THE PREDATOR (2018)

Studio:      20th Century Fox
Director:    Shane Black
Writer:      Fred Dekker, Shane Black
Producer:  John Davis
Stars:     Boyd Holbrook, Trevante Rhodes, Jacob Tremblay, Keegan-Michael Key, Olivia Munn, Thomas Jane, Alfie Allen, Sterling K. Brown, Augusto Aguilera, Jake Busey, Yvonne Strahovski

Review Score:

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Summary:

A team of unstable military men battles government agents over a boy who holds the key to defeating deadly alien predators.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Having escaped pursuit by another spacecraft, a fugitive predator crash-lands its ship. On a mission in Mexico, Army sniper Captain Quinn McKenna retrieves the predator’s technologically advanced helmet and gauntlet from its escape pod wreckage. The predator kills Quinn’s men, but Quinn escapes.

At a cantina, Quinn swallows a silver sphere that can activate an invisibility cloak. Quinn then hurriedly pays a bartender to mail the predator equipment back to himself in America. Quinn is then taken into custody by Will Traeger, who oversees the U.S. government’s Project Stargazer, which studies predators.

Preparing to make Quinn a patsy for what happened in Mexico, Traeger oversees Quinn’s psychiatric evaluation at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Quinn is then placed on a prison transfer bus with other problematic soldiers dubbed “the loonies,” who include Gaylord ‘Nebraska’ Williams, Coyle, Lynch, Nettles, and Baxley.

The package of predator equipment is mistakenly delivered to Quinn’s young son Rory, who has Asperger syndrome as well as an exceptional mind capable of total recall. Rory inadvertently activates an operating system in the gauntlet that unknowingly summons a hunter predator’s ship.

Government agents recruit evolutionary biologist Dr. Casey Brackett from Johns Hopkins University in Maryland and bring her to Project Stargazer’s secret lab. Casey briefly meets Dr. Sean Keyes. Traeger shows Casey the restrained predator they captured in Mexico and explains that he wants Casey to determine why they discovered human DNA in the alien’s genetic makeup. Casey also learns that Quinn was the person who made first contact and she asks to speak with him.

The captive predator recovers, breaks free of its restraints, and causes chaos in the lab while slaughtering scientists and soldiers. Curiously, the predator spares Casey. Looking to recover its stolen items, the predator remotely connects to a beacon on its helmet to track Rory’s location.

The hunter predator’s ship flies over Project Stargazer as the fugitive predator breaks out of the facility. Recognizing the danger, the loonies hijack their bus to escape. The hunter predator shoots down two fighter jets. After landing, the hunter predator releases two predator dogs to track the fugitive predator.

Acting on Sean Keyes’ dying instruction to not let the alien escape, Casey chases the fugitive predator. Traeger gives an order to execute Casey, but Quinn rescues her. Quinn, Casey, and the loonies escape on motorcycles and hide out in a motel.

After Casey recovers, Quinn reveals that Traeger planned to kill her to protect Project Stargazer’s secrets. Casey tells Quinn that the fugitive predator is looking for its equipment. Quinn realizes the predator is going to his home.

Quinn arrives at his estranged wife Emily’s house with Casey and the loonies to search for the equipment. Quinn and Emily realize that Rory went out trick-or-treating wearing the predator helmet as a costume because he didn’t want to be recognized by bullies. Quinn explains the danger to Emily. Emily helps rally the loonies to help her husband protect Rory.

Rory’s helmet automatically fires in retaliation at a bully who throws something at him. The two predator dogs track Rory to a football field outside of Lawrence A. Gordon Middle School. Quinn, Casey, and the loonies come to Rory’s rescue by killing one of the dogs and essentially lobotomizing the other.

The fugitive predator arrives. Quinn, Casey, and Rory flee into the school. When the predator confronts him, Quinn gives back the operating device from the gauntlet. The hunter predator suddenly appears and throws the fugitive predator to the ground outside.

As the hunter predator kills the fugitive predator following a fight, Quinn, Casey, Rory, and the loonies escape. Quinn calls Emily to tell her Rory is safe, but Emily warns him not to return home because government agents are waiting there.

Traeger later examines the dead predator. Traeger concludes that the hunter predator was trying to recover contraband that the fugitive predator stole and is presumably still aboard the crashed ship that they have not yet located. Traeger’s agent Sapir reports that Quinn’s son can operate predator technology, prompting Traeger to go after Rory.

Casey examines spinal fluid retrieved from the predator and learns that the aliens are hybridizing their biology with human DNA as a way to upgrade their species. Casey takes on the lobotomized predator dog as a pseudo-pet for study.

Traeger’s team takes everyone into custody. Traeger relays that climate change has made the human race an endangered species and the predators want to adapt human DNA before extinction.

The predator breaks into Emily’s house, kills several soldiers, and learns where the crashed spacecraft is from a map Rory made. Meanwhile, Traeger also learns the ship’s location when one of his men sees Rory drawing another map from memory. Traeger takes Rory with his team to set up a camp at the crash site.

Quinn escapes custody by killing his guards. The predator dog aids Casey’s escape. Nebraska also escapes. Quinn passes the cloaking sphere he previously swallowed. The other loonies arrive in a hijacked chopper to take everyone to the crash site.

Rory activates the predator technology that grants Traeger access to the ship. Traeger tasks his team with setting up a language translator and downloading all of the data they can from the ship’s mainframe.

Quinn uses the invisibility cloak to infiltrate the ship, kill Sapir, and take Traeger hostage. The loonies infiltrate the camp and begin killing armed guards.

The predator suddenly kills Lynch at his sniper position. Traeger gets free from Quinn in the ensuing commotion. The crash site erupts in gunfire between the loonies and Project Stargazer guards as the predator also starts killing people.

The predator uses the translator to explain that it only came to destroy the stolen spacecraft. The predator identifies “McKenna” as the only worthy leader in the group, vowing to make him a hunting prize. The predator then gives everyone a several minute head start before going after them.

Traeger and Quinn uneasily agree to join their teams to have a better shot at survival. The predator attacks everyone in the woods after blowing up the crashed ship. Traeger dies when a predator weapon mounted on his shoulder fires at his head. Baxley and Coyle euthanize each other after the predator impales and eviscerates them respectively.

The predator reveals it was actually after Rory when it takes the boy captive. Casey tells Quinn the theory that people with Asperger’s may be the next step in humanity’s evolutionary chain.

Quinn, Nebraska, and Nettles jump on top of the hunter predator’s ship as it takes off with Rory aboard. The predator activates a forcefield that cuts Nettles in half. Trapped outside the field and losing air, Nebraska sacrifices himself by jumping into the engine to partially disable the ship.

Quinn gets into the ship and continues sabotaging it to bring the craft back to the ground. Quinn and the predator battle in a swamp. Wearing the invisibility cloak, Casey comes to Quinn’s aid. Rory cuts off the predator’s arm by reactivating the forcefield. The predator dog brings Casey a weapon that she passes to Quinn. Quinn puts the device in a predator gun and fires it to blow up the predator. Afterward, Quinn and Rory bury items belonging to each of the fallen loonies.

Some time later, Dr. Yamada welcomes Quinn to a facility where Rory uses his genius to aid research into predator technology. Yamada reveals the pod that the fugitive predator stole had a failsafe to protect it from destruction. Researchers open the pod to find sentient armor dubbed “predator killer” inside.

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Review:

The following harsh words for “The Predator” can be found by browsing single-sentence review summaries on Metacritic. Miserable. Messy. Underdeveloped. Chaotic. Convoluted. Silly. Senseless. Forgettable. Boring.

Seeing the movie for myself, and enjoying it far more than I was led to believe possible, sparks a curious question I’d pose to people using the adjectives above. What exactly does anyone want out of a Predator movie that this film doesn’t deliver?

Here are some alternative terms. Alien spaceships. Fierce chases. Flashy firefights. Big guns. Bigger explosions. Bloody deaths and violent decapitations. Beer-swilling military men making comedic quips while combating monsters. If you think “The Predator” isn’t in line with precisely the sort of style that fits the franchise, perhaps it’s been awhile since you revisited the Arnold Schwarzenegger original.

Some things you won’t find are any excruciatingly belabored backstories like those seen in the coma-causing “Alien vs. Predator” duology. “The Predator” almost literally hits the ground running as an interplanetary pursuit immediately ends with one of the titular creatures crash-landing in Mexico while an Army sniper delivers headshots to hostage-taking drug dealers. “The Predator” simply stomps in confidently and says, “here’s the monster, here’s the setup, let’s get right to it.”

Said sniper is Quinn, a downgraded Dutch whose investigation of escape pod wreckage lights an opportunistic idea bulb over his head. Looking to outwit the government goons he knows are in hot pursuit to hush-hush the alien encounter, Quinn quickly mails a snazzy predator helmet and gauntlet to an address back in the states.

The ill-gotten goods mistakenly go to Rory, Quinn’s young son whose gifted intellect plays on a seesaw with Asperger syndrome. Rory’s interest in the alien tech inadvertently activates a beacon that summons a second, more menacing predator to collect whatever contraband the first predator stole.

Quinn faces pressing problems on his end. Traeger, who leads those gov’t goons alluded to earlier, sets up Quinn to be the fall guy in a cover-up for the crash. Quinn ends up imprisoned on a bus of other problematic military vets on their way to be similarly disappeared. Together, these “loonies” make perfect patsies. But their neurotic tics, nonchalance, and devil may care attitudes give them the right match of craziness, charisma, and chutzpah to become a ragtag platoon. Their escape turns into a rescue mission before changing again into a seek-and-destroy operation to prevent the predator from killing Quinn’s kid, and everyone else too.

“The Predator’s” recipe begins with its 1987 roots. Then it stirs in plentiful pinches of “Dirty Dozen” grit, summer blockbuster showmanship, impressive A-movie actors in B-movie roles, irreverent humor that’s not above “your momma” jokes, even a vulnerable boy in ever-present danger for viewers to vicariously live through. It’s basically a pure potpourri of every essential element that adds up to unfiltered escapist entertainment.

The plot’s pot boils over with the comic book brand of adrenalized machismo that many action movies left behind before jam bands became popular. For better as well as for worse, “The Predator” remains unapologetically indifferent to contemporary conventions of 21st century decency. Instead, it’s brazenly brash, and in some cases backward, about its presentation of gender roles, alpha male archetypes, and throwback thrills. More bluntly, “The Predator” embodies the kind of flippantly smirking flick that would anchor any weekend night lineup if Spike TV were still a thing.

To that end, a guilty verdict would be rapidly rendered for any charge regarding the film’s easily earned “man’s man movie” moniker. Excellent actresses Olivia Munn and Yvonne Strahovski see their extensive talents smothered in window dressing roles whose purposes are to facilitate plot movement for the main men. Link that to co-writer/director Shane Black’s trademark tone of barbed wire writing unafraid of the word “retard” or using autism as a storytelling tool and you’ve got some potentially problematic chauvinism and insensitivity dirtying the drink.

Even in turning a blind eye and accepting such material as having an intentionally retro ‘80s tone, “The Predator” still has a consistency concern with its last act. The film somewhat infamously went through well-documented reshoots and reedits that cut a lot of content while reconfiguring the climax.

Edward James Olmos appeared in an early cut as a presumably prominent military general. So did a pair of “Emissary Predators” who fought alongside the humans while wearing camouflage clothes. And let’s only cursorily mention Shane Black’s friend whose appearance created a controversy that Olivia Munn publicly brought to light. The fact that you can’t even pinpoint where these snipped scenes originally were either validates accusations of storyline incoherence or speaks to how well Black streamlined “The Predator” to eliminate fluff.

Then there are the alternate endings. The original script had Dutch reappearing to lead survivors into a sequel, but Schwarzenegger declined to come aboard for a mere cameo. Three “Alien” related options were on the table too, with at least one having been filmed that featured Ellen Ripley emerging as the cargo that the predators fight over.

Any of those ideas would have been infinitely preferable to the stale stinger that limps the last two minutes into end credits. Learning nothing from how Marvel movies string their fans to the next chapter with enticing mid and post-credits codas, “The Predator” leaves audiences with a lingering taste that doesn’t even entice fans of this film to eagerly froth for a follow-up like any of the “almost happened” callbacks would have done.

In defiance of its drawbacks, dominantly loaded onto clunky last act dips, “The Predator” works as well as it conceivably could considering how the conclusion had to be shredded to pieces and rebuilt. Some of the CGI gets shockingly sloppy for a big budget studio film. And only a lack of coverage can explain the editing room rush job that makes missing important moments like Traeger’s final fate a consequence of blinking.

But the balance struck by the significant weight of Sterling K. Brown playing a distinctly Sterling K. Brown villain, Keegan-Michael Key and Thomas Jane doing similar shtick to round out their rivalry with panache, and high voltage energy behind consistent carnage keep up the heat with more sizzle than fizzle. If your gear isn’t set to soak up stylized slaughter with whirling dervish intensity, you’re taking “The Predator” more rigidly than it intends.

Review Score: 75

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