The Predator (2018)

[baumer]

Discuss

[kaijukurt]

It wasnt very good for me. 

 

Pros:

-I liked the comedy, for the most part. Sure there were some misses, but a lot of the big humor moments landed nicely with the crowd and me. 

-Sterling Brown's character & the Loonies were fun to watch.

-Theres a good amount of Predator screen time. You dont have to wait long between appearances. 

-Neat forest battle. Theres a moment of pure terror where they shine a flashlight on the Ultimate Predator finishing off a soldier. 

 

Cons:

-Hopefully it wasnt just my cinema, but the nighttime scenes were frustratingly dark here. And there are a lot of nighttime scenes. 

-I think Ive been spoiled by the wonderful choreography of recent action films both big & small. The action here just wasnt choreographed/edited to be visually interesting.

A couple of slashes here, there. Rinse & repeat. 

-Despite the characters being fun, the movie disposes of them pretty casually. Sterling Brown literally dies in a blink-and-youll-miss-it moment. 

-Some plot stuff are out of left field. The hybridization/invasion plot point is understandable, but the characters managing to tame one of the Predator Hounds by shooting it in the brain felt like it belonged to a more comedic film. 

-A lot of the effects were subpar, IMO. Wonder if it was cos of the reshoots.

-The 3rd act is easily the weakest of the three. Rushed and with the weakest VFX in the film.

-Kinda felt some stuff were left out in the editing room. Our introduction to Olivia Munns character seemed awkward...as if we were supposed to have already met her. Some other scenes just didnt...seem right to me too. 

 

Honestly, Im just prolly being nitpicky cos of how disappointed I was in the incoherency of the night time scenes and the blandess of the action. Should give this another go in a brighter cinema. 

 

5/6 out of 10.

[Kravetz]

I liked this film a lot. We meet an assortment of characters, well developed and recognizable. Shane Black is having fun with the material. Predators, not hunters sound f$%ken cooler.  This is perfect summer movie magic. I know it's autumn. 

 

A few cons, that didn't detract from being submersed into this world.  I don't think higher functioning autistic boys talk like he did. It was uneven whether he can function or is special. The timing is off, as the predator 1 has a head start to get to his equipment, then the troops arrive, then they all meet in town as if the predator can't lock in and get there faster. Everything must be pretty close, the suburbs, the dam, the base. predator 2 blew up the ship without finding the missing piece? stopped searching. And I'll buy an autistic kid gets some of their language, but when did the military mercs have a translator, and why would he speak a message to evacuate? Maybe predators extract the language skills from a autistic boy, but they can get them anywhere on earth. Swallowing tech, then pooping it and it still worked. people can't last that long if they are on the roof of a bus or a space shipe that is flying without falling. And the cool leader of the bad guys dies too quickly. He should be in the sequel setting ending.  And global warming adapting their bodies for our world, that was all speculation. That predator 1 was on our side was unrealistic to assume. and they turn out to be true. I hope we live longer than 1 generation. 

[rukaio101]

Man, this was a disappointment. Here I was hoping for an awesome Shane Black Predator and instead we get... this. Now, I'll admit I've not really been following the behind-the-scenes news for this one much, so this is basically just my own speculation, but does anyone know if there were heavy reshoots/executive meddling/some kind of drama (aside from the sex offender stuff which I already knew about) behind the camera? Because when I was watching this, it definitely felt like something had gone on behind the scenes. Mainly because this movie is really kind of a mess and not at all in the ways that I was expecting .

 

The biggest problem for me, right off the bat, was the editing, especially in the first act. Scenes are awkwardly cut together with bland dialogue that feels like 90% generic exposition yet still somehow leaves you feeling like they haven't explained enough (another reason why I suspect behind-the-scenes shenanigans since fun dialogue is basically Shane Black's thing.) Don't get me wrong, it starts to find its footing by about partway through the second act, but it's the sort of incompetent editing that heavily reminded me of Suicide Squad. Which is never a great sign for any movie, to be honest.

 

Writing wise, it feels like they've jammed about two or three different drafts together without bothering to integrate them properly because there are soooo damn many elements and would-be Chekov's Guns to keep track of. There's the weird computer device thingy, the invisibility ball, that glowing green fluid Olivia Munn stole, Jacob Tremblay's character apparently learning how the Predator computer works, the Predator dog, the regular dog that turned up once or twice but never got an actual payoff, the Predator sparing Olivia Munn when she's naked and helpless which also doesn't get a payoff (in spite her really awkwardly bringing it up out of nowhere at the school) and probably many more that I've forgotten. And nearly half of Sterling K. Brown's actions (as well as the first Predator) in the first half/third of the movie make zero sense with the motivation that he's eventually given. 

 

On the positive side of things, I actually did enjoy the action a fair amount. It had a lot of great gore and violence and, as much as I complain about the abundance of Chekov's Guns all over the place, the action at least did have fun and inventive ways to use it. I will agree that some of the nightime stuff in the third act is hard to make out (to the point where I legitimately did not realise that that one shot killed Sterling K. Brown until I read kaijukurt's post just now), but I enjoyed it. I'm not going to claim it's anything outstanding, but as far as fun Predator action goes, I was satisfied. Although the fight with the dogs was hilariously bad. 

 

I also really liked the Loonies, who were easily the best characters in the film and a lot of their scenes and interactions were the only parts that actually made the movie feel like a Shane Black movie. I don't think it's a coincidence that when they're introduced is just about the point where the movie starts to pick up. They were easily one of the best elements in the film. Sterling K. Brown has fun with what he has, even if a lot of his character motivations/action make little sense. Olivia Munn is... there. Honestly, her entire character is mostly superfluous, kinda feels shoehorned in in a lot of ways, but I digress.

 

But yeah, this was still a pretty heavy mess. I won't say it's completely awful or not worth watching if you're a massive Predator fan, there's a lot of neat action and gore and ideas and stuff, but it feels like a movie that fell back into heavy last-minute reshoots/editing, to the point where it doesn't really feel like the Shane Black Predator movie I was hoping for. More just... a not-very-good Predator sequel lightly flavoured with Shane Black.

 

 

[kaijukurt]

3 hours ago, rukaio101 said:

Man, this was a disappointment. Here I was hoping for an awesome Shane Black Predator and instead we get... this. Now, I'll admit I've not really been following the behind-the-scenes news for this one much, so this is basically just my own speculation, but does anyone know if there were heavy reshoots/executive meddling/some kind of drama (aside from the sex offender stuff which I already knew about) behind the camera? Because when I was watching this, it definitely felt like something had gone on behind the scenes. Mainly because this movie is really kind of a mess and not at all in the ways that I was expecting .

 

Seems like it. Significant 3rd act changes and more if we go by this article

 

https://screenrant.com/predator-movie-reshoots-changes-shane-black-fox/

[KeepItU25071906]

Cliche, night "I can't see anything" action, cliche, night "I can't see anything" action, cliche, etc. And idiotic last line. "The Meg" after this looks like the jewel of the cinematography.

 

D

Edited September 16, 2018 by KeepItU25071906

[ddddeeee]

Weird. Everything Black normally excels at he completely messes up here.

[filmlover]

This was an atrocity along the lines of those godawful Alien vs. Predator movies from the mid-2000s. I almost refuse to believe Shane Black (whose works I'm usually a big fan of) was responsible for this. In fact, given that recent reports have surfaced that there was major studio interference (and boy does it show), I'm gonna assume it wasn't. You know that button on your DVD/Blu-Ray player that plays the movie out of order? That's what this is like given how haphazardly put together it is. The effects are cheesy, the cast is stuck with characters who are barely developed, and the action (which makes up close to the entire movie) is hard to make out at all times. To add insult to injury the movie's depiction and treatment of disabilities (Tourette's, Asperger's) enters into the realm of offensive. It's an embarrassing entry into the franchise that's especially soul crushing for a Shane Black fan, and will be hard to beat as the most disappointing movie of 2018 for me. D

[Godzilla]

To call this movie trash is an insult to trash. I saw this for free and felt ripped off. 

 

Bad action, terrible acting, god awful characters, cringey comedy, atrocious plot, I mean I could go on all day... F and I feel like I’m overrating it with that score... 

Edited September 19, 2018 by Godzilla

[jb007]

Complete waste of time.

 

D

[Webslinger]

It’s the quite the point of irony that in The Predator, the element that goes furthest toward holding the film back is… the Predator. The Predator feels like an awkward hodgepodge of two very different movies: a wacky action-comedy about a ragtag group of misfit soldiers sticking it to corrupt government soldiers and a dumb, paint-by-numbers sci-fi flick. The former is significantly stronger under Shane Black’s writing and direction, and it compensates for the lack of meaningful character development with a fair share of funny moments and solid cast chemistry. Whenever the proceedings have to give way to the story involving the title character, however, the fun mostly vanishes and an already dumb script becomes even dumber. The cast does a good enough job to enliven the characters despite not having much to work with, though Olivia Munn is noticeably shortchanged as the token girl. It’s really too bad that The Predator couldn’t just be a fun, dumb, gory action-comedy rather than taking steps to its detriment to play like a more conventional – and less interesting – action film.

 

C+

 

Stray Thoughts:

- It's abundantly clear that studio interference hurt this film. I don't know what Fox was expecting when they brought Shane Black onboard - after all, this is a guy who has a distinctive voice and makes whatever he damn well pleases, no matter how much it upsets the status quo (see: Iron Man 3). The film works best when his voice shines through. That being said, even with his other cut content was reinstated, it would still be a far better movie with some other creatures subbed in for the title characters. I think a not-insignificant part of the backlash to this movie comes down to no one really getting what they wanted: die-hard Predator fans got a tongue-in-cheek film that didn't do much with the Predators, and Shane Black fans got a film where his best qualities - while still discernible in this final cut - are dulled.

[TOG]

it's me, the only person in the world who thought this was perfectly enjoyable.

[The Stingray]

Semi-enjoyable at times, but overall an instantly forgettable mess. Worst in the franchise.

6/10