Review: The Predator

The Predator

The movie isn't worth the emotional energy it takes to be angry at it, yet somehow I still am.  It's the 4th entry in the series (6th if you count the the Alien vs. Predator films), so I shouldn't be expecting too much, but it still somehow manages to disappoint me in such a way that I honestly don't know where to begin.

The movie is a soft reboot of the franchise (it acknowledges 1 and 2, but not the other 3) and focuses on Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook), a sniper who has a run in with a Predator and manages to incapacitate it and sends some of its armor to his estranged wife (Yvonne Strahovski) and son Rory (Jacob Tremblay).  I'd give the name of the wife character, but the movie doesn't care about her, so I'm not sure why I should.

After he mails off the armor, the movie decides to throw out a plethora of plots for the viewer to keep track of with about as much attention as one would expect from a 95 minute movie to have with that many plotlines.

Plot #1 is the son being autistic and being able to 'figure out' the alien technology, which puts both the original Predator and the Bigger Predator on his tail, (Plot #2).  Meanwhile, some government guy trying to find the Predator's ship (Plot #3) has Quinn sent to the loony bin where he teams up with a bunch of other soldiers (Plot #4) to rescue his son (Plot #5).  During this, scientist Casey Bracket (Olivia Munn, giving this movie a better performance than it frankly deserves) discovers that the Predators are up to something (Plot #6).  Oh, and also, as mentioned above, a Bigger Predator comes in for reasons that I will get in a moment (Plot #7).  So consider yourself spoiler-warned.

The movie spends quite a bit of time with the soldiers, all of whom have some sort of mental problem that is played for laughs.  They are fairly interesting and do provide some comedic moments, but it plays into the greater tonal problems the movie suffers from - it doesn't take itself seriously enough to be a straight horror film, but keeps trying to have 'stakes' as if it is one.  It kinda wants to be an action movie, but most of the action scenes are incidental.

About halfway through - once the characters are established in the barest sense - the Bigger Predator appears.  Now, one of the bigger focal points of the trailers was that the Bigger Predator was going to come and up the stakes - 'the hunter becomes the hunted' and all that.  Precious little time is afforded to this, and when it finally happens, the audience gets about 5 minutes of that before the Predator is killed and it switches to the Bigger Predator going after the ship. 

However, we do get to focus on the government guy (Sterling K Brown giving the sort of godawful hammy performance the movie actually does deserve while still giving objectively the single worst performance in the film) as he takes Rory to the ship and OH MY GOD WHY DO WE HAVE A HUMAN VILLAIN IN A MOVIE THAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE PREDATOR VS BIGGER PREDATOR?!

There is so much to hate about this movie.  I think the part the pissed me off the most - even though it is an inconsequential joke at best - was where one of the soldiers (who has Tourette's) says 'Shove it up your pussy' (or something similar) to Olivia Munn's character and when she get mad at him for it (not knowing he has Tourette's) all of the soldiers try to convince her that he said something else when she clearly knows that he didn't and JESUS FUCKING CHRIST DO WE REALLY NEED A GASLIGHTING JOKE AFTER SPENDING TWO YEARS OF DEALING WITH THAT SHIT CONSTANTLY FROM OUR PRESIDENT?!  READ THE GODDAMN ROOM!

And the movie tries to have it both ways - spending far too much time with a social justice warrior-type message about autism that it undermines before it starts.  It's almost as if PLAYING THE PTSD AND MENTAL ILLNESSES OF THE SOLDIERS FOR LAUGHS MAKES IT SO THAT NO ONE TAKES YOU SERIOUSLY WHEN YOU TRY TO TALK ABOUT HOW AWESOME AUTISTIC PEOPLE ARE!  FOR FUCK'S SAKE, DID ANYONE READ THIS SCRIPT!?

Production issues?!  MAYBE CUT ALL OF A SINGLE PLOT POINT INSTEAD OF JUST RANDOMLY SHREDDING SHIT LEFT AND RIGHT SO THAT NOTHING MAKES SENSE AND NOTHING GETS EXPLAINED FULLY!

AND WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING TO LEAVE IN TWO SEQUEL HOOKS WHEN YOU OBVIOUSLY THINK THE MOVIE IS A PIECE OF SHIT?!  YOU'RE INSULTING EVERYONE IN THE THEATRE WITH YOUR DAMNED 'LOOK WHAT'S COMING NEXT!' BULLSHIT ENDING WHEN THE MOVIE WAS DECLARED A STINKER BEFORE IT WAS EVEN RELEASED - AS EVIDENCED BY YOUR DAMNED CUTS!

AND WHY WOULD YOU LEAVE IN ALL THE STUPID CLUNKER JOKES WHILE YOU ARE CUTTING ALL THIS SHIT!  YOU HAVE AN AUTISTIC CHILD BLOWING UP A HOUSE FULL OF PEOPLE AS A FUCKING JOKE?!  HOW IS THAT FUNNY?!  HOW DOES IT WORK IN THE CONTEXT OF YOUR FUCKING FILM?!

AND I'M NOT EVEN GOING INTO THE BULLSHIT WITH THE SEXUAL PREDATOR BEING IN THE MOVIE AND CUT AT THE LAST MINUTE!  THIS MOVIE IS INFURIATING ENOUGH WITHOUT HAVING TO DEAL WITH THAT SHIT!  OLIVIA MUNN WAS RIGHT, APOLOGIZE AND IF YOU ARE ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE ACTING LIKE MUNN WAS SOMEHOW WAS AT FAULT, GO SHOVE YOUR HEAD UP YOUR ASS!

3.0 out of 10.