There is a very specific audience in mind for The Predator. It is an audience that is well versed in both the past installments of the Predator franchise, but also those who understand the tropes and expectations of action films, have a healthy love of sci-fi (but maybe not the attention span for too much actual sci), and want to see shit blown up. But more than anything else, this film is made for people who want to relive the glory days of 80s action cinema. If you know who Fred Dekker is, this movie will do you very, very right.
That said, if you’re hoping for a movie that reflects the tone, style, or values of 2018, you may want to look elsewhere. Keep reading for our spoiler-free review.
The Predator is a very loose sequel to previous films in the franchise, but is designed to be a brand new place to start for lapsed or new viewers. From a plotting standpoint, that absolutely works. Cute little allusions to the past films, either in the form of winks and Easter eggs or as jokes, help connect this to the greater universe, but there’s nothing about Predator that you need to know to enjoy this movie.
In a similar fashion, the movie wastes almost no time on unnecessary information. Especially in the first 30 or so minutes, everything is lean and cuts right to the chase. Less than 2 minutes into the movie, you’ve seen a Predator, which is very different from many of the reboots we’ve been seeing lately. I’m thinking particularly of Godzilla, where we spend a ton of time establishing the human characters, perhaps at the expense of some satisfying kaiju action.
Now, the downside of this is that most of the characters in this film boil down to a relatively simple stereotype, though co-writers Fred Dekker and Shane Black (who also directed) do throw some unexpected depth at a few of these characters later in the film. But, again, the relatively simple characters allow the film to move and fly by, leading to a truly action-packed experience.
Dekker and Black previously worked together on The Monster Squad, a childhood favorite of mine that shares some DNA with this film. The placing of a young child at the heart of the movie is another truly 80s touch, as is the bullying that young Rory McKenna receives throughout the film. Rory has Asperger’s Syndrome, and there are two boys at school who mock him for it pretty ruthlessly. Their language towards him is rough and, while you’re obviously supposed to think they are terrible for it, it is still a little shocking to see it in the film.
Language, overall, is one of the decidedly throwback-y elements of The Predator. When Rory’s father, Quinn, encounters his fellow misfit soldiers, they spend a fair amount of time ripping on each other and, in one very specific instance, ripping on one’s mother. These jokes are your standard frat-boy fare but, like the bullies, are just things we don’t really see in film anymore.
It’s hard to do a throwback to a time that isn’t all that far in the rear-view, because intention is harder to figure out. No one thought that Mad Men was expressing an authentic view of women; part of the reason of that show was to highlight the absurdity of the way women in the workplace were treated. But that was a period piece, this isn’t. This is a film set in 2018, but seemingly written in 1988.
There’s nothing really icky about the language used and, while someone’s hypothetical mom is slut-shamed in the form of jokes, nothing in the film feels predatory, pardon the pun. It is just a little jarring to see, especially in the day and age in which we live. It would also feel much more problematic if the rest of the film wasn’t so obviously an homage to the decade where Black and Dekker made their bones.
This is where I have to bring myself into this review a little bit, because I don’t think my experience will necessarily be shared. I’m 36 years old, and I grew up watching 80s cinema. Those tropes are in my blood, and so, on a very personal level, this film hit the sweet spot for me. It was a very nostalgic experience for me, and I had a lot of fun with it.
Continued belowA big part of that is the performances are, across the board, good. No one will be nominated for an Oscar for this, but everyone plays their part well. The soldiers are especially goofy; Thomas Jane gets to go against type, Keegan-Michael Key gets to be the comedic relief, and overall, there’s enough good actors in dumb roles to sell the stuff. Sterling K. Brown brings his chops down to the level of the film, and still is the best thing on screen at any given moment. Olivia Munn gets to do some fun action movie stuff that is ludicrous if you think about it for more than 5 minutes. (She’s a scientist, how would she know how to time the jump, holding a tranq rifle, onto the hood of bus without sliding off and eating it on the pavement?)
The most refreshing part of the film is that it knows exactly what it is. One of the problems with genre films in 2018 is that they really don’t exist on this stage anymore. They are all slash films – not slasher films – that use the genre to tell a bigger story. And don’t get me wrong, I love a good inversion of a trope. But there’s also a place for films like The Predator, that just want to be a big, dumb, goofy, action film.
Goofy is a key word, because like so many ‘classic’ action films at the time, there are inherently silly elements and pieces that don’t really connect when you think about them. Because of the connection to the past Predator films, however, there is an internal logic to the film that works, despite the silliness that occurs.
Critics have, thus far, been dogging the film for being a shallow gore fest. I get that; this is a shallow gore fest. But what do you want your Predator sequel to be, really? If you’re looking to eat some popcorn, see some (at times, a little shoddy) CGI monsters, and laugh at a joke about choppers, you’ll have a good time.
Some quick notes:
– There’s a cameo of an actor portraying the son of a character their father played in an earlier Predator film, and it killed the theater I was in.
– There’s a great, sly little Monster Squad reference that, if you’re a fan of the film, you’ll immediately get.
– This controversy appears to be quieting down due to, thank goodness, Shane Black and co. being adults about the situation. Black needs to address Munn specifically, and I hope that he does that. It is amazing that a veteran filmmaker needed to be told he couldn’t cast his sex-offender buddy.
– There is clearly some sequel-bait at the end of the film, but it is incredibly fun sequel-bait. We’ll see if that ever happens.
