Review: Shane Black’s The Predator is a total 80’s throwback (for better or worse)

As far as sci-fi franchises go, The Predator has had a fairly bumpy road. We first encountered the dreadlocked alien back in 1987’s Predator starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, a claustrophobic horror movie that brought a sci-fi twist to what was essentially a war story, complete with a jungle setting and a gaggle of soldiers. Then came the much-maligned Predator 2 in 1990 that saw the Predator stalking prey in a gritty Los Angeles. The less said about the silly Alien vs. Predator movies the better, but at least the franchise seemed to end on a relative high note with the Robert Rodriguez – produced Predators in 2010, a film that managed to capture the horror and comedy elements of the first film while pushing the world-building in new directions.

Eight years later we have The Predator, with 80’s action enthusiast Shane Black (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, The Nice Guys) at the helm. On paper, that’s an intriguing combination. Known for his comedy-heavy action films, Black was a great choice to reinvent the stagnant Predator franchise. He’s joined here by an impressive cast including Sterling K. Brown, Olivia Munn, Boyd Holbrook, The Room‘s Jacob Tremblay, and even Keegan-Michael Key.

From the opening moments, Black is very clear about the bonkers tone he’s going for here. After an obligatory opening shot of the cosmos, we cut to an alien ship in distress, with a frantic Predator running through the ship trying to correct its course before it crash lands on Earth. Soldier Quinn McKenna spots the Predator’s discarded armour while on a mission, and sends it back to the States to ensure it makes it out of the country he’s operating in. The armour accidentally makes its way to his home, where his autistic son Rory (Jacob Tremblay) finds it, unbeknownst to McKenna’s ex-wife Emily (Yvonne Strahovski).

While Rory is running around with advanced alien technology, McKenna is placed with a group of troubled government captives known as “Group 2” (after their therapy session number) including Nebraska Williams (Trevante Rhodes, fresh off his star-making role in Moonlight), and Coyle (Keegan-Michael Key). After escaping a secret government facility where the Predator breaks free from his captors, McKenna and his band of psychologically damaged cohorts manage to escape, brining along Casey Bracket (Olivia Munn), a biologist recruited by a shadowy government agent named Traeger (Sterling K. Brown) to study the Predator.

What follows next is basically an ultra-violent version of E.T., with McKenna and his crew pursuing the Predator through the suburbs. For a film that sounds fairly plot-heavy, Black is never overtly concerned with the story, preferring to linger on long stretches of the Group 2 members shit-talking and awkwardly trying to bring in McKenna and Casey into their fold, and embracing the gore as they Predator quickly dispatches with anyone it encounters.

Much of your enjoyment of The Predator will rest on your willingness to embrace the throwback 80’s nature of the film in every way. If offensive PC-baiting jokes about autism and suicide don’t have you wringing your hands in frustration, there is also the odd power dynamic of a group of men keeping a woman prisoner in a hotel room (played for laughs at their discomfort of course), or Traeger’s gratuitous F-bombs in front of a child (which is always funny actually).

The dynamic between the Group 2 members is the most cohesive element of the film, and balances well with the great group dynamic from the first Predator film. The group members all handle their Tarantino-lite dialogue well, and the oddly timed humour and general goofery of the team show off the Shane Black approach to action-comedy that has worked so well on his previous films.

The major drawback to the film is the over-stuffed plot, which seems to constantly be pulling the audience’s attention in a handful of different directions. A dreadlocked alien running through the suburbs is already enough to focus on — the entire government subplot of Traeger and his team trying to track down the Group 2 escapees never really goes anywhere, not to mention the subplot involving McKenna and his ex-wife, who stands by her man even after he carelessly puts her and her son directly in harm’s way.

Apart from the now infamous scene between Olivia Munn and a sex offender that was very publicly excised from the film at the 11th hour, The Predator feels like a movie quickly thrown together in the editing room. This comes through the most clearly in the film’s final battle scene, an anti-climactic fight with the Predator that’s seemingly over in a few moments. Action scenes in franchise blockbusters generally go on way too long, but here the scene is so chopped up that it’s hard to feel any sort of closure when the film wraps up.

The Predator is clearly meant to kickstart the next wave of this franchise, but even apart from the general ill-will towards the movie from the Olivia Munn incident, it’s hard to get too excited about Shane Black’s stab here. There are some great comedic beats, and the movie definitely delivers on the gore level for those genre fans who lament the rise of the PG-13 horror movie. Apart from those elements though, which will likely be compiled into a YouTube video quickly enough, there simply isn’t anything else to really recommend here. This is the sort of movie that will likely annoy diehard fans of the franchise, and simply perplex casual fans drawn in by their general pop culture awareness of the character. It’s not a terrible movie by any means, but it feels strangely inconsequential, if not forgettable. Maybe we’ll see a radically different director’s cut that somehow redeems the film, but until then you’re better of simply revisiting the eminently rewatchable original.

The Predator is in theatres now.