New Release! The Predator (2018) [No spoilers]

Director: Shane Black

Disappointing, but not as bad as the generally negative reviews might suggest.

Before getting to my thoughts on The Predator, a little background on me and the previous films (I'm currently writing up a longer post on the five previous Predator movies. Coming Soon.). I have a certain, almost irrational love for the original Predator from 1987. No, it's not high art. It's not even the best action movie one will ever see. But it is one of the leanest, most well-executed and uncluttered blends of sci-fi and action that has ever been put to film. It was also one of, if not the, best example of certain glorious excesses of muscled-up, macho films that were the hallmark of the 1980s. I still watch it every few years and greatly enjoy it every single time. The 1990 sequel starring Danny Glover was a dropoff but still an entertaining action flick. 2004's Aliens vs. Predator was a further step back, but has some worthy elements, while it's follow-up AVP: Requiem was one of the worst movies I've recently seen. Robert Rodriguez's stab at the franchise in 2010s Predators I found to be a highly derivative, strangely dull letdown, so I was not surprised that the franchise was deep-sixed for several years. It was also why I grew tremendously excited when, about three years ago, Shane Black's name was attached to direct a new Predator movie. Black is not only a great screen-writer and director, all of whose films I enjoy, but he co-wrote and was actually in the original Predator film. What could go wrong?

A few things, apparently.

Following the continuity of the previous Predator "solo" movies (and perhaps the first Aliens vs. Predator movie), The Predator follows U.S. Marine sniper Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook), who comes across an alien hunter, a "Predator," while on a mission in Central America. He manages to gather a few pieces of the alien's gear, evades a mysterious group who converges on the sight, and sends the gear home to his son and wife for safekeeping. Quinn is eventually picked up by his mysterious pursuers and sent to a compound back in the U.S. There, he is packed onto a bus with other mentally unstable, former servicemen. Before long, the Predator, who has also been imprisoned on the compound for study, escapes and starts wreaking havoc. Quinn and his new companions quickly band together, along with biologist Casey Brackett (Olivia Munn) in a race back to Quinn's son, to whom the Predator is now heading. Things escalate as we learn that the lone Predator is far from the only extraterrestrial with its eyes on earth.

The Predator is actually a moderately entertaining movie. Shane Black's trademark dialogue is present in many places, most notably the humorous banter between the main characters. And there's plenty of decent action, with a Predator running around causing all the carnage that one would ask of an intergalactic sport hunter. The action is never as captivating as the original film or the best parts of Predator 2, but it definitely showed more imagination and skill than any of the following movies in the series. I also have to give the movie credit for avoiding the primary mistake of Predators, which simply copied too many elements from the original. Most notably, the slow reveal of the Predator lost its effectiveness after the original film, so there is really no reason to tease the audience with it any more. The Predator doesn't waste our time with such a tease, but rather gets to the "Predator versus humans" action rather quickly. More quickly, in fact, than any other movie in the franchise. Sure, it does remind one of the brilliance of the original's slow burn, but that can never be recreated. I think Black was right to just get things going quickly.

But here is where the greatest problem lies. The plot is simply way too busy. This is a spoiler-free review, so I won't get into the details. Suffice it to say that I found there to be way too many plot threads to keep up with, creating a muddle. At first, it's all just a bit dizzying. Then, with time to think back on it, one recognizes more than a few loose elements and even outright holes in the plot. Thanks to a few other strengths, these issues don't completely kill the movie. They do, however, betray some lack of confidence in any sort of deeper tensions which could have been built through a simpler story and more measured pacing.

The crew of "troubled" veterans that throw in with Quinn and
Dr. Bracket to take on the latest visiting predator. The banter
between these misfits is what keeps the movie afloat at times.

I think one issue is that Shane Black's noir narrative sensibilities got in his way this time. Several of Black's films, most notably Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and The Nice Guys, make highly effective use of the laughably labyrinthine plots so wonderfully used by noir master novelists like James M. Cain and Dashielle Hammett, which were then effectively adapted into classic films like Double Indemnity and its ilk. And such narratives have fit Black's crime-focused movies to a tee. The problem here is that The Predator is not a crime story revolving around relatively realistic and grounded characters. The strength of this franchise's best films has been a fairly straightforward struggle between small groups of badass human fighters and a badass alien hunter that wants to kill them for sport. When it's been done correctly (again, most obviously in the original film), it's a blast. When the plot starts to get overly clever and complex, it just muddies the waters and robs the movie of potential thrills and suspense. The original Predator did have a bit of a story beyond the pursuit of Dutch's men by the Predator, but it was all introduced and effectively reconciled by the beginning of the second act. In The Predator, new plot twists and complications are still being introduced right up into and through the final ten minutes of the movie. Instead of just letting us sit back and take in some solid action and fun banter, the movie keeps raising and dealing with endless questions that it never really needed to raise in the first place.

Would I watch this movie again? Yes. And this is something I can't really say for Predators, which I hadn't watched since I saw it upon its release in 2010, and only rewatched for the purposes of doing a post on the entire film franchise. While I would love to one day see another Predator movie that can recapture a bit more of the magic of the original, I know that this is a very tall order. In fact, the tease of a sequel at the end of this movie left me thoroughly uninterested in the implied premise. In the meantime, an entry like The Predator is a decent placeholder. I was hoping for a bit more from Shane Black, whom I hold in rather high esteem, but perhaps I simply need to accept that the original movie has left shoes that are too large for even a skilled writer/director to fill.