Post by slayer77 on Sept 20, 2018 19:42:49 GMT -5
[SPOILERS AHEAD]
Well, where to begin?
I’ll be honest I went into this movie with very low expectations especially as most of the early marketing when they announced Shane Black as the director revolved around them saying he’s the guy that did Iron Man 3, Iron Man 3 was terrible, they completely ruined the Mandarin, ignored the rich comic history of the character and fucked over long time fans but I digress. This is a review of The Predator and not Iron Man 3 but anyway that was a huge red flag to me even though Black was an uncredited co-writer on Predator and portrayed Hawkins (first guy killed by a Predator on screen for all you newbys out there) and yes I was a little excited at having an old Predator alumni return to oversee things I was still a little hesitant. Then they announced they were going to follow a storyline revolving around genetic manipulation and I immediately thought great Predator’s doing a Jurassic World. The first trailer was released and I was still unsure. The second trailer and I was a bit more settled with the idea and approach to the mythology they were going for. Then I kept away from anything related to The Predator, the only Predator news I saw after that was when Olivia Munn discovered Shane Black hired a sex offender to play a minor character in a scene opposite her without disclosing it. Anyway I went in with low expectations and ignored the 3 and 4 out of 10 reviews I saw.
I enjoyed the film. I’d give it a 6 out of 10, it surpassed my expectations especially having since caught up on all the reshoot stuff they did and the rewrites. I was not particularly convinced by the idea going in but they pulled it off ok enough. If I’m being honest I wasn’t a huge fan of The Ultimate Predator. I liked the opening with the Fugitive attacking McKenna’s squad and him stealing the tech. I liked the Fugitive’s breakout sequence from Project Stargazer and I liked the Ultimate Predators unveiling where it tore off the Fugitive’s head. One of my favourite moments in the film was when Casey Brackett was cowering in the decontamination showers and the Fugitive clearly aware someone was in there stalks around till it finds her, I liked how the tension was built up in that small segment. I enjoyed a lot of the acting, Keegan-Michael Key I thought was great as Coyle and I liked how his character was built up and exploring his friendship with Thomas Jane’s Baxley who was also done well. I have to say I enjoyed the ‘loonies’ generally and I really liked Olivia Munn as Casey Brackett. Perhaps somewhat controversially since a lot of reviews seem to be praising his performance which I’ll be honest isn’t bad but I felt Jacob Tremblay was a little weaker than the rest of the performances. I felt the story was easy to follow, I read a couple reviews that felt the story was too complex and hard to follow, I was the opposite, I didn’t find it complex at all and felt each plot line was very easy to follow. I also loved some of the dark humour in it such as the Fugitive using the dismembered arm of a soldier to give another soldier a thumbs up and ordering the ‘loonies’ to drop their weapons when it grabbed Nettles.
My biggest disappointment with the film though, aside from the lack of Arnie reappearing, was there wasn’t enough gore. Now some of you may wonder what I’m talking about considering I just talked about dismembered limbs but we didn’t get any of the classic Predator butchery. The Fugitives breakout came close when it clawed a guys face off with its hands and bit another guy (the Ultimate Predator does something similar later on) but it was generally just hack and slash. The closest we got to some of that Predator gore was when the Ultimate tore off the Fugitive’s head taking its spine with it and the opening where one of McKenna’s squad seems to have had the skin on his back cut open but we didn’t get any of the classic skinned corpses or skull rips. The closest we get is watching Lynch get his arm blown off by the Ultimate Predator before firing off a flare to alert the others, his following death isn’t shown. It felt to me very tame in terms of gore for a Predator film. There’s a lot of CGI blood as well when we see people get dismembered which looks very 300: Rise of an Empire and generally I didn’t think the CGI for some of the blood or the Ultimate Predator was particularly good. I liked the space sequence at the start which showed how the Predators travel around the universe but you can tell you are watching CGI.
As a result the practical effects show up the not so great CGI even more, the Fugitive feels like a real Predator but the CGI’d Ultimate Predator doesn’t feel real within the film at points because of the contrast. Now the story, I think aspects such as the relationship between Quinn and Rory and Casey looking into the Predators biology worked and were interesting but the big things that weren’t so great were firstly the whole, the Fugitive was bringing us something to help fight Yautja. Now this is something the humans seem to assume in the film or at least the Stargazer people assume it and it sticks which has caused a lot of people to think the Predator is bringing humanity a gift to wage war against Yautja. Now if that was Shane Black’s intent I think it’s poor because it contradicts Predator mythology, look at Scarface, he gets exiled from his clan for losing his equipment and 100 years later is sent to recover his lost possessions and destroy the crime family that stole them, why would the Fugitive suddenly decide to give humans some of its tech, it doesn’t fit. Personally I don’t think Shane Black was going for that, the Fugitive’s jump to Earth is more a desperate attempt to flee from having his ship destroyed by the Ultimate Predator. I think the Fugitive likely intended to keep the weapon he ‘gifts’ humanity to fight against the Ultimate Predator’s clan which he was presumably a member of or at least bring it to a rival clan that who knows maybe is against genetic manipulation.
But that brings me onto this weapon, now from apparent reviews it seems the pod the humans recover with the Predator killer in was originally intended to be Dutch which makes more sense than what we got, though admittedly not if Shane Black intended the Fugitive to not be delivering a ‘gift’ to humanity. Anyway the film ends with the humans getting what is basically a Predator version of the Iron Man suit... great. Whilst I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing Quinn McKenna go toe to toe with a few Predators in that thing it seems very out of place. It’s almost like Shane Black is intending to set up a war between humans and Predators which seems to be for no apparent reason. Predators can’t survive for lengthy periods on Earth without their biomasks, unless utilising human DNA has made them more adaptable and sure enough the world is getting hotter with global warming so the climate may be more tolerable at least in warmer territories. Then there’s this thing I see in a lot of fan and critic reviews about Predators wanting to takeover Earth which I don’t remember in the movie though maybe it was a throwaway line early on at Project Stargazer but even then that’s just conjecture from the human characters guessing at what they think is going on when in reality they have no answers.
The final hunt with the Ultimate Predator seems boring as well, the worst it does is throw Baxley onto a tree branch and gut Coyle but not finish the job, it leaves the two to shoot each other in honestly a cool scene for me but other than munch a guys face off the Ultimate Predator does about fuck all before kidnapping Rory. Even Sterling K Brown’s character who’s a real asshole and you spend most of the movie waiting to see the Predator tear him apart with eager intent has a shit death, the Predator doesn’t kill him, skin him or tear out his spine, instead he blows his own head off with a plasma caster he’s utilising and clearly doesn’t understand how to use in a blink or you’ll miss it moment. Then we have Nettles death which isn’t completely terrible, it shows how dangerous the Predator’s shields are, slicing both of Nettles legs off at the knee cap and sending the rest of him falling into the forest below as he loses his grip on the ship. Trevante Rhodes’ Nebraska then jumps into the ships engine causing it to crash land as Quinn attacks the Predator rather poorly spending most of his time dangling by his ankles.
Casey who didn’t get on the Predator’s ship when it took off suddenly appears to have traversed the section of the forest they’ve flown over as fast as the ship as she quickly arrives to help Quinn and Rory beat it. It’s a decent death, Quinn manages to hold back the Predator to allow Rory to activate the ships shield to slice off its arm, Casey throws a Predator grenade underneath it as Quinn just about manages to pick up its severed arm and fire its wrist blade into its leg causing it to grab its leg in pain whilst the plasma caster is still activated, the resulting blast hitting the grenade and blowing the Predator’s limbs off and leaving it a bloody mess. There is a moment where Quinn asks what it is and I could swear it said ‘Yautja’ before Quinn puts a final round into its head killing it. Ultimately it wasn’t the best of stories and I’ve realised I forgot to talk about the Hell Hounds but they don’t really do much and become more comic relief in the film than anything else. It’s a bit of a messy story but honestly I enjoyed it more than ‘Predators’ which seemed to expect you to have read all the press release regarding each of the characters beforehand, honestly with ‘Predators’ I felt I got to know the characters far better playing the iOS game instead of watching the film. It’s better than AVP: R, AVP and Predators but I still think Predator 2 and Predator are leaps and bounds ahead of it.
In summary it’s enjoyable, adds something new that’s interesting but not massively explored though Predator deserves a better movie.
Well, where to begin?
I’ll be honest I went into this movie with very low expectations especially as most of the early marketing when they announced Shane Black as the director revolved around them saying he’s the guy that did Iron Man 3, Iron Man 3 was terrible, they completely ruined the Mandarin, ignored the rich comic history of the character and fucked over long time fans but I digress. This is a review of The Predator and not Iron Man 3 but anyway that was a huge red flag to me even though Black was an uncredited co-writer on Predator and portrayed Hawkins (first guy killed by a Predator on screen for all you newbys out there) and yes I was a little excited at having an old Predator alumni return to oversee things I was still a little hesitant. Then they announced they were going to follow a storyline revolving around genetic manipulation and I immediately thought great Predator’s doing a Jurassic World. The first trailer was released and I was still unsure. The second trailer and I was a bit more settled with the idea and approach to the mythology they were going for. Then I kept away from anything related to The Predator, the only Predator news I saw after that was when Olivia Munn discovered Shane Black hired a sex offender to play a minor character in a scene opposite her without disclosing it. Anyway I went in with low expectations and ignored the 3 and 4 out of 10 reviews I saw.
I enjoyed the film. I’d give it a 6 out of 10, it surpassed my expectations especially having since caught up on all the reshoot stuff they did and the rewrites. I was not particularly convinced by the idea going in but they pulled it off ok enough. If I’m being honest I wasn’t a huge fan of The Ultimate Predator. I liked the opening with the Fugitive attacking McKenna’s squad and him stealing the tech. I liked the Fugitive’s breakout sequence from Project Stargazer and I liked the Ultimate Predators unveiling where it tore off the Fugitive’s head. One of my favourite moments in the film was when Casey Brackett was cowering in the decontamination showers and the Fugitive clearly aware someone was in there stalks around till it finds her, I liked how the tension was built up in that small segment. I enjoyed a lot of the acting, Keegan-Michael Key I thought was great as Coyle and I liked how his character was built up and exploring his friendship with Thomas Jane’s Baxley who was also done well. I have to say I enjoyed the ‘loonies’ generally and I really liked Olivia Munn as Casey Brackett. Perhaps somewhat controversially since a lot of reviews seem to be praising his performance which I’ll be honest isn’t bad but I felt Jacob Tremblay was a little weaker than the rest of the performances. I felt the story was easy to follow, I read a couple reviews that felt the story was too complex and hard to follow, I was the opposite, I didn’t find it complex at all and felt each plot line was very easy to follow. I also loved some of the dark humour in it such as the Fugitive using the dismembered arm of a soldier to give another soldier a thumbs up and ordering the ‘loonies’ to drop their weapons when it grabbed Nettles.
My biggest disappointment with the film though, aside from the lack of Arnie reappearing, was there wasn’t enough gore. Now some of you may wonder what I’m talking about considering I just talked about dismembered limbs but we didn’t get any of the classic Predator butchery. The Fugitives breakout came close when it clawed a guys face off with its hands and bit another guy (the Ultimate Predator does something similar later on) but it was generally just hack and slash. The closest we got to some of that Predator gore was when the Ultimate tore off the Fugitive’s head taking its spine with it and the opening where one of McKenna’s squad seems to have had the skin on his back cut open but we didn’t get any of the classic skinned corpses or skull rips. The closest we get is watching Lynch get his arm blown off by the Ultimate Predator before firing off a flare to alert the others, his following death isn’t shown. It felt to me very tame in terms of gore for a Predator film. There’s a lot of CGI blood as well when we see people get dismembered which looks very 300: Rise of an Empire and generally I didn’t think the CGI for some of the blood or the Ultimate Predator was particularly good. I liked the space sequence at the start which showed how the Predators travel around the universe but you can tell you are watching CGI.
As a result the practical effects show up the not so great CGI even more, the Fugitive feels like a real Predator but the CGI’d Ultimate Predator doesn’t feel real within the film at points because of the contrast. Now the story, I think aspects such as the relationship between Quinn and Rory and Casey looking into the Predators biology worked and were interesting but the big things that weren’t so great were firstly the whole, the Fugitive was bringing us something to help fight Yautja. Now this is something the humans seem to assume in the film or at least the Stargazer people assume it and it sticks which has caused a lot of people to think the Predator is bringing humanity a gift to wage war against Yautja. Now if that was Shane Black’s intent I think it’s poor because it contradicts Predator mythology, look at Scarface, he gets exiled from his clan for losing his equipment and 100 years later is sent to recover his lost possessions and destroy the crime family that stole them, why would the Fugitive suddenly decide to give humans some of its tech, it doesn’t fit. Personally I don’t think Shane Black was going for that, the Fugitive’s jump to Earth is more a desperate attempt to flee from having his ship destroyed by the Ultimate Predator. I think the Fugitive likely intended to keep the weapon he ‘gifts’ humanity to fight against the Ultimate Predator’s clan which he was presumably a member of or at least bring it to a rival clan that who knows maybe is against genetic manipulation.
But that brings me onto this weapon, now from apparent reviews it seems the pod the humans recover with the Predator killer in was originally intended to be Dutch which makes more sense than what we got, though admittedly not if Shane Black intended the Fugitive to not be delivering a ‘gift’ to humanity. Anyway the film ends with the humans getting what is basically a Predator version of the Iron Man suit... great. Whilst I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing Quinn McKenna go toe to toe with a few Predators in that thing it seems very out of place. It’s almost like Shane Black is intending to set up a war between humans and Predators which seems to be for no apparent reason. Predators can’t survive for lengthy periods on Earth without their biomasks, unless utilising human DNA has made them more adaptable and sure enough the world is getting hotter with global warming so the climate may be more tolerable at least in warmer territories. Then there’s this thing I see in a lot of fan and critic reviews about Predators wanting to takeover Earth which I don’t remember in the movie though maybe it was a throwaway line early on at Project Stargazer but even then that’s just conjecture from the human characters guessing at what they think is going on when in reality they have no answers.
The final hunt with the Ultimate Predator seems boring as well, the worst it does is throw Baxley onto a tree branch and gut Coyle but not finish the job, it leaves the two to shoot each other in honestly a cool scene for me but other than munch a guys face off the Ultimate Predator does about fuck all before kidnapping Rory. Even Sterling K Brown’s character who’s a real asshole and you spend most of the movie waiting to see the Predator tear him apart with eager intent has a shit death, the Predator doesn’t kill him, skin him or tear out his spine, instead he blows his own head off with a plasma caster he’s utilising and clearly doesn’t understand how to use in a blink or you’ll miss it moment. Then we have Nettles death which isn’t completely terrible, it shows how dangerous the Predator’s shields are, slicing both of Nettles legs off at the knee cap and sending the rest of him falling into the forest below as he loses his grip on the ship. Trevante Rhodes’ Nebraska then jumps into the ships engine causing it to crash land as Quinn attacks the Predator rather poorly spending most of his time dangling by his ankles.
Casey who didn’t get on the Predator’s ship when it took off suddenly appears to have traversed the section of the forest they’ve flown over as fast as the ship as she quickly arrives to help Quinn and Rory beat it. It’s a decent death, Quinn manages to hold back the Predator to allow Rory to activate the ships shield to slice off its arm, Casey throws a Predator grenade underneath it as Quinn just about manages to pick up its severed arm and fire its wrist blade into its leg causing it to grab its leg in pain whilst the plasma caster is still activated, the resulting blast hitting the grenade and blowing the Predator’s limbs off and leaving it a bloody mess. There is a moment where Quinn asks what it is and I could swear it said ‘Yautja’ before Quinn puts a final round into its head killing it. Ultimately it wasn’t the best of stories and I’ve realised I forgot to talk about the Hell Hounds but they don’t really do much and become more comic relief in the film than anything else. It’s a bit of a messy story but honestly I enjoyed it more than ‘Predators’ which seemed to expect you to have read all the press release regarding each of the characters beforehand, honestly with ‘Predators’ I felt I got to know the characters far better playing the iOS game instead of watching the film. It’s better than AVP: R, AVP and Predators but I still think Predator 2 and Predator are leaps and bounds ahead of it.
In summary it’s enjoyable, adds something new that’s interesting but not massively explored though Predator deserves a better movie.
