The Predator: Film Review

The Predator: Film Review

Cast: Boyd Holbrook, Olivia Munn, Yvonne Strahovski, Jacob Tremblay, Sterling K Brown, Keegan-Michael Key, Trevante Rhodes
Director: Shane Black

It's clear early on that Shane Black's Predator film is not going to be a serious one.

Despite opening with some sci-fi trappings as a Predator-piloted spacecraft plummets down to earth, within minutes, we're back in Black's trademark comedy way of life. A satellite is smashed as the Predator's ship tumbles to the ground, and this brash, in-your-face opening is really all the 2018 Predator is about.

After being picked off by Boyd Holbrook's sniper Quinn McKenna, the Predator's gear is shipped off to his autistic son (Tremblay) for safe-keeping and to protect Quinn from the authorities. But as the scientists pick at the Predator, he re-awakens, bringing a desperate fight for survival to life.

It's hard to exactly pinpoint why The Predator doesn't quite fully work.

Perhaps it's the abandoning until the end of why the films have worked previously - ie man vs something bigger than itself and slowly losing; perhaps it's the injection of comedy that tips over into the downright unfunny and unnecessary - step forward, a soldier with Tourette's for nothing more than gags or a line about a "retarded" kid that's woefully out of place with 2018 - or perhaps it's the fact that the film lacks any defining set pieces or visual moments of flair.

But all combined, The Predator is perhaps the biggest disappointment of the year when all its parts come together.

Kudos must go to Olivia Munn whose scientist kicks as much ass as the boys, and whose support is more about her skills than anything else; and even Holbrook manages a sort of soldier grunt edge that's hard to beat, even if the human edge is lacking.

There's a climate change message thrown in as well, as Black tries to re-start the franchise with some cunning ideas and reasons why the Predators have been coming here for years, but the threads are so weakly constructed that pulled narratively tighter they simply unravel and make you bemoan the fact more could be on the way.

In the jungle's final sequence, Black reminds us why The Predator has worked, with some smartly and tautly executed kills which fill the quota. It's easy to see why he went for a band of misfits taking on the bad guy, as it's suited to his writing style, but mostly, thanks to misplaced comedy that's out of step with the zeitgeist, this flags badly when it should zag wildly.

If this was an attempt at a reboot of the film, the seventh in the series, and one that was meant to evoke the 80s trappings of the originals, Black has failed The Predator miserably. If it was an attempt to produce something scrappy, something unenticing that lacks a warmth and empathy for its characters, then it's succeeded wildly.

Either way, the set up for the sequels feels like a missed moment, a killer film without a killer edge and a film that in parts leaves a distinctly unsavoury taste in your mouth.