Review of The Predator (2018) by Chris O — 08 Oct 2018

"The Predator", although extremely flawed, is a fun, comical piece.

From the outer reaches of space to the small-town streets of suburbia, the hunt comes home in Shane Black's explosive reinvention of the Predator series. Now, the universe's most lethal hunters are stronger, smarter and deadlier than ever before, having genetically upgraded themselves with DNA from other species. When a young boy accidentally triggers their return to Earth, only a ragtag crew of ex-soldiers and a disgruntled science teacher can prevent the end of the human race.

Wow...so it's been a while since I've written anything. More than 20 days. It's weird because I'm not used to going more than a week without writing anything. I guess it's been life. College has kept me real busy. In fact, I haven't even gotten to see nearly as many films as I'd wish. I actually saw an advanced screening of this film about a week before it came out. We even had a Q&A with Olivia Munn and that was cool. Anyways, here we go.

This movie is bad, in a sense, but I had so much fun with it. The story doesn't really feel paced and for a film that's nearly two hours, it rushes through pretty quickly. I thought there were a lot of aspects of the story that didn't really make sense. They often had exposition for the sake of having exposition and it never felt like the story naturally progressed.

One thing I did appreciate was the comedy of this film. I thought the film was hilarious and I was definitely laughing at more than a few moments. I thought the cast had great chemistry together and if anything, Shane Black knows hows to deliver a witty script. Did Shane Black and co. sacrifice a story for comedy? Maybe, I mean, I don't know everything that went on behind the scenes. But this film certainly was entertaining and hilarious.

I thought overall, the movie looked solid. I'll be honest, I haven't watched any of the other Predator films yet but from what I've heard, you don't need to. The practical use of costumes was admirable and although the CGI didn't look the best at times, it was manageable. The movie looked fine for what it was.

I'll be honest, I'm in class right now so I'll keep this real short. "The Predator" was fun, mindless entertainment that makes no sense. Even hearing Olivia Munn talk about it, she was pretty disinterested. However, I did have fun with this film and I think that's still important. It's flawed for sure, but comical.