Tag: the predator

Length: 1Hr 47

Rating: 15

Release: 12.9.2018

About: From the outer reaches of space to the small-town streets of suburbia, the hunt comes home. The universe’s most lethal hunters are stronger, smarter and deadlier than ever before, having genetically upgraded themselves with DNA from other species. When a boy accidentally triggers their return to Earth, only a ragtag crew of ex-soldiers and an evolutionary biologist can prevent the end of the human race.

The Good

• The gore and horror is on point and I was quite surprised to discover it was rated 15. Even by today’s standards (which have relaxed somewhat) I would have expecting this to gain an 18. It doesn’t hide away from the violence or a body count.
• The rag tag bunch of misfits really worked for me and I just wish there had been a smoother way to introduce them. I personally would have started the film with Quinn boarding the bus and allow the narrative to play on the ‘crazy’ a little more and also keeping the Predator off the screen a little longer.
• The humour is low key and actually had me chuckling away at some parts.

The Bad

• As a movie in of itself, it’s a typical loud and fast alien invasion movie. It, in isolation, is a fair film. However, this is part of a well known franchise. Part of what I loved about that first one was everything you didn’t see.
• In the same sense, I felt that having subtitles and dialogue from the Predator it detracts from the species being the petrifying badass that I saw as a kid.
• The CGI in places is really ropey and, again, it removed all of the fear I had when I was watching these creatures fuck shit up. It’s very clear when a person is used and when it’s a CGI monster and it’s all to do with plot which is a shame as the man in the suit is quite impressive.
• How do you cast Yvonne Strahovski in an action movie and have her play housewife and make her a butt of a gun joke?! Yawn.

The Ugly

• Did Olivia Munn really have to be starkers, at all, during this movie?! Munn is an awesome actress who I first saw in Aron Sorkin’s the Newsroom, so its rather sad to see her reduced to gratuitous implied nudity and a Mary Sue (soldier/ genome expert/ zoologist/ Tomb Raider fantasy wank material. Delete to make her suit the scene)
• My biggest gripe of all is the god damn fucking kid. Firstly, why the fuck are you putting him on the spectrum, bring it up multiple times to do absolutely nothing with it?! We’re currently in a time of representation and, when it’s done right, I’m all for it. However, this ham fisted ‘we’re doing it for doing its sake’ shockingly misrepresents people on the spectrum as a ‘Rain Man fits all’. You know how your able to tell it’s an add on? The kid stops his sound sensitivity about 20 minutes in and never does it again. It’s not even like he’s got ‘mad skills’ with the tech. Everything he achieves is the result of what any kid would do: he fucks about with buttons.
• Secondly, he’s a shit and possibly a sociopath, but let’s just stick with the being a shit. I have never wanted a kid in media to die as much as this one. Like, even Carl in Walking Dead and Dawn from Buffy didn’t step on my last nerve this much. He’s a pussy who cowers at micro-dicks from school but will tell an officer with a gun to go fuck themselves?! Don’t get me started on the fact that he opened someone else’s post! Fucker!

Final Thoughts

I prefer my scares to computer game play style filming. I could see the attempt reclaiming some of what the original had going for it and I loved the gore, but ultimately I prefer my 80s version that scares the crap out of me.