THE PREDATOR IS here to destroy us all—and so is The Predator, one of the more curious movie letdowns of 2018: An action-comedy at once incomprehensible and inconsequential, and so unfun-dumb that its stupidity feels like a contagion. The fact that it was co-written and directed by Shane Black—who sired the Lethal Weapon series, and gave Iron Man 3 its mythos-poking wit—makes The Predator all the more disappointing. Walking out of the theater it’s hard not to expect some Murtagh-style sad-saxwailing in the background.
Black didn’t have much of a bar to clear in revisiting the spotty Predator franchise. The jungle-set original was an ‘80s-sleepover classic, one that found Arnold Schwarzenegger hunted by a skin-peeling alien invader. Over the next 30 years, the franchise’s warrior-baddies have taken on LA ganglords (Predator 2), a few ‘morphs (Alien vs. Predator), and Danny Trejo (Predators). None of those sequels were especially mind-blowing, but they each had a few moments of scuzzy fun (Predator 2 is the kind of schlocky ‘90s sequel that plays perfectly on HBO at 2 am). The hope was that Black—who’s skilled at both band-of-brothers banter (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) and creature-feature thrills (The Monster Squad)—could wisen up, or at least liven up, a series that felt largely uncared for in recent years.
Instead, The Predator is the kind of movie Black’s othermovie characters might mock. It begins with an alien ship landing in the jungles of Earth, and following some on-the-ground bloodbaths, a renegade sniper (Logan’s Boyd Holbrook) picks up some spare Predator gear, which he ships back home to the United States. Soon, multiple Predators are loose in the suburbs, as are a few Predator-dogs, which look like they just wandered in from a Doom patch somebody downloaded off a BBS in 1995. The aliens’ opposition consists of biologist (Olivia Munn) and a group of gung-ho nutcases who are so thinly rendered their various tics may as well be their handles: There’s Guy Who Smokes a Lot (Moonlight’s Trevante Rhodes); Guy Who Make Crass Jokes (Keegan-Michael Key); and Guy Who Chews Nicorette Yet Barks Like He’s Not Getting Enough Nicorette (Sterling K. Brown). Black, usually an ace quipper, arms all of them with some of the dopier lines of his career:
CHARACTER 1: “Can I interest you in getting the fuck out of here?”
CHARACTER 2: “‘Getting the Fuck Out of Here’ is my middle name!”
CHARACTER 1: “And I thought ‘Gaylord’ was bad!”
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