Shane Black’s 2018 entry into the popular sci-fi/horror/action Predator franchise was, despite technically being the highest-grossing movie of the series yet, a critical and financial misfire. The frequent incoherence of the movie that audiences ended up seeing reeked of studio meddling and reports of extensive reshoots appear to confirm that. But does that mean that the movie is totally devoid of merit, or could it be worth reappraising?
Let’s take a look at some of the things that the movie unequivocally failed at, as well as some of its qualities that don’t receive enough credit, to see if it really is as bad as people say it is.
Isn’t: The Cast
Though they may not always be getting the opportunity to demonstrate it, The Predator is full of great actors with serious action, comedy, and drama credentials.
The misfit soldiers of the movie’s “Group Two” alone are a fascinatingly eclectic ensemble who demonstrate fantastic chemistry together, even when the movie’s letting them down.
Is: The Pacing
So much of what’s fundamentally wrong about The Predator could easily be forgiven by a genre fan if the story just weren’t so disjointed and directionless.
The movie tries to take a breathless approach but it’s difficult to know how serious the stakes are meant to be at any given time. The main characters’ objectives keep constantly changing and it creates more confusion than tension or engagement, particularly in action sequences.
Isn’t: The Tone
What can help a genre fan forgive the movie’s faults is the simple–but powerful–fact that it’s never taking itself too seriously, even in the moments that are meant to be emotional.
The Predator is fundamentally a comedy movie and a comedy that isn’t really funny is still less boring for anyone to watch than a horror movie that isn’t scary, which is what it so easily could have been instead.
Is: The Editing
So much of what makes The Predator a failure in the areas of comedy and action is its sense of timing. Great actors can do nothing to remedy a scene that has its sense of rhythm butchered in the editing room.
Basic things like scene transitions are often jarring and they create the impression that the movie is struggling to form a coherent story out of the footage that it has to work with after the cuts and reshoots.
Isn’t: It Redefines Predator Technology
For the longest time, Predators have mostly been defined by their shoulder-mounted laser cannons and their camouflaging technology. The rest of their arsenal has been bladed weapons and it’s been enough for the most part but, if the alien hunters are going to move into more sequels in the future, there’s going to need to be some additions to the formula.
The Predator delivers on expanding and upgrading the Predator technology for a digitally orientated world but that too comes with its own problems…
Is: The CGI
Computer-generated effects weren’t much of a factor in even the more recent Predator movies but that doesn’t mean that there’s anything inherently wrong with using them in conjunction with the action or creatures.
The CGI throughout The Predator, however, just doesn’t blend with the rest of the live-action surroundings, making action sequences seem more cartoonish than they should and deflating a lot of the tension. The impact of the gore, which is very frequent throughout the movie, is also often softened quite significantly by this.
Isn’t: It Tries to Bring In a New Audience
It may not necessarily succeed at this task but The Predator makes an honest attempt at spinning the franchise’s core elements for an audience who may never have heard of the original movies before.
Obviously, the most honest recommendation that anyone could make to a prospective fan would be to just watch the original but, if they have a phobia of anything more than that a few years old, The Predator isn’t blasphemous in its handling of the franchise’s integral qualities.
Is: Its Depiction of Disorders
One thing that even the most lenient fan can’t give the movie credit for is its depiction of disorders, some of them quite serious. Shane Black has proven to have quite a knack for inappropriate humor and oddball characters suffering from genuine problems but it’s difficult to see the humor in the movie’s depiction of post-traumatic stress disorder in war veterans.
Autism, similarly, is handled with a non-existent level of finesse which ultimately equates one of the most extreme forms of the social disorder to being a magical superpower. That said…
Isn’t: Its Heart Isn’t in the Wrong Place
As hamfisted as its attempts at depicting serious issues are, The Predator isn’t a mean-spirited movie in any way. Though it’s an experience that may easily come off as tedious to the audience, it isn’t offensive and there’s a certain sweetness behind even its clunkiest moments.
The problems of The Predator are really technical ones and, even in the case of its talented cast, its misuse of potential never really feels criminal save for one exception…
Is: It’s a Waste of a Great Cinematographer
Larry Fong hadn’t just proven himself as one of the most competent cinematographers working on big-budget studio movies before shooting The Predator, he was behind some of the most visually fun movies from the preceding decade.
Particularly in his work with Zack Snyder, Fong has demonstrated a unique flair for bringing graphic stories to the big screen in an interesting but accessible way and the humdrum simplicity of The Predator‘s cinematography feels like an unforgivable waste of talent.
