In many ways, Shane Black's The Predator is exactly the film you expect it to be. It's extremely loud (especially in a premium format theater), very goofy, and possibly incoherent, with the latter being the result of studio-mandated reshoots and a rumored struggle over the ending. Seriously, there's a point in the final act where a major character dies, but it happens so quickly that it's not difficult to imagine a large chunk of viewers missing it (like I did). With an absurdly fast pace, needlessly edgy insults, and borderline nonsensical narrative choices, it's not difficult to see why this reboot has taken a drubbing from critics and fans.
It is also, by all accounts, some of the most fun I've had in a movie theater in 2018.
Before you question my taste in movies and leave this site forever, let me explain. Yes, as a massive fan of Shane Black's directorial work (The Nice Guys is one of my favorite movies, if you haven't gathered that from the thousands of times I've mentioned it on this site), I was probably predisposed to like this movie. Still, I went in with genuine doubts and concerns. I liked the cast enough, but something just felt off, and the behind-the-scenes rumors were not encouraging. Ultimately, The Predator won me over not through ingenious plotting or narrative control, but by delivering pure action movie pleasures in a relentless, violently enjoyable package. It's armed with a boatload of Black one-liners and enough gore to sustain most franchises for decades, but it also effectively channels the spirit of the original classic and sustains it for 107 minutes. The Predator is a pulpy romp of the highest order. It's a hell of a good time.
There's no Arnold to be found this time, but who needs Dutch when you have an army of convicts from the "loony bin"? The film's de facto lead is military sniper Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook), who is on a routine special ops mission in Mexico when an alien drops from the sky; or, more specifically, a Predator. The Predator kills Quinn's men, but the savvy soldier escapes with some of its tech. Before he's detained by shady government specialist Chris (Sterling K. Brown) and his team of operatives, Quinn sends the tech to a PO box in America, so he'll have evidence in the event that the government labels him as crazy. Instead, the package reaches Quinn's estranged son, Rory (Jacob Tremblay), who suffers from Asperger's syndrome and displays incredible cognitive skills. He thinks the alien tech is a video game, so he messes around with it.
This all happens in, like, the first ten minutes of the movie, by the way.
Beyond the family angle, we're introduced to Dr. Casey Bracket (Olivia Munn), a brilliant evolutionary biologist with a pre-ordained position on the investigative team for alien life forms. Chris calls her in to examine the Predator that was captured in Mexico, which is something of a personal dream of hers. During the briefing, she receives an unexpected bit of information- there was human DNA found inside this Predator. Before she can really ask where it came from, Chris and Casey receive more troubling news: another Predator ship is coming. The contained Predator awakes and begins his latest slaughter, with only a few people in the room surviving the attack. Meanwhile, Quinn has been imprisoned with the soldiers of Group B, all of whom suffer from some form of PTSD. There's Nebraska Williams (Trevante Rhodes), Coyle (Keegan-Michael Key), Baxley (Thomas Jane), Lynch (Alfie Allen), and Nettles (Augusto Aguilera), and none of them believe Quinn when he tells them about the alien.
Until they see it for themselves. During the Predator prison break, the loony bus will team up with Casey in order to stop these creatures from killing Quinn's son and dooming our planet to a terrible fate. That "fate" is a little unclear, like many other things in this film. It's obvious that Black and co-writer Fred Dekker have little interest in explaining the scientific mumbo jumbo or giving clear motivations to the intergalactic antagonists, so they just kinda half-ass it and move on. Even on a second viewing, I was left with more questions than answers, the result of a story that moves way too fast for its own good. Don't get me wrong, I love a fast-paced action movie that demonstrably has little regard for explaining every minute detail of its silly sci-fi universe. But The Predator simply needs to be longer; when a character dies in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it scene, your pace is too extreme.
If The Predator was content to be a movie about the battle between an alien creature that kidnaps a gifted child, the kid's Army sniper dad, and a shady military agent with a goal in mind for the creature, the frantic pace would serve the simplicity of the story well. But The Predator is not that movie. There are two Predators, two different alien ships, a scientific rationale for the Predator's evolution, a practical reason for its frequent return to Earth, and even a subplot about global warming. This is too much for a movie that runs 107 minutes in length, including credits. If the reshoots were as extensive as publicly rumored, I'm not quite sure why the studio didn't cut down on a few superfluous twists that require more exposition than necessary.
So yeah, this thing gets messy. And yet, it really, really works. I've walked away from both viewings more than satisfied. Why?
If you focus on the crazy pace, the leaps in logic, and the resulting inconsistencies, The Predator will frustrate you. But I get the sense that Black and Dekker don't really care about the specifics of world-building or "plot holes" or whatever else you want to call it. Their take on this franchise succeeds in applying a new tone to an old cinematic style, namely the trashy, gory aesthetic of late 1980s action movies. I've seen some people lament the humor in The Predator as an attempt to emulate Marvel's success, and it annoys me to no end. This is what Shane Black does! Whether it's The Nice Guys or Iron Man 3, his films are loaded with quips and raunchy gags and a distinct old-school vibe. If that humor seems incongruous with a movie about a giant space alien, it is- and that's the fun of it all.
From the first scene to the epilogue, The Predator both successfully replicates the feeling of the 1987 classic and adds a new comedic twist to the proceedings. The score by Henry Jackman is such a perfect evocation of the original music, complete with dramatic crescendos and the pulse-pounding drumbeat of a military epic. We rarely see Reagan-era cheese done quite so earnestly, but the cast is game to play into Black's crass, dopey style. Sterling K. Brown is the gum-snapping, sarcastically charming standout, but virtually every member of the cast has a gut-busting line or two. Boyd Holbrook's dry delivery and Southern style make him an ideal leading man, while Keegan Michael-Key and the rest of the unit deliver the comic relief at a rapid clip. Trevante Rhodes is a sympathetic badass, Olivia Munn is terrifically witty, and hell, even Jacob Tremblay gets to tell someone to "go f**k" themselves.
And in a sneaky way, I think the film's crude 'n' rude comedic spirit serves a greater purpose than just generating laughs. Unexpectedly, The Predator reveals itself to be a profound and oddly touching look at how we treat those with differences, whether it's a young boy with Asperger's or a group of soldiers cast out from the army because of their lingering PTSD. There's an argument to be made that Black and Dekker don't treat these issues with the necessary sensitivity; after all, using a character with Tourette's as comic relief and making a joke about the word "re**rded" aren't necessarily what we associate with good taste. But in the context of Black's trademark button-pushing, the filmmaker reveals a surprisingly empathetic take on mental illness and a subtle indictment of America's veterans system, one where off-color humor is a coping device for genuine pain.
To use the film's own words, this is a story about the people who are destined to be forgotten by history. That's a somewhat revolutionary sentiment for a modern blockbuster, and I was continually surprised by how much I felt for each of these characters. So even though this is a gory extravaganza of bloody excess, it's also a sweet movie about a makeshift family of misfits. If you're willing to overlook an awkward structural issue or two, there's lots of fun to be had with this wildly entertaining new spin on the 80s action genre.
Messy? Sure.
Still a blast? Damn straight.
THE FINAL GRADE: A- (8.1/10)
Images courtesy of 20th Century Fox
It is also, by all accounts, some of the most fun I've had in a movie theater in 2018.
Before you question my taste in movies and leave this site forever, let me explain. Yes, as a massive fan of Shane Black's directorial work (The Nice Guys is one of my favorite movies, if you haven't gathered that from the thousands of times I've mentioned it on this site), I was probably predisposed to like this movie. Still, I went in with genuine doubts and concerns. I liked the cast enough, but something just felt off, and the behind-the-scenes rumors were not encouraging. Ultimately, The Predator won me over not through ingenious plotting or narrative control, but by delivering pure action movie pleasures in a relentless, violently enjoyable package. It's armed with a boatload of Black one-liners and enough gore to sustain most franchises for decades, but it also effectively channels the spirit of the original classic and sustains it for 107 minutes. The Predator is a pulpy romp of the highest order. It's a hell of a good time.
There's no Arnold to be found this time, but who needs Dutch when you have an army of convicts from the "loony bin"? The film's de facto lead is military sniper Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook), who is on a routine special ops mission in Mexico when an alien drops from the sky; or, more specifically, a Predator. The Predator kills Quinn's men, but the savvy soldier escapes with some of its tech. Before he's detained by shady government specialist Chris (Sterling K. Brown) and his team of operatives, Quinn sends the tech to a PO box in America, so he'll have evidence in the event that the government labels him as crazy. Instead, the package reaches Quinn's estranged son, Rory (Jacob Tremblay), who suffers from Asperger's syndrome and displays incredible cognitive skills. He thinks the alien tech is a video game, so he messes around with it.
This all happens in, like, the first ten minutes of the movie, by the way.
Beyond the family angle, we're introduced to Dr. Casey Bracket (Olivia Munn), a brilliant evolutionary biologist with a pre-ordained position on the investigative team for alien life forms. Chris calls her in to examine the Predator that was captured in Mexico, which is something of a personal dream of hers. During the briefing, she receives an unexpected bit of information- there was human DNA found inside this Predator. Before she can really ask where it came from, Chris and Casey receive more troubling news: another Predator ship is coming. The contained Predator awakes and begins his latest slaughter, with only a few people in the room surviving the attack. Meanwhile, Quinn has been imprisoned with the soldiers of Group B, all of whom suffer from some form of PTSD. There's Nebraska Williams (Trevante Rhodes), Coyle (Keegan-Michael Key), Baxley (Thomas Jane), Lynch (Alfie Allen), and Nettles (Augusto Aguilera), and none of them believe Quinn when he tells them about the alien.
Until they see it for themselves. During the Predator prison break, the loony bus will team up with Casey in order to stop these creatures from killing Quinn's son and dooming our planet to a terrible fate. That "fate" is a little unclear, like many other things in this film. It's obvious that Black and co-writer Fred Dekker have little interest in explaining the scientific mumbo jumbo or giving clear motivations to the intergalactic antagonists, so they just kinda half-ass it and move on. Even on a second viewing, I was left with more questions than answers, the result of a story that moves way too fast for its own good. Don't get me wrong, I love a fast-paced action movie that demonstrably has little regard for explaining every minute detail of its silly sci-fi universe. But The Predator simply needs to be longer; when a character dies in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it scene, your pace is too extreme.
If The Predator was content to be a movie about the battle between an alien creature that kidnaps a gifted child, the kid's Army sniper dad, and a shady military agent with a goal in mind for the creature, the frantic pace would serve the simplicity of the story well. But The Predator is not that movie. There are two Predators, two different alien ships, a scientific rationale for the Predator's evolution, a practical reason for its frequent return to Earth, and even a subplot about global warming. This is too much for a movie that runs 107 minutes in length, including credits. If the reshoots were as extensive as publicly rumored, I'm not quite sure why the studio didn't cut down on a few superfluous twists that require more exposition than necessary.
So yeah, this thing gets messy. And yet, it really, really works. I've walked away from both viewings more than satisfied. Why?
If you focus on the crazy pace, the leaps in logic, and the resulting inconsistencies, The Predator will frustrate you. But I get the sense that Black and Dekker don't really care about the specifics of world-building or "plot holes" or whatever else you want to call it. Their take on this franchise succeeds in applying a new tone to an old cinematic style, namely the trashy, gory aesthetic of late 1980s action movies. I've seen some people lament the humor in The Predator as an attempt to emulate Marvel's success, and it annoys me to no end. This is what Shane Black does! Whether it's The Nice Guys or Iron Man 3, his films are loaded with quips and raunchy gags and a distinct old-school vibe. If that humor seems incongruous with a movie about a giant space alien, it is- and that's the fun of it all.
From the first scene to the epilogue, The Predator both successfully replicates the feeling of the 1987 classic and adds a new comedic twist to the proceedings. The score by Henry Jackman is such a perfect evocation of the original music, complete with dramatic crescendos and the pulse-pounding drumbeat of a military epic. We rarely see Reagan-era cheese done quite so earnestly, but the cast is game to play into Black's crass, dopey style. Sterling K. Brown is the gum-snapping, sarcastically charming standout, but virtually every member of the cast has a gut-busting line or two. Boyd Holbrook's dry delivery and Southern style make him an ideal leading man, while Keegan Michael-Key and the rest of the unit deliver the comic relief at a rapid clip. Trevante Rhodes is a sympathetic badass, Olivia Munn is terrifically witty, and hell, even Jacob Tremblay gets to tell someone to "go f**k" themselves.
And in a sneaky way, I think the film's crude 'n' rude comedic spirit serves a greater purpose than just generating laughs. Unexpectedly, The Predator reveals itself to be a profound and oddly touching look at how we treat those with differences, whether it's a young boy with Asperger's or a group of soldiers cast out from the army because of their lingering PTSD. There's an argument to be made that Black and Dekker don't treat these issues with the necessary sensitivity; after all, using a character with Tourette's as comic relief and making a joke about the word "re**rded" aren't necessarily what we associate with good taste. But in the context of Black's trademark button-pushing, the filmmaker reveals a surprisingly empathetic take on mental illness and a subtle indictment of America's veterans system, one where off-color humor is a coping device for genuine pain.
To use the film's own words, this is a story about the people who are destined to be forgotten by history. That's a somewhat revolutionary sentiment for a modern blockbuster, and I was continually surprised by how much I felt for each of these characters. So even though this is a gory extravaganza of bloody excess, it's also a sweet movie about a makeshift family of misfits. If you're willing to overlook an awkward structural issue or two, there's lots of fun to be had with this wildly entertaining new spin on the 80s action genre.
Messy? Sure.
Still a blast? Damn straight.
THE FINAL GRADE: A- (8.1/10)
Images courtesy of 20th Century Fox
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