was in Predator 2. That was awesome. Only….Jake’s in the film for only five minutes. What a waste. The whole “government trying to capture an alien for study” has been done to death, and done better. I’m absolutely flabbergasted at how unoriginal this film is. I get that it is a sequel, but you need to try and bring something new and worthwhile to the table and the film-makers didn’t do that. I knew there was going to be a problem when I heard about the re-shoots. Re-shoots in a movie is nothing new. It’s used to tighten up certain aspects like performances and pacing and story elements. But you can tell that the re-shoots for this film didn’t fix anything and the editing makes it obvious.
Thankfully, the action is kind of where the film picks up a bit. There’s a lot of it. It’s gory, hard-hitting, and pretty much non-stop. When the Predators are doing their thing, it’s really fun to watch. However, even the action gets dealt a blow. This movie is a huge CGI-fest. The larger creature is pretty much CGI, while the smaller one is a guy in a suit, thankfully. Even a lot of the blood and gore is CG, and nothing takes you out of a film like this more than some really bad CGI blood. The musical score is also a major point of contention. Don’t get me wrong: I like Henry Jackman’s work. He’s a fantastic composer with a lot of memorable titles under his belt. But with The Predator, I’m not entirely sure what he was going for. There are definitely elements of Alan Silvestri’s original music peppered throughout the film, but it’s been diluted to the point where it’s no longer memorable. It would’ve been a lot better of Alan Silvestri took the job. He did the score for the first two movies and they were fantastic scores.
So, who gets the blame for this mess? Is it Shane Black for writing or directing? Or is Fox Studios for possibly interfering with Black’s ability to make the film. I would say it’s probably a combination of the two, but I would stake my life on Fox interfering. It wouldn’t be the first time they interfered in a movie like this, and it won’t be the last. I get the feeling that this isn’t really the film that Shane Black wanted us to see. Will there be a director’s cut on Blu-Ray at some point in the future? Who knows? If there is, I would be very curious to see what was originally cut out of the film, because it’s apparent that stuff was left on the cutting room floor. Do I actually hate the film? No. There is stuff to enjoy here, but you have to approach it as if it was a fan film. The action is good, and you can see what’s going on. It’s gruesome at times, and some of the actors do a decent enough job, but ultimately, The Predator is a very forgettable experience. I can almost guarantee you that when the film hits home video, people are going to be like, “Oh, this was a thing?” Long story short, Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem is a better movie.
My Final Recommendation: RUN! GO! GET TO DA CHOPPA….to get away from this movie. 4.5/10.