Review of The Predator (2018) by Euu — 14 Sep 2018

The Predator is what happens when moronic executives hire a comedy director to make an entry in an action/thriller franchise, then realise their mistake and force him to reshoot scenes, making things even worse. This movie is a freaking mess, a hodgepodge of different ideas, each ripped of from older entries in the franchise. So you have the suburban setting of AvP 2, the super predators from 2010' Predators, the shady Goverment Agency trying to capture the aliens from Predator 2 and of course, the heroes being hunted in the forest from the Original, which for some reason they cram it in the last 15 minutes of the movie.

I think this has to do with many people misunderstanding the original as being dumb, 80's fun. The plot of Predator 1 was simple, but not dumb. It was effective in what it tried to accomplish. Like most of Shane Black's scripts, The Predator lacks any kind of coherency and it also has that modern tendency to try to make fun of its source material, reaching almost The Last Jedi levels of disrespect to the themes of the first movie. Luckily, unlike Rian Johnsosn, Black is not a complete hack and he is able to write some good characters and banter between them. It was clear that this new cast will lack the chemistry of the original and it's kind of hard to sell this as a team of badasses when Olivia Munn is the only one of them with a jawline, but the movie did make me care enough about them when they meet their demise.

The action on the other hand is the worst in any movie in the franchise. Imagine the most bland and devoid of tension action in a Marvel movie, only with lots of gore. And that's not even the worst part. The greatest sin this movie commints is changing the lore of the Predators. After 5 movies where these creatures were simply sport hunters(hell, even this movie makes a big deal out of this) we find out that the reason they hunt us is to upgrade themselves. Oh, yeah, and there are some of them who want to save us from the others, as well as from Global Warming, because you need to have that shoved in a freaking Predator film too.

At best, this movie might entertain you if all you want is a dumb action sci fi with Yo Mamma jokes. At worst, it will make you wish you were watching AvP 2 instead.