LET'S start with the good stuff about The Predator. First, it's not quite as stonkingly bad as either of the Alien Vs Predator atrocities.
Second, just like John Dabney's faithful recreation for the under-rated Predators in 2010, composer Henry Jackman pays loving tribute to the booming militaristic timpanis and forboding signature piano motif of Alan Silvestri's iconic 'Back To The Future in the jungle' Predator score from the original 1987 blockbuster starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Thirdly, at a hair over 100 minutes, The Predator is quite short.
Director and co-writer (with Fred Dekker, of RoboCop 3 infamy) Shane Black played ill-fated wise-cracker Hawkins in the original Predator, penned the first Lethal Weapon and was co-writer/director of Iron Man 3 and under-rated buddy cop pic The Nice Guys.
However, if you've been holding your breath that his return to the series was going to work miracles, you'd best exhale now.
Put simply, The Predator is a frustrating mess – frustrating, because it brings a few really interesting ideas to a franchise crying out for some honest to goodness invention, then squanders them via unforgivably messy execution.
This film feels like about three different flicks crammed into one, with essential moments from each left on the cutting room floor.
Star Boyd Holbrook (Narcos, Logan) plays McKenna, a US military-trained sniper who becomes a marked man following a chance encounter with a Predator.
Hunted by both the government agencies tasked with keeping the existence of these dreadheaded intergalactic hunters under wraps and the heat-vision-equipped aliens themselves, McKenna manages to suck his estranged wife Emily (Yvonne Strahovski from The Handmaid's Tale) and young autistic son Rory (Jacob Tremblay from Room) into proceedings by way of essential plot contrivance.
This allows Black to indulge in some chucklesome sci-fi horror tinged homages to E.T. as Predator tech is unleashed on a suburban neighbourhood on Halloween night with explosive results.
Meanwhile, McKenna is captured and interned by Predator-tracking government agent Traegar (Sterling K Brown from The People vs OJ Simpson), who already has a specimen from the recent crash under observation at a Top Secret Lab Facility staffed by white coated boffins including Sean Hayes (Jake Busey, son of Gary from Predator 2) and civilian biologist Casey Bracket (Olivia Munn).
In a very typical bit of Shane Black meta-humour, Bracket points out that the Predator isn't actually a 'predator' at all, but rather a sports-style 'hunter'.
"Yeah? Well we all took a vote and decided Predator was way cooler", snarks Traegar. It's very much that kind of film.
Before you can say 'get to tha choppa' – which actually is said at one point, after Munn has dropped a wince-inducing paraphrasing of another immortal Predator line – there's a Predator on the loose and only McKenna and the bunch of military goofballs he's been shackled up with can possibly stop it.
These psychiatrically unstable 'loonies' played by Trevante Rhodes (Moonlight), Thomas Jane (The Expanse), Keegan-Michael Key (Fargo), Augusto Aguilera and Alfie Allen (Game of Thrones), are perpetually acting nutty and spouting coarse one liners in a manner that's way less enjoyable/memorable/well written than the macho banter of Arnie's original squad of heavily armed expendables.
Traegar and co are also on its trail, as is – plot twist alert – a giant super-Predator sent to Earth on a mission to intercept the other dreadhead who has gone 'rogue'.
Despite that intriguing set-up, The Predator just seems to gets more irritatingly stupid and frustratingly incoherent with every passing minute.
Yet again, by the time of the highly derivative action climax – seriously, how many times are we going to watch actors 'surfing' on poorly rendered CGI spacecraft? – you'll be rooting for the aliens to win.
RATING: 2/5
Final rankings:
1) Predator
2) Predators
3) Predator 2
4) The Predator
5) Alien vs Predator: Requiem
6) Alien vs Predator
THE PREDATOR (15, 107 mins) Sci-Fi/Action/Thriller.
Starring: Boyd Holbrook, Olivia Munn, Jacob Tremblay, Trevante Rhodes, Keegan Michael-Key, Thomas Jane, Alfie Allen, Augusto Aguilera, Sterling K Brown, Yvonne Strahovski, Brian Prince.
Director: Shane Black
