The Predator (2018)

“I think they're attempting hybridization. They're upgrading on every planet they visit.”

Filmology Rating: 2 out of 4

The Predator directed by Shane Black, who was in the original Predator, is here to ruin the new one which centers around Quinn McKenna who is an army sniper. When he has an encounter with a Predator on Earth, events spiral out of control and he must protect his son from the Predator that hunts him, his son, and his friends.

I really feel like critics are giving more hate to this film that it deserves. Not that this is a great movie, but it's not terrible. The first thing I noticed right away was pacing; the movie tries to introduce too many things at once and it's too jumpy. However, I did really like the first ten minutes of the film. It was a gradual decline from there. But once the movie introduced all the characters and had a few action scenes, I was enjoying myself, until 20 minutes later. This film is non-stop action, in the bad way. The movie never slowed down to give more depth to the characters. Everyone was just a badass and after a while that action leveled out and became boring.

The other major issue is the tone because this is a Predator movie, but it has really really Marvel esc. humor that I did not laugh at at all. It really conflicted with the serious dramatic moments of the film. It just seemed that the movie was trying to speed its way through action scenes, just to get to the next action scene.

I did love the gore in this movie, though. It gets pretty hilariously gory and I found myself really enjoying that. It was like watching a good B movie.

The movie is basically resolved with no wits, but instead just brute force with guns. The ending had so many characters doing so many things to the point of being convoluted. The movie started high and ended high which made for a rather boring theater experience where I kept checking the time on a 90 minute film. This film is the equivalent of trying to calm down a hyper kid jacked up on pixie sticks; at first it's funny, after a while you get annoyed. There is also dumb sequel bait of course. But I can see how general audiences would like the film. So go see it cause this film needs money because they spent 90 million dollars on a schlock fest.

Rating: Rent It

-Nolan