The Predator (REVIEW) | Projector | So bad it needs to be hunted down 

I was honestly far more excited to watch this review than the actual movie... and rightfully so.

I have Tourettes myself, and while I don't necessarily mind the (admittedly stereotypical) depiction of coprolalia (which is frankly rare among people with Tourettes), what I did find baffling was his status as a mental patient in the US armed forces. I can tell you from direct experience that the US does not- ever- recruit people with Tourettes. I know because I tried to join up repeatedly after 9/11, and the recruiters I spoke with would not even let me fill out the paperwork, despite my having a college degree. And having (somehow!) allowed him to join despite his obvious condition, why would he then be a mental patient? Because he had TS? The condition manifests when you are in early childhood. They HAD to know he had it when he signed up. Even if he didn't tell them, they would have spotted it in basic training. So how did he get to be a veteran? And TS is a neurological condition, not a mental condition. TS alone would not result in him getting institutionalized. So many, many inconsistencies...

> THE Predator > Features TWO Predators They couldn't even get that right

This is why I prefer Predators over this as the best modern day reinterpretation of the Predator franchise.

When you described the plot my only reaction was _"What?"_

I already assumed this movie would be bad because the first ad I saw for it asked me to click the screen while looking for hidden Predator icons. I almost feel like there's a metaphor in desperately searching this movie for any sign of Predator somewhere, but I'm not clever enough to point it out.

My personal Ranking of the Predator Movies: 1. Predator (1987) 2. Predator 2 (1990) 3. Predators (2010) . . . . . . . . The Predator (2018) (I don't count the two AvP Movies)

Just make a Predator movie where the predator wins

Scream got Scary Movie....... Predator got The Predator...

Wow. I hope your patreon supporters are very generous with you because you're really giving them top quality work for someone simply standing in a corner.

This review was pretty cathartic after Brad and Brian gave this film a pass on the "It's fun!" basis. I don't mind someone getting entertainment out of this film, but they could have at least acknowledged more of the issues. P.S. I'm guessing that Olivia Munn's introduction was the scene that Fox had to remove.

Hmmmmm....everything I been hearing about THE PREDATOR (2018) kind of makes me want to go back and give PREDATORS (2010) another look..........

I flipped off the screen twice, when people used (or slightly changed) lines from the first one.

As an autistic myself, hearing that it's used as a plot device is making me rather weary of this one and I'm already disgusted with the whole Steve Wilder debacle, cut or none.

in my opinion, this movie suffers from the same problem as almost every major hollywood production from the last lets say 15 years... and that is lazy writing.. poorly developed characters, plot devices, deus ex machini and, since there's almost exclusively sequels and reboots, meaningless and sometimes downright stupid "fan service"

So, it's a dumb down version of Predators with a sloppy plot.

both original Predator and Die hard are great masterful arts of action so yes the director is a good one i haven't seen this new predator yet.. but something in my heart tells me i will always love the original FAR more than this one

I honestly thought that the predator escaping form the lab scene was the best at this movie, he was vicious and quick on a kill, didn't mess around. I didnt like the idea of him shooting the gun, he had to come up with more Predator-ish way to kill soldiers but at least it showed that he wasn't dumb and was quick to make a decision. The predator looked just like i wanted and it was incredibly cool, It really gave a great hope that the movie would be awesome. Then it didn't happen...

What made the original Predator so great was that the characters had no backstory. They were a complete mystery. In fact they were so much of a mystery that we didn't even care if the had a back story. All we knew is that they were a bunch of badasses. That's all we needed to know.

Black & Decker lol.

I think it's fair to describe this as the Alien: Resurrection of the franchise. But in all honestly, I didn't mind the more tongue-in-cheek approach and I did like the humour as hit and miss as it could get. My main problem with the film is that the editing is absolutely awful. Not only is the action cut to the point of incomprehensiblity, but the editing from scene-to-scene and moment-to-moment is really poor. There's just no connective flow to the film and scenes just kinda run into each other. It looks like it's been absolutely hacked to within an inch of its life. And I don't know whether to blame Black for the film's failings (especially for its more misguided ideas) or Fox since it's clear that they've just gotten in there and really interfered with it. I honestly thought that Fox had moved past those days with Tom Rothman out of the picture, but apparently not.

I'm thinking when the original director of Predator saw Shane Black's writing ideas, that was when he decided to make Black's character the first member of the team to die.

Some directors make a deal to direct a film if the studio will green light a dream project for them. I wonder is that the case for The Predator?

Damn, I want a t-shirt like that.

As soon as I saw the monster in the very first minute of the film, I shook my head. You don’t just reveal your main monster like that in a brightly lit set. You build up the reveal; when it got into the jungle that should have been when we actually saw the full body of it. I nearly walked out when they spent like two minutes just standing there trying to be funny...

Geez I wish I was autistic. Then I wouldn't be just a socially awkward weirdo. I would have an excuse and Super powers.

Gotta say, Matty, I think I disliked it more than you did. That whole autism subplot deserves to have 2 notches down my rating. Autism is neither a disability nor a superpower and what they did here boiled my blood. I’ve worked with people with autism and Tourette’s, among other similar issues, and to see it represented like this was shameful. The rest of the film was bad enough, as you’ve mentioned, but those were my huge take aways from that. I knew Black has Tourette’s but that doesn’t give him privileges to make fun of it the way he did when he, of all people, should have more empathy. The only thing I can say that’s nice are certain performances and a few ideas. Regardless of the controversy, it’s not worth seeing, even as a rental. It’s an easy 3/10. It’s the Alien: Covenant of the series. Speaking of Alien, you know it’s in trouble when they decide to homage Alien3 of all things.

This is so simple why this doesn't work, and why after the original 1987 movie, they have progressively have got worse. The Predator films should have always been made to be dark, not that the first one was but it provided a platform to take what the Predators do to their human prey and explore the horrors of being hunted down by something we can't see, that is stronger, faster, more intelligent, and unwavering in it's resolve!

@Film Brain I think the other downfall of the predator storyline is the difficulty with the introduction of a new cast of "hopefully believable" actors as a certain sub-set of characters. The first film worked because the audience immediately assumes and is filled in lightly and intermittently about how each of the men have seen and done stuff that most could not do physically, mentally, and emotionally. It then cemented already present interpersonal relationships between several members of the team. No one wants to see friends get killed. People want to see them continue into the sequel and continue to have a fun time together kicking butt. It's kind of like everybody likes seeing a good buddy cop movie, but what if that really good buddy cop movie ended with both main characters dying in an emotional and painful way. It has weight to it. This movie, as all of the other predator movies, tries to show a group of kick-butt military/mercenary/assassin/gang/police/resourceful individuals group together as an attempt by the writer and director to setup the assumption for the audience that this group of characters should be able to stay alive, but we all know that they won't. The first worked because the formula worked. Each sequel has tried to copy-paste and that never works as it will always be watered down. (for the most part)

I like the Predator franchise well except for the 2nd AVP movie. I'm also open to new ideas however this movie was horribly written and felt like it was a rushed mess with a lot of patchy action scenes and not enough explanation. This review pretty much explained my frustration with this sloppy film!!

Glad to see ur back, but I kinda miss the old, louder, slightly unhinged Filmbrain. 🙃

Excellent review. The worst bit for me was the Iron man suit at the end. I would really, really like Shane Black to answer all of the issues raised and give explanations to why it went so wrong.

He's on safari. The lions, the tigers, the bears... oh, my! That one line in Predator 2 was better than this entire movie.

This was disappointing. Even freaking Alien vs Predator had far more stakes than this film.

Went to the cinema to watch this movie, and I regret it. While I was sitting there I couldn´t figure out if this movie was a comedy, an action or even some kind of drama, or all those things together. Now the best description that comes to my mind is that this film is a mix of The Expendables and Scary Movie. I heard some people defending this movie by saying that is actually a comedy, but it doesn´t work that way either, at least not for me. Most of the jokes are gringe worthy and some gags run for too long...

This was an excellent review, you really highlighted the many serious issues with this film. Great stuff.....your review, not the film. Such a damn shame, this really had the potential to be a great movie. I was so disappointed.

Great job on this review I felt that this is the perfect non spoiler review for the movie and you do a great job breaking down the film.

Holy shit. As an autistic myself, I skipped this movie because it seemed like a cynical cash-grab by a dude who chums it up with sex pests, but to hear about the exploitation factor is, uhh...jarring, to say the least. Who the Hell thought PREDATOR was the franchise to tackle this material?? I can't wait for the next Tremors movie: I hear it's an allegory for the AIDs Panic!! Cheers for sticking it to this pile.

Well, Film Brain, get ready for Terminator 6: The Supposed Final Chapter.

I'm a big fan of Shane Black's other movies. Lethal Weapon of course, but also The Last Boyscout, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and The Nice Guys which was a comedic buddy movie masterpiece. I even loved Iron Man 3 (I know I'm in the minority.) The Predator was a huge disappointment. Film Brain articulated my misgivings perfectly. The original was an action movie infiltrated by a stalker movie. This genre subversion was fresh and exciting. Seeing the musclebound action heroes' tactics and arsenal fail them in fighting the alien hunter, and reacting with a range of fear/denial, was fascinating. Only Arnold's Dutch character accepted the situation for what it was and did what was necessary. There was the slow cat-and-mouse of evolving ambush techniques, which stumped the soldiers and revealed more about the hunter's capabilities. Design-wise, the creature was an interesting mashup of opposites. It's reptilian in nature but has advanced intelligence and humanoid anatomy; primal and advanced within it's own being. Then there's the advanced technology used for primal game hunting. Pacing-wise, the original Predator revealed the hunter in layers. First, the heat vision POVs. Then, a hand here, a leg there. A cloaked silhouette shimmering against the jungle. When it lost it's cloaking, it still had a mask over it's face, which was the final reveal. So there was always something to discover, throughout the movie. Same with the first Alien film, with the creature's multi-staged life cycle that kept the humans guessing. That said, I don't believe Predator is a sufficient framework to build an actual franchise around. Genre subversion is not a genre per se. Watching the hunter tearing through generic humans is not as appealing as watching it ruthlessly outmatch confident, charismatic warriors one by one, over a whole movie.

What a fantastic review! Couldn't agree more with the criticisms! Thanks!

I always remember the first two movies as an action movie that had something to say about the violence men perpetrate against one another, but the first trailer to this one played it as if the predator is just a non-descript monster who could have being really anything. It may be a misleading trailer, of course, but it slipped down my list. It didn't atract me to watch the actual movie.

While it's ten million times better than AVP2 (and what isn't?) I have no idea what happened with this film coming from Black who can be relied on to deliver a consistent vision in his projects. It's an absolute mess switching between two or three incompatible tones/aims for the film scene by scene. It's as though they had three competing scripts with roughly similar but stylistically different movies, filmed all three then edited parts of each into a Frankenstein's monster.

Predator En-blighted

@Film Brain I think the predator series of movies including aliens, USCM, androids, etc.. needs a complete cohesive reboot if any of the properties wish to survive another round of releases. This is coming from a fan that is simply concerned about some fun entertainment. Maybe show an individual predators story of survival (not just humans surviving the predators presence every movie, you can come back to it several movies down the road in an inventive way, but just not every movie), show a predator get stalked and hunted in a similar manner as the first movie by something else or even by humans and the predator has no weapons and has to be resourceful to survive which would show the true hunter prowess of the predators. Do a movie from the predators point of view. Same with the alien franchise. Ridley scott has said that he feels the alien creature is completely played out for how old it is and how familiar people are with the sight of it. I call bull on that and simply he is bored of the story. Go back to true confined spaces, jump scares even. Make it fun with its intensity letting the audience know that creatures like these (if they were real) would be scarier than trying to Eskimo kiss a great white shark. literally.

Why, Hollywood? Oh, why can you just not let great films RIP?

Great review! Clear and coherent, unlike this mess of a films plot. Too many obvious things stolen from other films. Too many things going on in general. A bit of Mercury Rising, a bit from Home Alone 3, and such a badly written script that's so cliche it actually gets on your tits. It makes everything predictable and pointless. It's a really repetitive film that holds no weight in any scene. The film isn't able to draw out a single emotion apart from frustration from it's audience. Unlikeable cast with atrociously written dialogue and ghastly careless reference lines thrown in that reminds us how much better the previous films did it. The CGI predator too... boy oh boy, completely lacking in physical presents like most crap CGI monsters, it has to be the worst predator to date! and that's saying something. Such a typical move these days turning to shitty cartoon CGI. IT DOSNT LOOK GOOD HOLLYWOOD! Why do they feel the need to make one of the most interestingly intimidating Aliens in film history have so many gimmicks? Why in Predators did they feel the need to twist a psychopaths in the plot? Or schizophrenic characters to become villain? Or add super duper Predators that aren't even super? Why on earth do they feel a single Predator isn't a strong enough character to antagonize a film alone? It's silly.

I wasn't going to see it anyway after hearing about Shane Black's, to put it kindly, dubious casting decision of his friend, but based on these reviews it looks like even without that awkward elephant in the room I'm still better off saving this Fandango voucher I got for donating blood last month just a little bit longer for something else. :/ This super disappointing, as I've enjoyed all the solo movies. I really like Predators. IMHO I think it was the best Predator movie since the first one.

How do you compare this to when you saw Alien: Covenant?

You don't have to trashily like Predator 2. It's genuinely great.

This film was like The Undateables tv show, with a Predator thrown in, and the cast running towards it rather than away from it. Real mess. Do I get a cookie now?

I enjoyed your rant review break down... New subscriber here...

Great review!

I bet you also noticed the cuts during the movie too.

17:22 ACTUALLY that wasn't CGI.

Great catch on Predator 2 setting the mythology we accept as canon. It's a real fun sequel

After watching the trailers, that was enough for me, let alone spending money to waste 107 minutes on this mess.

John Krasinski just made the best predator movie sense the first predator movie. And he did it on a 17 million dollar budget.

This is where the movie should have started, the ship chase, the crash, a team of elite solders encounter the predator near the crashed ship. The predator makes its way to the town where it is caught. The second Predator should not have come until the first one got back to its ship then the battle unfolds in the woods. NO CHILDREN NO DECODING OF LANGUAGES, AND NO HUMANS USE ALIEN TECH.

Predators was better than this film, period. Predators also had less than half the budget. The aliens in Predators in said more also looked more realistic.

It's just another fun action movie that no one will remember this time next year.

Predator 2 was awesome.

instead of ragtag soldiers in civilian setting, put predator in afghanistan and marsoc runs across them. this way it goes away from a rural america, antarctica, the predator is drawn to heat and conflict so going to a war has a more predator feel to it. you could give arnold a role as dutch being a merc or a drill instructor for the sake of a 2.5 hour movie, more explosions. danny glover could be a merc even.

The guy that reviews this movie looks like Tim Vine lol

Sounds just like Warner Bros. They've interfered with the directors vision, no surprise because I saw images last year that didn't feature in the movie which looked cool.

Very intelligent review. 👍👍👍. Thank you for mentioning the terrible editing.

I'll have to give this movie another watch, maybe i was hyping it up too much for myself, but i don't remember the last time i walked out of the cinema thinking wtf did i just see?!!? As a genuine fan of the predator franchise I rate this worse than AvPR...or maybe on level terms; can't quite make up my mind. This is coming from someone who loves Predator 2...alot!

The Batman & Robin of the Predator franchise. It's a Predator film that makes fun of itself at the expense of its fans. Beyond disappointing.

I actually enjoyed AVP and AVPR more than Predators 2010. I shall wait till The Predator comes on DVD before I watch it. From the reviews it seems that it wanted to be a black comedy but failed miserably.

this movie needed Chris Hansen in the movie to takedown the predators

Hollywood lost it's touch long time ago .....

this movie was fun and lite hearted. i think most people are taking it to seriously. i actually got mad at your review for the first time. the movie does have two main issues and you didnt even mention one of them. 1. the ending like you said 2. its take on suicidal behaviors and how it brushes it under the table.

Hey Mathew, I could have sworn you did a podcast with other people on this film. Am I confusing something or is the video elsewhere.

And on the Autism thing. The movie should have made the Rory character have Savant Syndrome. Which gives people super abilities in memory, language, calculations, and artistic talents. It is true that savants are on the Autistic spectrum, but the distinction is more appropriate to character.

The new Predator movie was horrible.1st half felt like straight up comedy....the characters, plot, dialogue, everything was bad...the biologist chick all of a sudden turns into rambo jumping onto a bus handeling weapons like a pro...black guy in the crew smoking a cig literally every other scene including when they were being chased by the super predator in the woods...just an god awful movie

Please don’t be like Doug from nostalgia critic or Brad from cinema snob and shave your head! Keep your hair! We all love you!!!

i had a feeling this was gonna suck based on the trailers alone. i'll wait till this shows up on the FX channel. i don't think it's probably even worth a matinee. it's time to let this franchise die once and for all just like with ALIENS. it's done, put a fork in em even though i think the first AvP was half way descent. I have a bad feeling Venom will also kinda suck.

Have you ever seen the Predator: Dark Ages fan film?

I could listen to him talk shit about this movie all day.

Frankly, the assortment of actors in this film amuses me. There's people from This Is Us, Moonlight, Key and Peele, Game of Thrones... I don't know, it's just a little funny.

it's about time the predator had another film

Very good analysis of the film, this is one I would like to see a director's cut of with the original ending. The introduction scene for Olivia Munns' character was the one that involved the registered sex offender. I think the film would have been much better if they had Munn be the lead and give her the chance to be an action star.

Their a elephant in the room...you know

I feel that if the move was to be as good as the first PREDATOR it should have taken place in the jungle within hours of the explosion when Dutch is picked up. A Russian team is now finding the camp blown to hell, sent to find their people, they find a trail of Dutch's team exiting into the jungle, they follow the trail and find the remains of his team, BUT then they become the pray of the Predator, Another one of the three Predator hunting party. It is just finding the right actors and it writes its self.

the way I heard it that they had to reach you to ending and all that stuff because no one to test group didn't like the way the story was playing out it was supposed to be an entirely different movie and this is what they came up with because I had to change it at the last minute kind of sucks done it

Olivia Munn. Did anyone really think this was going to be good?

Bruce Willis vs Predator.

Agreed. Disappointing in almost every way. It'll be going to the top of my films-to-be-fan-edited list.

Who would have thought that Black and Dekker would make a bad product

I didn't think it was all that bad and I watched a shitty cam shot version of it online. I really like Keegan Michael key. He's the only character I did like. The ending was terrible though.

Watched four reviews now and Brad Jones' is still the only mostly positive one. I'm totally with Brad on this one. I had fun. ...Decker Shado got downright mad. Chris Stuckmann just looked sad.

The Preeeedator fraaaaaancise should neeeeeeeever have been subjected to this teeeeeeerrible sequel.

Notification squad.

It was actually a pretty good, up until half way through it felt like a really great movie but then the super predator showed up and brought it down a good bit but over all it was entertaining and fun.

Great review mate! I'm really conflicted on this film! It's not a bad film! But it's a bad predator film!

Am I the ONLY one who likes this movie?

One mistake was casting Jacob Tremblay in the movie. He is a great actor but he does not belong in this movie. This is predator, not a family film or a drama like Room, WTF. Why the style of the comedy? It does not fit the movie.

Well you can watch Japan’s short film ZvP Zaitoichi vs Predator.

I’m seeing it tonight. Is it at least better than the AvP movies?

from the very beginning of alien it's been all about people wanting to capture them and study them, and then they finally succeeded in resurrection and some of the video games + predators captured them in avp as well, so seeing the predator also get held in captivity/being studied looks really boring and uncreative, just "oh, this again" i just saw the trailer for this yesterday, it looked like a parody and all the characters in it were cocky assholes, like they're not taking the movies seriously anymore. it looked very much like a fan creation, like a "let's just have fun and be silly lol who cares" instead of being respectful to/understanding the franchise. the new alien movies might suck but at least they are still trying to be horror and not intentional comedy.