I can’t tell if I hated it or just found it mildly passable. I didn’t love it, that’s for sure. At any rate, I’ll be collecting my thoughts about this movie for a while but in the meantime, here’s my review of “The Predator.”
The original “Predator” with Arnold Schwarzenegger was sublime. As action/horror movies go, perfection. In 1987, Arnie had spent the past decade flattening baddies with his pinky finger, such that he needed a real challenge, and an intergalactic big game hunter who traveled to earth to hunt humans was it.
The sequel with Danny Glover was…OK. It’s watchable. It’s acceptable.
Other than that, there have been sequels that have been lame, forgettable and don’t even get me started on the Alien vs. Predator movies.
I wanted to hate this sequel a lot. It’s lame. It focuses more on humor and gives a lot of screen time to the humans and not so much to the Predator. Sequels have never been able to capture the magic of the original (plus that film starred two future governors.)
I will give this sequel this: since Predator 2, it’s the least shitty of a series of shitty sequels. (To clarify, P2 is better than this.)
The humor is 1980s style camp that you don’t see much of anymore. It made me nostalgic to watch, though at the same time, it’s not something I needed to see in a Predator movie either.
The plot is that a special ops sniper (Boyd Holbrook) happens upon a Predator landing, steals his equipment and his own government decides to throw him in prison to shut him up.
While being transported with a gaggle of other Army burn outs dubbed “the loonies,” he convinces them to break out to fight the Predator. Loonies include Trevante Rhodes, Alfie Allen (Game of Thrones), Key of Key and Peele who mostly provides comic relief and to my surprise, ex-Punisher Thomas Jane. Olivia Munn rounds out the cast as a sexy vet (the animal doctor kind) recruited to analyze a captive predator.
Sterling K. Brown stars as a government agent hunting the loonies and as a nice touch, Holbrook’s son has Aspberger’s syndrome which makes him bullied at school yet his “special” brain makes him the only one who can figure out how to use predator tech.
The movie is filled with plot holes, stupidity and it kinda makes you want to puke until people my age realize that many 1980s action flicks were like this but people took them seriously because they didn’t know better…so I suppose as an homage to the films that made Arnie a star, I can let the foolishness slide.
STATUS: I think it is possible to make a sequel that isn’t stupid. But I suppose they can do all the cash grabs they want without affecting Arnie’s original. Not worth a movie ticket or a rental. Feel free to stream it on cable. It is very stupid and silly and only becomes redeemable when you realize it’s on purpose as a 1980s action flick parody…which would be fine except I think that under-utilizes the predator.
Bookshelf Battle 