The Predator is a silly, gory romp that will have the chuckling teenager in us wishing for more.
In an age where movies have a need to be socially conscious or require an effort in realism, The Predator is a breath of ridiculous, silly fresh air. Thank God for director and writer Shane Black and his outdated ’80s “sensibilities.” And we’re not being sarcastic here. The Predator never aims to be a brainy sci-fi pic. It’s a nod to the action genres of the past—akin to Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s ’70s-inspired exploitation double-feature Grindhouse.
WARNING: Potential Spoilers
The Predator starts with a bang and sets the tone for gore and testosterone via the main protagonist, Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook), and his cronies facing off against the legendary Yautja (the “scientific” name of this apex species). Of course, the first encounter is laced with the usual “what the hell is this thing?” reactions from the characters. It quickly moves into the arrival of a shady government agency led by Will Traeger (Sterling K. Brown) looking to exploit the technology of this alien wreckage.
Quinn, like the good main lead that he is, has to take a few souvenirs with him. But it’s hard to cross the border with state-of-the-art weaponry—especially with today’s TSA rules. So what does he do? He mails it to a P.O. box stateside. However, circumstances has his young son, Rory (Jacob Tremblay), receiving it. Oh, did we forget to mention that Rory also has Asperger’s. Yes, Rory being on the spectrum plays into the plot. Damn that Shane Black. For some reason, he really likes precocious juveniles in his movies … Iron Man 3, anyone? And speaking of Iron Man 3, we think the MCU sort of affected the ending to this film. We’ll just leave it at that.
Back to the agency. They’ve salvaged what they could from the wreck. But they just don’t have the expertise to pull all this research together. Have no fear. They bring aboard evolutionary biologist Casey Bracket (Olivia Munn) to give them a hand. She has no backstory and no real demonstration of her intellect. However, that’s not what makes the character unbelievable. It’s her other “abilities” that take this already fantastical movie beyond the dream realm. We’ll soon go into those.
Quinn, who’s the only surviving witness to the Predator’s arrival, is deemed a total nutcase and put on a bus with other former soldiers who were also officially labeled “unfit” for service. It’s here that we get a vomit of exposition from Nebraska Williams (Trevante Rhodes), one of the prisoners, in regards to who these soldiers are and what they’re afflicted with. We also get the initial glimpses of the type of humor we’re in for.
Our Predator soon wakes up, breaks free, and lays on the first round of carnage. Quinn, Bracket, and the motley crew of loony GIs meet up and join forces. Now, this is the part where Bracket becomes the most hilarious of characters. The narrative has already established her to be a scientist. So in what reality does a scientist—with no military training or any physical training whatsoever—leap from a rooftop and onto a moving bus, fire a weapon on said moving bus, and reload and use fully automatic weapons with precision? She also runs head-on into conflict—without first reasoning things out. Look, we all know that proactive characters are interesting, but this is taking it a bit far. But, hey, movie logic, right?
Throughout the film, we have all the gore a teenage boy could want. I know my 14-year-old self would’ve loved this. Hey, I found my current self doing some “oh damn!” moments in between chuckles. This is a type of movie that just isn’t made anymore. It’s a relic of the past. And it shows in the A-Team-like soldiers with their best imitations of Dutch and his buddies (Arnold Schwazenegger’s character and his merry band in the original Predator). There’s even a moment where Nebraska pays an homage to “get to the choppa!” But, alas, the words just don’t have the same eloquent gusto as the poetry dispensed by the Austrian Oak.
For all intents and purposes, this is an ensemble film, and the chemistry works. The characters get on each others’ nerves, but do make some heroic sacrifices. The strange thing is that Black does have a method to his madness. The crazy actions of the crew in the final act have a certain logic, given they were already established as damaged people.
As for the chronology of this film and where it fits in the franchise, it’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it type of deal. In the first act, we’re introduced to a character named Sean Keyes, played by Jake Busey—the son of actor Gary Busey, who was in 1990’s Predator 2. And this is no coincidence. Sean is the son of Special Agent Peter Keyes, Gary Busey’s character in Predator 2. So we at least know this takes place after the events of the ’90s film and maybe in parallel with 2010’s Predators.
And what about future installments? Black retcons the trophy-collecting behavior of these extra-terrestrials in an interesting way—making them a bit more science-based versus ritualistic—which opens the door to other narrative goals. There’s also the ending we spoke about initially. It sort of evens the playing field for humans in terms of the next confrontation.
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Gratuitous violence? Check. Unadulterated machismo? Check. Colorful dialogue laced with offensive words? Check. Unapologetic dark humor? Double check!
This is a case of “if it walks like a duck … ,” okay, you get it. The Predator is the best film in the franchise since the original. Yes, there are some pretty ridiculous scenes, but I think Black was and is fully aware of the audience laughing at them. It’s a fun movie that will have you reminiscing and telling the youngins, “Man, this was how good we had it back then.”
The Predator was released in the United States on September 14, 2018.
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