The Predator

I'd heard nothing but bad things about The Predator, wall to wall hatred and mockery. It was even suggested that it was one of the worst movies of 2018 and comparable with the messy AVP movies. Going in I was forced to have low expectations, and I firmly disagree.

Let's make something clear, I am not saying The Predator is a good film because it simply isn't but worst of 2018? Absolutely not. It's just a badly flawed addition to the franchise yet manages to be oddly loyal at the same time.

So a Predator comes to Earth but this time the government is ready for it. Cue lots of action, blood shed but a pretty wafer thin plot that doesn't exactly go anywhere.

With a stellar cast including Thomas Jane, the stunning Olivia Munn and the excellent Keegan-Michael Key it had no problems on that front. Okay actually I retract that, the leading man Boyd Holbrook is less than impressive and just wasn't up to the task.

With an odd amount of comedy and levity The Predators tone isn't exactly in keeping with the original movies yet manages to solidly feel like a Predator film thanks to the original score and franchise tropes. I loved the first movie, I thought the second was passable and hated the third but this right here is underwhelming yet perfectly watchable despite the lashings of Hollywoodness it has.

Sure it's goofy and badly flawed but I'm not sure exactly what everyone expected. There are certainly a lot of problems with the film, I'd have liked it to be darker, I'd have liked it to be longer and I'd liked the original Predator to have gotten more screentime.

Regardless despite it's many many problems it comes under the category of harmless take your brain out fun.

The Good:

Loyal score

Some great nods to previous movies

Quite a few very funny moments

Decent cast

The Bad:

Lacks elements that should be essential for a Predator movie

Naff ending

Much of the cast feel wasted

The 'Predator' film series is a mixed bag, with the best being the 1987 film (a great film on its own) and its follow-up, the only great ones from personal opinion. Was actually really intrigued into seeing 'The Predator', despite hearing numerous bad things about it, and saw it anyway with an open mind. Just to make that clear in answer to the condescending accusations made by those defending the film without taking into account that those who didn't did see the film and simply didn't like it legitimately.

Can totally see why many were disappointed and share a lot of the criticisms directed against it. Didn't think it was that bad and it had its moments and decent assets, a 1-star film 'The Predator' isn't. Although towards the weaker end ranking films from 2018 seen, it is not one of the worst, being better than 'The First Purge' and 'Slender Man'. It's not a good film, hugely disappointing in fact, and has a lot of issues. As a Predator film 'The Predator' is a disgrace, but as a standalone film judged on its own terms it also doesn't work.

Before getting on to the faults, 'The Predator' has good points. It looks good, very slick and atmospheric with some of the effects being great and imposing.

At times, the action is fun and edge of your seat, contributing to the occasional glimpses of tension and excitement lacking elsewhere, with cohesive choreography and spectacular stunts. The film also begins promisingly, zippy in pace and quite thrilling.

When it comes to the predator, it is scary and imposing enough, as are the other creatures and their methods, and the gore does disturb and doesn't feel too gratuitous.

However, Shane Black's direction is constantly wayward and fails to generate much momentum, personality or clarity of storytelling. The character chemistry is not very natural and excepting perhaps Jacob Tremblay the acting doesn't seem very engaged or at ease. The characters are sketchy in development, are very difficult to get behind and their credibility is zero. There is effort to develop them, but through very clumsily written, superficially soap-operatic and blatant exposition that doesn't always feel necessary, adding nothing to the story or characters and failing to intrigue.

On top of that, the story, as well as being slight and at times sluggish, is far too complicated and busy which makes some of the film very hard to follow and at worst incoherent. There is lots of chaos and noise on the surface but no brains or soul underneath, while there is very little tension, suspense or surprises, relying on the action to make the film watchable which it marginally does. The atmosphere generally is bland and doesn't evoke enough scares, not enough to bite the nails anyhow. Nothing memorable about the music and the basic concept doesn't feel that much evolved, having not enough freshness, and it is too forgetful of what made the franchise at its best so great and too cheesy and bland to be a tribute or throwback.

It is the script that comes off the worst and nearly single-handedly brings 'The Predator' down, bad enough to warrant its own paragraph. It is far too talky in the exposition, it rambles often pointlessly and sometimes with not much cohesion, plausibility is as non-existent as the credibility, there is excessive sentimentality in spots and muddled moments and worst of all the over-reliance of humour. Next to none of the humour works which is a massive problem, it is eye-rollingly cheesy and not placed or timed very well too often, also being repetitive and distastefully vulgar.

Overall, not awful but mediocre. 4/10 Bethany Cox

One step above parody. Without question it's the worst in the franchise.

I went into this movie trying my best to stay objective and take it for what it was. And I enjoyed it as a sci fi action movie, it wasn't bad. No where near as bad as some of the more fanatical fans seem to think it was here.

Acting was good, screenplay was good, pacing was good. Story was actually not that bad neither. Unless someone wanted to try and challenge the original in terms of plot, there's not many options that works, this kinda did work.

If you ignore the more crazy fans that like to bash on anything that's not on par with their own opinions, you'll enjoy this film.

People don't seem to understand that rating 5 out of 10 is "watchable but not for me." ratings. Yet there's individuals out there that give perfectly alright movies 2 and 3 stars just because they can't give objective opinions even if their lives depended on it.

But I digress.

The movie was a excellent action movie, a great sci fi movie and a questionable Predator movie. So how should we base the rating then?

7/10 action movie. 7/10 sci fi movie. 5/10 Predator movie.

Final verdict = 6/10

It is a parody of Predator. Don't expect science fiction or story line just a poor action comedy film.