Spoilers The Predator- Review and Discussion Thread

Why are you trying to antagonize me? What do your comments have anything to do with the point of this thread other than to be outright antagonistic? Makes no sense.

 

Each Predator sequel is a step down from the previous movie, but this is a lower level all together from Predators. The plot was messy, the characterizations of the heroes were pretty poor (all jokes all the time!), and all that exposition dumping to explain who they were was terrible.

Trevante Rhodes probably had the best character of the soldiers. Olivia Munn did a good job with the material she had. Yvonne Strahovski was wasted in a nothing role. I thought she was going to get in on the action when she said she was going, but then she stayed.

They also wasted an opportunity to do something with Jake Busey. Technically he was playing the son of a character from Predator 2, but honestly they could've stuck his character name onto any role in the movie and it wouldn't have changed anything.

The movie feels like it has way too much gloss and not enough grit for a Predator movie, if that makes sense.

 

The Predator is basically just one big wasted opportunity, riddled with terrible decisions and horrible editing. I'm saddened but not surprised, given all we knew about it. Fourth movie in a row with Predators in it that was a big disappointment. Predator and Terminator are neck and neck! Alien is still in the lead with five.

 

I had an idea that he died but didn't even know what happened. In a YouTube video I came across, they said he was trying to use the predator shoulder weapon thing and ended up shooting his own head off. It must've been like a two second shot or something because they were already off to the next cut.

Also.... for a predator who is here to save humanity, he sure left a larger human body count than even the super predator did. Makes me wonder if his motivations were rewritten but they weren't about to toss out the majority of the action that had already been shot.

 

So that’s who was killed by that. It got rather confusing at the end.

 

Yeah, it was super quick and with no lead up at all. Smells of a last minute change to me. The editing in that scene actually had me thinking for a moment that he has blown Munn's head off before I realized what had happened.

 

Finally watched it today.

About halfway through, I was thinking "this isn't so bad, in fact I like this movie, the haters were wrong". Lots of folks in the theater were laughing at the jokes, and the movie seemed to be flowing along nicely.

Then it all just completely fell apart at the end. The Hunter Predator chase in the dark forest was terrible. Horrible cuts from shot to shot, on top of the fact you couldn't make half the stuff out anyway. When you have no idea what character in on screen, you've done something wrong. I just barely caught the Sterling KB death, and I think shortly afterwards, there was a scene of the Predator falling over a cliff, that was immediately followed by him chasing them in the forest some more. Did I misunderstand that scene? I haven't seen others complain about it, so maybe I did.

And that final scene, ouch. Poorly written. Should have been post-credits tag if anything at all. And yeah, I wanted an Alien or even another human (Machiko or someone like that) or something. Instead, all we got was bad cgi and no point. Of course, that scene was immediately preceded by that bizarre bandana remembrance for the dead loonies.

All in all, the damn thing just fell apart at the end.

I did like the Loonies. Thomas Jane and KMK were great! Olivia Munn was fine, but the bizarre decision to turn her from a scientist into a bus-roof-jumping ultra-badass didn't make a lick of sense.

Like I said, I was perfectly fine with the first half or so. Not a perfect Oscar winner or anything, but more than acceptable. And then the second half happened.

Was it a case of studio interference? Or was it a case of Fox not even caring as a studio since they're about to no longer exist? Did Shane Black sabotage it on purpose?

Too bad, this movie could have been better.

 

There's a movie called Basic starring John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson where you can tell there were numerous rewrites, but it wasn't a complete overhaul of the entire script because there was still stuff left in the movie that suddenly didn't make any sense. The Predator feels the same way.

 

Saw this last night and quite enjoyed it. Was good fun, and liked the wacky group of characters. Only "problem" is Olivia Munn going from scientist/doctor to bad-ass skilled fighter during the final sequence.

But, overall, an enjoyable watch.

 

It was a fun slice of schlock. A real throwback to the eighties. The villains' motivations made absolutely no sense but at least, after postulating that the human race might go extinct in a few generations through our own stupidity, everyone parked that thought and reset their brains to American because Americans, even scientists and housewives, know that there is no problem that can't be solved with more guns.

The most bonkers thing was the mother who leaves her 9 year old at home alone until after dark AND lets him go trick or treating after dark, on his own. In her defence, while he's at school, his teacher, who you can clearly see exit the room in the background, leaves him behind to burn to death when the fire alarm goes off. He was better off with the predators.

I was surprised to see that the movie was so sexist. In a movie with so many characters, only two women have any lines.

 

That's one more than the original.

 

And the third one.

 

Well Predator is the male focused franchise while the Alien one is the female focused.

 

The first movie gets a pass due to its location but also that it was 30 years ago. I can't remember which one was the third one if I'm honest.

Alien was not a female focused franchise, most of he characters were men; it just usually has a female lead. The most recent Prometheus reboot did manage to equalise the sexes (almost) by having the crew made up of married couples. It's a laudable goal and a novel solution but curious if that's the only solution we ever get.

But it's curious that there was a massive furore about the women in Ghostbusters but the lack of women in these other movies gets a shoulder shrug.

I've just finished watching the extremely popular Bodyguard TV series that was chock full of women whose gender was entirely incidental to the plot. Hollywood really needs to up its game.

 

I kinda forgive them the helicopter because Quinn does send them off with specific instructions to get a helicopter so you can fill in the blanks. The winnebego though is just weird, we sat there going "have we missed something?" same with the bad guy's odd death which we only figured out when we didn't see him again.

A mess of a film, the only saving grace is that it did make me laugh on occasion, but anyone else notice how Thomas Jane's Tourette's miraculously clears up, as does Rory's autism!

Tonally all over the place, its like Black was trying to mix Goonies with the original Predator, oh and Predator dogs with dreadlocks? Give me a break! I really wanted Adrian Brody to get out of that pod at the end!

Very much a Black film because every character is a sweary wisecracker, even the autistic child. C+ because it did make me laugh and I wasn't bored, but damn Shane Black makes a Predator film and it's shit, who saw that coming?

 

Adrian Brody - ha ha yes that would have been great!

 

That’s what I thought it was going to be when they said it was a “Predator Killer”.

 

It's always had a female lead - either Ripley, Ripley-8, Shaw, or Daniels.

 

Tom Skerrit was the lead in Alien. He's a dude. The movie was controversial for killing its well known lead half way through.

 

He was the lead about as much as Marlon Brando was the lead in Superman...