gillespiesan

So after the Disneyfication of Star Wars and Alien, we finally get around to the abject ruination of the beloved Predator series. True, Shane Black came mighty close with The Predator back in 2018 and best not mention Alien v. Predator: Requiem at all but, in the excellent wake of Prey and Predator: Killer of Killers, hopes were extremely high for whatever Dan Trachtenberg would come up with next.

And then this. Predator meets the Mickey Mouse club or Predator and Stitch. Whatever, you get the picture. What we have been dished up here is the very furthest thing we could possibly have been given from the Predator we know and love.

I won't go into the depressing details of what we actually have to endure for the sake of the poor suckers who are going to spend their hard earned sheckles seeing this mess but I just need to say that Elle Fanning and Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi give it their best... and that's about it. Too much CGI, not enough horror and absolutely no tension.

This is gonna take a lot of coming back from....

Edge of the seat stuff for two hours. Two hours spent pondering the unthinkable. Seen from multiple perspectives, from the profound to the relatively mundane, human existence in all its forms laid bare in the face of nuclear obliteration. Rebecca Ferguson, Jason Clarke, Jared Harris, Idris Elba and Greta Lee are all totally believable as people dealing with the unbelievable. Kathryn Bigelow knocks it out of the park again.

And as for the ending? It's going to upset an awful lot of people but ask yourself, seriously, how else could this movie have ended? To be true to the previous two hours, there could be no other logical conclusion. Once you've dealt with your initial frustration, you'll see that this is true.

Please god we never see a group of people have to make the decisions that these people are forced to make. Dr. Strangelove at least gave us something to laugh at. There's nothing to laugh at here...

What's going on in Australia? Have they added something to the water? Not only have the Aussies made some of the best horror movies of recent years in Late Night With The Devil, Talk To Me and the astounding Bring Her Back, they've now kicked Universal's arse and made a better dinosaur movie than any of the last 4 or 5 Jurassic Park movies for a fraction of the budget.

Finally, dinosaurs are fun again. Seriously, how do you make dinosaurs uninteresting? Ask Universal, 'cos they managed it. Primitive War makes dinosaurs scary again. This movie puts US grunts right in the middle of that primordial world that the Jurassic World movies tried so hard to envisage but failed to do. The CGI is extraordinary for the budget and even some clunky dialogue and slightly hammy acting can't ruin the enjoyment factor.

Ignore the naysayers, this is good fun from start to finish. Are you watching, Universal?