I am so glad that after I make this review, I am off to see Prey because we’ve hit the final stop on my Road To Prey review series and it is one section of road I dread to drive down.
Back in 2018, this was one of my most anticipated movies of the year. So, we have an ultra-violent R-rated Predator movie that was basically going to be a blend of the first two movies; Shane Black is the director, we’ve got plenty of action, plenty of gore, and it stars Boyd Holbrook, Keegan Michael Key, Thomas “OG Punisher” Jane, and Sterling K. Brown? COUNT ME IN! The Predator looks like it’s going to be awesome.
It wasn’t…
I didn’t get the chance to see it in theaters and I heard everyone just despising it, calling it worse than the Alien Vs. Predator movies. Being the optimist that I am, I thought maybe people were overblowing it (which tends to happen a lot with movies) so I kept my hopes up. When it finally reached digital, my parents bought me the 4K version without even seeing it and we watched it. Two hours later, I was ready to march down to 20th Century Fox and purge them for this but Disney was already doing that for me at the time.
Predator (1987) Review
Predator 2 (1990) Review
Alien Vs. Predator (2004) Review
Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem (2007) Review
Predators (2010) Review
THE MOST TONE-DEAF MOVIE I’VE SEEN
Is it horror? Is it sci-fi? Is it a dark action film? Is it a silly comedy? I don’t know and The Predator doesn’t seem to know either. From beginning to end, the movie cannot stick to a single tone because sometimes it tries to go for the darker style of the original two films but then the look of the movie along with the dialogue will feel like Men In Black of all things. And not the good Men In Black, something more akin to Men In Black: International.
The humor in this movie COULD have worked if they had simply just dialed back a bit, but every character is so over-the-top and goofy that most of the poorly written jokes just fall flat and do not fit the Predator universe at all.
How do you make Keegan Michael Key unfunny? Granted, he is still the funniest character in The Predator but even his character becomes obnoxious after a while. Remember Hawkins from the original Predator? Imagine if every single character in the movie was some variant of Hawkins, that’s the cast of The Predator.
I’m not against humor in a Predator movie; the original Predator, Predator 2, and Predators had moments of levity but only in the right moments to keep things entertaining. The Predator can’t seem to go five minutes without some annoying and immature joke to pause the movie.
Even the damn Yautja Hunter himself is forced to be a clown with gags straight out of a Looney Tunes cartoon.
WASTED CAST OF CHARACTERS
Now, even though I hate how obnoxious they get, the characters in this one are far from the worst.
Boyd Holbrook plays this sniper whose team is wiped out by the Yautja at the beginning and he’s out to get revenge. That is a very simple character but I think he makes a decent main character to lead the film.
Keegan Michael Key, again is the funniest character in The Predator, but if they had just dialed back on the humor just a bit, I could have seen him becoming this awesome modern version of Hawkins.
Trevante Rhodes plays Nebraska Williams who is basically the leader of these lunatic characters that we follow and I ended up really liking him the most. He’s charming and he was probably the most grounded of the team but the writing just lets him down.
The villain is played by Sterling K. Brown and good god, this character was so annoying. Not in the antagonistic kind of way either. Traeger is a total cartoon villain who has to make every scene so silly and over-the-top that it’s impossible to feel any kind of threat from him. Sterling K. Brown is an AWESOME actor so why would you waste him as such a terrible villain? That’s not even getting to how the character dies which is one of the most laughably unsatisfying ways for a villain to go out but that is part of a whole other issue with this film that will get its own section.
Okay, I have given Olivia Munn every chance to prove herself, and to be fair, it’s a horribly made movie so it’s not her fault. With that said, I have yet to find a movie where Olivia Munn impressed me as an actress. In The Predator, her character is so bland that I often forget that she’s in the movie when she’s not on screen.
Ugh. Let’s talk about Thomas Jane. I love this actor, I think he is one of the most underappreciated badasses of Hollywood so I was so excited to see the closest thing to a Punisher VS Predator fight. Instead, what I ended up getting was another cartoon character and again, I’m blaming the writing for this. See, I have a friend who actually has Tourette Syndrome and after I got done watching The Predator, I instantly told her: “Do not watch this movie. It has probably the worst portrayal of Tourettes I have ever seen.” It’s played entirely for laughs and is so exaggerated that it actually angered me.
The rest of the cast was just…fine. They did their job but sadly, you can only do so much with one of the worst scripts to ever exist. Not even bringing in Jake Busey to play the son of Peter Keyes could bring me some joy and that’s sad.
STOP DEPICTING AUTISM LIKE THIS
One of the most aggravating aspects of The Predator to me is its depiction of Autism. Now, I love when a movie shows love and appreciation for those on the spectrum. Representation of neurodiversity is either sorely lacking or horribly depicted by Hollywood and sadly, The Predator succumbs to the latter.
The Predator introduces Rory, a kid with autism and this character could have been a great new aspect of this franchise. Instead, it’s one of the worst because not only are the symptoms the most cliche and stereotyped traits of an Autistic character but the movie basically tries to turn Autism into a weapon.
For no other reason other than “he’s Autistic”, Rory is able to decipher the language of the Predators, understand their tech, and it’s revealed that the Predator wants Rory because his Autism is a sign of the next stage of human evolution.
Instead of proper representation, it comes off as disrespectful since the character’s Autistic traits seem to just disappear by the mid-way point. I could go on and on about how disrespectful The Predator is to neurodiversity but honestly, I can just point you all to this article from Autistic & Unapologetic and they go into even more detail than I do as to why this Hollywood-ized version of Autism is more harmful than helpful.
I can say, however, that if you want a movie that casts a better light on Autism, go watch The Accountant starring Ben Affleck. Not only is it a great thriller, but its main Autistic character is written and performed perfectly.
A DISGRACE TO YAUTJA HUNTERS
Continuing the trope of trying something new with every Predator movie, The Predator introduces the Fugitive Predator and Ultimate Predator. Now I actually found myself really liking the Fugitive Predator who was this more classic Yautja Hunter but on a mission to go against his people since they had lost their way. This seemed like a really neat idea and I think Brian Prince did a great job with the physical performance as the Fugitive, playing a more nimble version of the monster with a surprisingly good practical effect suit by Amalgamated Dynamics.
Honestly, if they had stuck with this kind of Predator through the whole movie, it would have probably saved the movie just a little bit. Unfortunately, the Fugitive is killed off about halfway through the film and we are introduced to the Ultimate Predator.
My hatred for this thing knows no bounds. All they did was take the basic Yautja Hunter, remove all of the cool armor, make it twice as big, and make it a CGI monster. This thing is supposed to be the upgraded version of the Predator but it’s basically just a Hulk that uses spears and wrist blades.
Now, the idea that there are different sects of Yautja is nothing new. Predators had that concept and it worked really well in my opinion and so I was on board with the idea of these new Ultimate Predators being these more evil hunters who use the DNA of the beings that they hunt to splice with their own.
It would have worked…if the movie could make up its mind. At first, they make it seem like the Ultimate Predator was this new threat but apparently, the Ultimate Predator has always been the goal of the Yautja. They’ve been hunting us because our planet is…suffering climate change? Wait, what? And apparently, the hunting was never about proving themselves in a ritualistic trial of honor but was all about getting spinal fluid. Thanks for that retcon, I hate it.
It’s a total mess in the writing department, especially when the Ultimate Predator starts speaking English and we learn its plan. At that point, I had just given up hope on this thing being a cool villain but instead, I just wanted to see the Fugitive again. Or hell, I would have rather they expanded upon the Super Predators from the previous film because they were far more interesting as villains than this bloated thing.
Now, I’m not someone who usually complains about CGI since I am not an expert in the field, I am not a VFX artist. I couldn’t do better if my life depended on it………BUT I can recognize genuinely bad CGI when it pops up and why should I be nice to this movie now? The CGI for the Ultimate Predator is shockingly bad and that especially goes for the kills which all are done with digital blood and gore. Any fan of horror will say the same thing: a CGI creature is one thing but CGI gore never looks good.
I haven’t even mentioned the Predator dogs which look nothing like the dogs in Predators. These things were the dumbest part of the movie. Simple as that. Moving on.
STUDIO MEDDLING NEEDS TO STOP
Now you may or may not have noticed but I have not blamed Shane Black once through this whole review. When the movie first came out, I definitely did since this is the same guy that made me dislike Iron Man 3. However, I do not think this movie is Shane Black’s fault simply because it has been revealed that The Predator was the victim of massive studio meddling.
It’s almost on the same level as what Zack Snyder suffered with Justice League. So much of The Predator was reshot and/or rewritten as well as scenes being cut to the point where entire plotlines change and time passes in an instant.
This is especially noticeable when Sterling K. Brown’s character suddenly dies out of nowhere at the beginning of the climax. It’s not some epic confrontation between him and Boyd Holbrook or he goes out fighting the Ultimate Predator. Nope, he just…accidentally kills himself the instant that the action starts and I remember doing a double take when I witnessed this. This was the VILLAIN of the movie and he’s taken out like he was a random goon.
Apparently, the entire last 30 minutes of the movie was changed where instead of the goofy and over-bloated CG-fest that we got, it was originally supposed to be humans allying with classic Yautja Hunters to fight the Ultimate Predator. It was even supposed to end with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Dutch making a return for a stinger final scene.
There were also plans for an alternate ending that was apparently shot that featured an adult Newt from Aliens to set up a new Alien Vs. Predator project. All of this sounds amazing to me but the studio got involved and changed so much that I literally cannot in good conscience blame Shane Black since it sounds like he got screwed over. Even the studio ending that we got was enough to make me slam my face into my desk with this Predator armor that was clearly an attempt to capitalize on the Iron Man hype train.
I would love to see what the Shane Black version was like since apparently it was all filmed. Maybe one day 20th Century Studios could allow Black to finish and release that version on Hulu.
I HATE THE TITLE
This is a smaller flaw but I really dislike the title for this movie and it’s something that I’ve been disliking with a lot of newer movies. The Predator is not a new title, it’s just the same title!
What’s the new Halloween movie called? Halloween. What’s the new Scream movie called? Scream. Those are literally the exact same titles as previous movies! And simply removing or adding the word “the” to a title, does not make it a new title! The only time I accepted that was with The Batman and that was because it was a total reboot and that’s what the people of Gotham call him. Other than that, can we PLEASE just put some effort into titles?
Predator IV
Predator: Evolved
Predator: New Hunt
There I just provided three better titles without even thinking about it.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
I don’t want to talk about this movie anymore and I never want to see it again. The Predator is one of the most disappointing movies I have ever seen. It comes off as disrespectful to every other Predator movie out there, it’s all over the place, the tone is non-existent, and the studio meddling alone makes it one of the most frustrating movies to watch.
The Predator could have been one of the best entries in this franchise but instead, it’s almost universally labeled as the worst, and for good reason. I am going to give The Predator a 2/10. Skip this one and go right on to Prey.
My next review will be Prey after I watch it and let it sink in.
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