Genre: Action,
Adventure, Science Fiction, Horror
Produced by:
John Davis
Directed by:
Shane Black
Written by:
Fred Dekker, Shane Black
Production Company: 20th Century Fox
Starring: Boyd
Holbrook, Trevante Rhodes, Jacob Tremblay, Keegan Michael Key, Olivia Munn,
Sterling K. Brown, Alfie Allen, Thomas Jane, Augusto Aguilera, Jake Busey,
Yvonne Strahovski
Runtime: 107 minutes
SYNOPSIS:
Set in the same universe as the first
two Predator films (1987 & 1997),
a young boy Rory McKenna (Jacob Tremblay)’s
discovery of some advanced extraterrestrial technology accidentally triggers
the return of a race of trophy-hunting alien to planet Earth. With the fate of
humanity once again at risk, it is now up to a team of loony soldiers and a scientist
(Olivia Munn) led by
mercenary/Rory’s estranged father Quinn (Boyd
Holbrook) to restore order.
REVIEW:
As a horror movie creature, the Predator
is amongst one of the genre’s most iconic faces. As a character from the 80’s,
it also embodies the tone in that era’s movies: camp. After all, we’re talking
about an alien in dreadlocks. After all,
we’re talking about a concept in which the writers pitch to the studio as, “Rocky fighting aliens.” That is probably
why the franchise’s maiden entry, 1987’s Predator,
remains the most beloved. As a mishmash of action movie camp and horror movie
thrills, it balanced those two aspects really well. It was the rare film that
knew when to take things seriously, and when to poke fun at its ridiculousness,
without being too tonally jarring.
As an 80’s action movie, featuring the
era’s most buff public figures as its cast members, Predator was an exercise in machismo and wisecracks. It’s a film
littered with noises and explosions, the sight of macho men shooting down
forest with big guns and things go boom. It had Arnold Schwarzenegger at the height of his career as a one-liner
machine. He could just burst into a cartel base, throws a knife at someone’s
chest and says, with the biggest smile on his face, “Stick around!” Or he could just roll around on the floor, screaming
the mother of all pop culture quotes, “Get
to the Choppa!” Let’s not forget Jesse
Ventura’s badass retort, “I ain’t got
time to bleed!”
Still, its campiness didn’t take away
from the fact that Predator was a
suspenseful film. Really, when we skipped past the whole drug cartel base
infiltration opening sequence, and when we put the whole hostage rescue mission
subplot to the side, the rest of the film was a straightforward slasher movie, with
an alien in dreadlocks as the serial killer with the knife and macho men as the
horror movie victims. John McTiernan
proved himself to be equally adept in directing the slasher sequences. Making
use of the grimy sets, atmospheric horror, sound restraints and the macho men’s
commitment to go all scream queen, they all combined to craft suspense that actually
builds and builds to such a satisfying pay off.
So, it is interesting to see what writer-director
Shane Black, who played the character
Hawkins in the original, brings to the table. His work is often epitomized by
his ability to interlaced humor within dark tales. And as mentioned above, that
was what the Predator was. For a franchise in need of 80’s camp humor after
recent darkness, no one is much more qualified than Black himself.
The
Predator
seems like a strange film to come out in 2018. It is like Black had written an action, sci-fi screenplay in the 80’s, and had
to wait for three decades until it saw motion picture light. And in the end, it
became the next Predator movie, an 80’s action movie. From the way it recreates
the town’s foggy, John Carpenter-esque
aesthetics, without having to actually spell it out, it is clear that the
entire film is going to be a pastiche of all the things people love about 80’s
genre films.
Henry
Jackman’s
synth-inspired score is essentially every 80’s action movie score. A sacred law
in Black’s Predator universe, every
character has to be quippy. Virtually everyone’s line of dialogue is
back-to-back one-liners. Once they run out of good one-liners, they reuse some
from the original. There is even a character who says, “Get to the Choppa”, albeit in a throwaway manner. Known for his
knack for making fun of pop culture, here Black
is making fun of the 80’s film industry. Imagine, having a 21st
century comedian like Keegan Michael Key
describe the Predator as “alien Whoopi
Goldberg”. The Gen X demographic will surely die laughing at this
statement, while the millenials are mostly gonna be left scratching their heads.
Last but not least, like every 80’s action films, it features overly stylized
violence. Heads rolling, limbs rolling, body torn in half, people getting shot
and stabbed to death multiple times when one would do, that’s part of the meal.
Laugh or be shocked by it, that’s your call.
Despite its 80’s intention, Shane Black still directs the action
sequence like a modern-day action movie. Lacking the slow burn suspense of the
original though, Black goes all out,
Michael Bay-style this time
filmmaking-wise with his interpretation of action. That means cranking up the
decibels and mayhem full volume with wall-to-wall noises and explosions. Chaotic some might say, but to Black’s credit, they’re at least
watchable. He doesn’t go all crazy in terms of camera movements, which is a positive
in the sense that it allows the audience to enjoy the stunt work and gore on
display. If there is any criticism, it’s that the action sequence here feels
pretty generic, even forgettable. If there is any sequence to remember, it is
because it is so derivative of the original. There is even a shot of Boyd Holbrook’s character Quinn McKenna
rolling around the floor, screaming, which is reminiscent to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Get to the Choppa” scene.
And by far, the biggest improvement this
Predator had over its predecessors is the character design. Without
disrespecting the original, as much as it looks cool, it also looks way too
primordial to be considered a creature from space. Here, the Predator returns
in his most futuristic form ever. There’s much more sleekness and intergalactic
feel to its appearance. Certainly, the shiny battle armor and the gadgets help,
but even when we see the creature in its full form, without any clothes, the
lifelike details they put behind the anatomy and skin color makes it easier to
buy into this version as a creature from space than the one in 1987.
Black’s obsession
with recreating 80’s action movie thrills also proves to be The Predator’s biggest downfall. He’s so
eager on getting these tropes right that he forgot that he was making a Predator movie. For a film titled The Predator, its main attraction isn’t in
it that much. He is restricted to being a sideshow character, as his importance
rests more on what he has, in this case his technology, rather than his sheer, terrifying
presence. And to make matters worse, for a film referring to the Predator as a
singular being, there is actually more than one Predator. More by numbers, yet with
lesser menace.
There is never a moment that indicates that
they are a main threat to humanity, since they’re ever so shifting. For awhile, one Predator is the villain, and when that one is out of the movie,
it’s another Predator that is the real villain. When it seems like two
Predators aren’t enough, the film adds a pet Predator. Yes, there is a giant dog
with a Predator face roaming around town, who decides to fight for the human
race. Even when the Predators finally decide to become a villain, once their
master plan is revealed to us, it’s really not worth the struggle.
In fact, the true villain of the whole
piece is Sterling K. Brown’s
character, government agent Will Jaeger. As a result, this particular Predator
movie feels less like a Predator movie, as it is more interested in making an A-Team-like team-up action movie. It is
like the 1987’s Predator, only
reversed. The drug cartel sequence becomes its main plot and the Predator
sequence becomes the subplot. Within this film’s context, the government aspect
of the story is its main plot. The titular character and its technology are
just a MacGuffin, a reason to get a bunch of loony soldiers to finally kick a
government agent and his goons in the butt while making jokes.
Reflecting the uneven portion between
the action and the Predator stuffs, Black’s
desire to have it both ways also compounds to an incoherent story. It’s like a
storyteller trying to tell a simple bedtime story to a child in the most
convoluted fashion. Where simple should be enough to get the message out,
there’s a tendency that the story needs more characters, more subplots to make
it big and grand, to this film’s detriment.
On paper, The Predator has a simple premise. A Predator comes to town, humanity
is in danger, and it is up to a bunch of loony soldiers to save them. Simple,
right? Wait until a shady government agent with a profit-based desire behind
his pursuit of the Predator and his technology comes into the narrative, a
recurrent element in most Shane Black
films. Oh, and when one subplot isn’t enough, we’re then introduced to the main
character Quinn’s family, in particular his son Rory. He’s going to play a big
part in the Predator’s return to planet Earth. And then, guess what? Another
subplot enters as a Predator (by this time, the second in this film) walks
around town, with a sudden interest in Rory’s special gifts. So many things are
going on at once that it is often hard to follow what’s going on. A series of
events happen, without any buildup whatsoever.
Following many generic horror movie
clichés, the film often needs characters to make mind-boggling decisions in
order to progress the plot. Worst of all, it’s not the supporting characters
whose making the biggest gaffe, but rather the action hero. Here, he is Quinn,
or in other words Major Alan “Dutch” Schaefer 2.0. Whereas Dutch is a man caught
in an unfortunate circumstance, Quinn is partially responsible for all the mess
to begin with. How so?
The film starts off with this cool action
sequence where Quinn had just knocked out a Predator that killed two of his hit
squad members. While inspecting the alien wreckage, he discovers some advanced
Predator technology and then decides to steal it as evidence. What does he do to
keep it safe from human’s harm? He mails it to his ex-wife Emily (Yvonne Strahovski)!
Yes, wrapped in FedEx box, right in
front of the house, where even his son Rory can see. Some might argue that his
decision is to portray this film’s government as “untrustworthy”. Or to go one
crazier, maybe he’s just heartbroken at his dissolving marriage and sending
some doomsday device is a way to get back at her. Still, it is hard to believe
that the first decision a trained military officer and a family man, despite his
dysfunctional relationship with them, like Quinn makes is to put them in harm’s way.
Also, Rory here has a form of autism, which
kind of makes him handsy when he’s around things. The first time we are
introduced to this character, he is seen obsessively watching his fellow
classmates play chess, as if he’s trying to memorize the pieces’ positions.
Next, after a mild earthquake, and after all the kids are gone save for Rory,
he stands up, and then starts to rearrange the chess pieces, which had fallen
to the floor, in the same order that he had seen pre-earthquake, to highlight
his photographic memory skills. So, after he discovers the Predator technology,
what happens? Of course, he’s going to assume it’s a toy and starts playing
with it, which culminates in the Predator invading humanity.
Sure, the chain of mistakes only serve
as an excuse for Quinn to finally earn action hero status, but in a film that
celebrates machismo and the extremes a father will go through to protect his
family, it is also one that misguidedly celebrates brainless machismo and poor
parenting skills.
Fresh off his breakout role as
Wolverine’s villain Donald Pierce in Logan
(2017), Boyd Holbrook proves himself
to be a capable physical actor even as the protagonist. He’s obviously committed
to the stunt work, especially with the amount of running he does throughout
this film, but his breezy Texan accent and cocky swagger also makes him an
occasionally fun presence. Though, there is this inescapable feeling that he is
impersonating Arnold Schwarzenegger,
without the compelling traits. It is easy to care for Dutch since he’s always
constantly worried, and here, it is hard to care for Quinn, a man who is never
concerned at the idea of an alien killing people left and right, even when it’s
looming closer to his family.
Olivia
Munn
is also in this film, playing a scientist Dr. Casey Bracket, and yet, why is
she a scientist? She is basically a Black Ops member, doing most of her work
with a gun rather than a microscope. Throughout the film, she only uses a
microscope once (one that she somehow manages to discover in a stolen RV). Trevante Rhodes here is basically Mr.
T’s B.A. Baracus from the A-Team. He
speaks in a much smoother tone than Mr. T, but his function is the same: look
cool when he stubs out cigarette on his tongue, or say every line of dialogue
like it’s the next “I pity the fool!”
If there is anything surprising about
the performances, it is the fact that a comedic combination between comedian Keegan Michael Key and serious actor Thomas Jane works. Here, they play two
of Quinn’s loony crew, with the former being the jokester Coyle and the latter
a PTSD-affected soldier Baxley. As separate individuals, they’re funny on their
own, but they’re even funnier in a weird yet enjoyable way with their odd
back-and-forth.
CONCLUSION:
The
Predator
partially commits to its 80’s action movie conceit. It is filled with Shane Black’s typical dark, self-aware
humor, quippy one liner, gory over-the-top kills and unbridling level of
machismo, but with too much storyline and few moments of the Predator as a
villain to make it worthwhile.
Score:
5.5/10
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