The Predator

Some franchises are better off being left alone, and a prime example was the first Predator film from the 1980s. Now an iconic Arnie action flick, the disappointing sequel and the 2010 follow-up Predators, which I wrote about a few years ago, failed to capture much of what made the original a success. Not to forget those dreaded AVP films, it seems the series is now just a tool for producers to cash-in and make easy money off the licence but the announcement that the 2018 sequel would be directed by Shane Black, who starred in the original, convinced me that maybe this one would be different...

It was different and became one of the worst reviewed films of the year. No one expected such an aggressively bad film but somehow this exceeded expectations. Ridley Scott has divided fans with his sequels to Alien but this took things to a new level and I wanted to see what the fuss was about. On paper, the story seems average as a US sniper (Boyd Holbrook) witnesses the predator ship crash in the American countryside and is grabbed by a secret agency trying to unlock the alien's powerful weapons for their own use, or something to that degree.

Shane Black's career took flight in the 1980s with the Lethal Weapon series but his more recent work with Iron Man 3 was where he proved his was willing to take risks with an established franchise which divided many of the Marvel fans. I enjoyed the fresh approach but there's something under the skin of The Predator that doesn't sit right with me. Understandably the horror aspect of the series has been weltered due to the overexposure of the series main star so a new approach was needed, and for Shane Black that meant comedy. And to his credit, it almost works on that level but there's something undeniably cheap about the whole experience as the film runs through the American suburbs.

The cast are the film's saving grace who all seem in on the joke not to take things too seriously amongst the ultra violent deaths but this isn't enough to save this bombastically bad experience from being one to easily skip. The 2010 sequel lacked the impact but had the right ingredients whereas this is the opposite. Maybe at this point the Predator series can finally hang-up the mask, admitting its best days were in the 80s and go into a long overdue retirement.