*Originally written September 17th, 2018*
I'm really torn on this. Part of me really enjoyed the nonsense on display here, a completely insane, nonsensical throwback action film with sensibilities of '80s cinema, but it's hard to overlook what an incoherent, choppy mess this is.
Shane Black is one of the best writers and directors working today, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and The Nice Guys are two films I adore and Iron Man 3 is easily one of Marvel's best films (Despite what the virgins say), so it was pretty exciting to see him be put in charge of a franchise in desperate need of reinvention and fresh blood. Sadly, it's clear that Fox have completely butchered what could have been an excellent film, to instead deliver a remarkably dumb, but entertaining and breezy watch.
It tries to go back to the basics of the original, a rag-tag group of mentally unstable soldiers have to deal with a Predator invasion of Earth. It gets needlessly convoluted and has a huge amount of misguided story choices. The portrayal of mental health is absolutely bizarre and leads to a tasteless pro-suicide message for a character, I didn't think cinema was capable of this in 2018.
Then there's the autism portrayal. The lead character's son (Jacob Tremblay) is on the autistic spectrum and the film does that misguided thing where they portray autism as a superpower, rather than a real struggle. This is where things get really insane, without getting into real spoilers, autism is one of the reasons the Predator's are on Earth. It's a key plot point and while it's not mean-spirited or tasteless, it just feels off.
One of the big problems is just how much is crammed into this 107 minute film, there are huge gaps where it feels scenes have been cut. People appear out of nowhere or seem to gather information based on nothing. It seems like only a few hours have past, but a package manages to be sent from Mexico, to a PO box, then the lead character's home, all in the space of less than a day. It's just odd and really weird. Then in the final action scene a character gives someone a key item, but then another character has it with no explanation at all.
Where Predator does shine a little is with its characters. Shane Black is excellent with character, and while these characters could have done with a bit more work, they at least all feel unique and have just enough back story to hold them up. Boyd Holbrook is instantly likeable as the lead, he lacks the presence of Arnie, but he manages to hold his own and carry the film, while delivering a tiny bit of heart do to the relationship with his son.
I was really looking forward to seeing Keegan-Michael Key in this and he's probably the highlight of the side team. Thomas Jane was fine too, although his character suffering from tourettes syndrome was again, another punchline for mental illness, but I guess that's how a group of mentally unstable murderers for the government would act? Not entirely sure what Alfie Allen's purpose was here though, aside from a few mentions of magic tricks and his hokey Irish accent.
Being a Predator film, you would expect to see Predator's tear people up and they do. The violence is grizzly and as brutal as you'd expect, being are torn apart, destroyed and dismembered. Black's direction for the action is mostly great, but a few muddled moments in the third act made it hard to see what is going on. A big character died towards the end and I didn't even know until I was informed by my friend after. The Predator really shines when its being a big dumb action film and avoiding the awkward plot and attempts at storytelling. I was also a bit disappointed by the use of CGI over practical effects 90% of the time, and some of it is quite painful to watch, especially in those final action scenes.
It's painfully clear that most of the problems come from the third act, which was entirely re-shot, I have no idea what went wrong with the original ending, but I can't imagine it was much worse than this. Those last 20 or so minutes are when things become nearly unbearably dumb, like, I was in shock and amazement at just how stupid things got. They threw everything at the wall and saw what would stick and it's very little. I feel in the writers room they had a competition at who could come up with the dumbest stuff and see who would win, to the point where I feel they were just taking the piss. It's a shame too, because the more I think about it, the first couple of acts are pretty solid and actually build up an interesting story.
The inclusion of the Super Predator was one of the least interesting things they could come up with. There was nothing about this 11ft monster that was interesting, it was spoiled in the trailers and aside from his size, he really is no different from the smaller Predators. I did appreciate them expanding the Predator universe a bit more, explaining why they do what they do. Some might say it ruins the mystery of these creatures, but I'm feeling generous, so I'll give them this one. It's just unfortunate the thing they were after was *That*.
While part of me did enjoy this, I shouldn't, but I did. It's a complete mess and sets up the series to go in a direction I have no interest in. I'd honestly rather see another reboot to the series than see them continue the story they started here. We'll wait and see what happens, but I honestly can't see this doing very well. The reviews were poor an marketing was less than great, but we'll see. Part of me wants to see this succeed because it's a big-budget adult rated film that we don't get a huge amount of anymore, but part of me wants it to fail so it learns from the mistakes of this.
Shane Black's The Predator is neither the great franchise redirection you wanted, nor the absolute disaster you've heard, it sits somewhere in the middle. It's big, it's extremely dumb and it runs with it, but when you look past a huge amount of flaws, it's a perfectly watchable and mind-numbing exercise in throwback '80s action with a decent cast.
6/10 Dans
The Predator is out now in cinemas in the UK
Watch the trailer below:
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Letterboxd: Dan
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