"The Predator" by Shane Black (2018)

[Python]

Even though I'm one of the forum Predator nerds, I don't do cinemas so had to wait for the blu ray release of this. I went in with extremely low expectations which was a good idea. The movie is a bit of a mess, and the CGI Predators are tragic and do not belong in a franchise that has always had very good practical suit work. The main story arc was also ridiculous, A predator (who murdered everything that moved) wanted to save humanity from his own kind... Okay.

On the plus side, there were a few enjoyable moments, and some of the characters were actually fairly decent. Also the kid wasn't quite as bad as he could have been in his fairly prominent role. Also, the "fugative" Predator looked better on screen than in the promo images. So this ended up being a very average movie for me. Disappointing for sure, but not as tragic as I feared it may have been. It certainly isn't the big "event" movie they claimed it would be and I'm in no rush to watch it again.

Just putting out there Fox.... John Mctiernan is available and certainly knows how to make a decent action movie.

 

[Rotfish]

Attaching Shane Black felt like a really good idea to me. Maybe it was just a miss, or maybe the studio got too involved or something.

The more I think about this movie and compare it to superior works by the same director (KKBB, TNG), the more I realize that everything Black does has a deconstructive or subversive edge to it. With his own stories and characters, it works great. With existing properties like Iron Man and Predator, it backfires. I'm betting that's what happened here. He tried to put that spin on the Predator franchise, test audiences hated it, the film was rewritten and reshot, and we were left with a mish-mash of homage, satire, and subversion hastily assembled at the last minute.

Maybe if the studio and test audience screenings didn't affect production and Shane's original vision was fully realized, we'd have a better overall film (even if it fails as a Predator movie). Alas, this misses the mark by all standards.

 

[uscmhicks]

Re: "The Predator" by Shane Black (2018)

The main story arc was also ridiculous, A predator (who murdered everything that moved) wanted to save humanity from his own kind... Okay.

Don't forget the fact that the super predator had intentions of kidnapping an autistic kid.

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

 

[Jmek]

Just seen this and though it was good cheesy, gory fun. You can spot the tell-tale greasy mitts of studio interference all over it though.

 

[theuzi9mm]

I won't even consider that they may have intended it to be not taken seriously...the movie is just bad....all around terrible. never understood why everyone seemed to think Shane was the next best thing to sliced bread with his movies...he's not that great a filmmaker....

 

[a-dev]

He said things that were encouraging and made it seem like he 'got it' about what was great about the original...he was in the original..and he was behind Lethal Weapon, another classic of the eighties. I also don't think Iron Man 3 is the abomination many feel it to be.

Alas any optimism arising from the above was undermined first by the leaks and early pictures and then finally buried by the film itself which was indeed incomprehensibly awful.

 

[Johnny1378]

He said things that were encouraging and made it seem like he 'got it' about what was great about the original...he was in the original..and he was behind Lethal Weapon, another classic of the eighties. I also don't think Iron Man 3 is the abomination many feel it to be.

Alas any optimism arising from the above was undermined first by the leaks and early pictures and then finally buried by the film itself which was indeed incomprehensibly awful.

Yeah, I like Shane Black’s other movies, even “Iron Man 3,” but “The Predator” was just strange. You could tell it was a Shane Black movie, but not in a good way. A lot of the humor in it was patently Shane Black, but in this movie it felt strangely out of place.

I did read an article that said The Predator didn’t end up being the movie that Shane Black wanted to make, and that it was originally conceived as a lot bigger, more expensive movie that would have more closely resembled that little part that was teased at the very end. But then the studio made big cuts to the budget.

Even if that were the case though, I’m not sure it would have been any better unless there was big difference in tone. That’s the part that seemed really off to me. The original Predator and even the second film seemed a lot more clearly focused on how much of a threat the Predator was. There was occasional levity, but there were also scenes in the first two movies that conveyed actual tension. I can’t think of any in the new movie. There was some occasional gore that was sort of cool, but no real tension.

 

[Python]

I really liked IM:3 personally, whatever you thought of the Mandarin reveal (I didn't care either way) That movie was far superior to this in every way.

 

[Johnny1378]

I really liked IM:3 personally, whatever you thought of the Mandarin reveal (I didn't care either way) That movie was far superior to this in every way.

Yeah, I would agree with that.