THE PREDATOR (2018, R, 107 minutes, DARK
CASTLE ENTERTAINMENT/20TH CENTURY FOX)
I’ve
always been a fan of Shane Black’s film career.
This is the man that wrote LETHAN WEAPON, KISS KISS BANG BANG, IRON MAN
3, and THE freaking MONSTER SQUAD, for crying out loud.
So,
who better to jump start a series that went woefully off course when Fox
decided to put Predators and Aliens in the same movies? Who better to write (er, yeah—I meant
“right”) the wrongs of some poorly executed sequels than the man that revived
Iron Man and presented director Renny Harlin with one of his only chances at
making a good movie (THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT)?
What
Shane Black attempts to do here is renew interest in a movie villain that had,
in the last decade, become cannon fodder for a studio that didn’t know what to
do with the character anymore. Let’s
face it: the last good PREDATOR film had Danny Glover and the late Bill Paxton
in the cast, and that was waaayy back in 1990.
And
he nearly pulls it off. With co-writer
Fred Dekker, whom he last collaborated with on 1987’s MONSTER SQUAD, he has
crafted quite possibly the funniest movie of the year. Seriously.
There are more intentionally funny moments in this film than there were
in the last three Kevin Hart films. The
script is fresh, the characters more than well-developed by each individual
actor, and the action sequences are highly executed. This time around, a rogue Predator comes to
earth in an effort to actually help mankind.
Only problem, he’s a rogue—none of the other Predators like him. So they send a bully after him, and that is
where a ragtag bunch of military vets, all bound for a “psychiatric facility”,
come in.
The
cast of characters that Misters Black and Dekker create are quite unique to the
series; each is crazy in their own way.
These men are no longer active duty for good reasons, and each is more
than qualified to fend for themselves so long as they have artillery in their
hands. Of course, there is a message
about teamwork here somewhere, but Mr. Black handles any moral issues so
flippantly that you cannot help but laugh right along with him. You get the feeling the entire time that he
and the entire crew are including you in on the joke, and most of them are
original and damn funny.
But
then you get to the last half hour—thirty minutes of script in which no one
really could figure out how to end this movie.
There are several retreaded ideas in the final stretch of the film that
may leave you scratching your head, or at least trying to count the number of
movies you’ve seen this all done in before.
That, unfortunately, brings down a film that was strong and
promising—promising, hell, it was damn well delivering!—for the first
two-thirds, and then got mired in its own insensibilities by the final
act. That is the biggest disappointment
here, really: that neither of the two writers could figure an original way out
of the story. You get a bunch of fine
actors—including Keegan-Michael Key, Olivia Munn, and Thomas Jane—delivering
excellent performances, and then…just…meh.
The
special features include several docs about the cast and, most notably, Mr.
Black’s involvement with the franchise (he acted in the first film). There are also deleted scenes, but one of the
most entertaining is the inclusion of The Predator Holiday Special, which takes
stop motion animation to an entirely new level.
THE
PREDATOR did not bank quite enough at the box office to warrant a sequel. But with Disney close to finalizing their
deal to purchase Fox, I doubt this entry would be considered a franchise
killer. And while it may be the best
Predator film since PREDATOR 2, and although it doesn’t hit on quite the same
level as the first two, it is at least a helluva lot better than any of the AVP
entries. Those ones made you laugh
without meaning to, which sets this one apart.
Film
Grade: B-
Special
Features: B
Blu-ray
Necessary: Of Course—explosions and gunshots and Predators, oh my…
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