Apparently, neither two failed direct sequels nor two failed Alien crossovers were quite enough to keep one good Predator down. Perhaps they should have been. Even though three decades of trying to turn the Arnold Schwarzenegger 1987 action classic into a sustainable franchise had not thus far worked out, someone in the studio had what must have felt like an incredible brainstorm. Why not hand the series to Shane Black, the acclaimed filmmaker responsible for Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and the (then) recent mega-blockbuster Iron Man 3? Not only was the guy an ace action movie screenwriter famous for penning Lethal Weapon, he’d even appeared as a notable supporting actor in the original Predator back in the day! How perfect is that?
Sadly, as it turns out, not very.
In many fans’ estimation, 2018’s stupidly-titled The Predator ranks as the worst entry in an already dicey franchise. I’m not sure I agree with that (personally, I still hate the 2010 Predators more), but having now finally watched it after several years of near-total disinterest, I can certainly understand what people dislike about the movie. It’s an ill-conceived mess on a number of levels.
| Title: | The Predator |
| Year of Release: | 2018 |
| Director: | Shane Black |
| Watched On: | 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray |
| Also Available On: | Blu-ray Hulu Various VOD rental and purchase platforms |
At some point in its development, The Predator was set to star Benicio del Toro as the latest hardened badass to face off against the extraterrestrial hunters known as Predators. That didn’t pan out, and somehow writer/director Black settled on the little-known Boyd Holbrook to replace him. Holbrook isn’t a bad actor; he’s handsome enough and delivers a little devilish Southern good ol’ boy charm. However, at least in this role, he seems decidedly more suited to being a supporting player rather than a leading man. That proves problematic when he’s supposed to be the central focal point of a big-budget action tentpole.
Holbrook plays Quinn McKenna, an elite U.S. Army sniper who has a brush with a Predator after its ship crashes into the jungle near him while he’s on an assassination mission. He survives, though the rest of his team does not. Whisked back home for what should be a debriefing, Quinn finds himself instead sidelined by a government and military eager to cover up what he saw by branding him as Section Eight, mentally unfit for duty, and foisting him into a therapy group with a bunch of other nutcases who call themselves “The Loonies.” Most memorable among them are Keegan-Michael Key as an insufferable jokester and Thomas Jane as a PTSD burnout suffering from Tourette Syndrome, which regularly compels him to blurt out lines like, “Fuck me in the face with an aardvark!”
Meanwhile, a smug CIA jagoff (Sterling K. Brown) manages to capture the injured Predator and hold it for study by an evolutionary biologist (Olivia Munn), who only needs to glance at a pretty generic-looking spear mounted in a case on the wall and can immediately tell that it’s alien technology – because of course that’s something a biologist would be an expert at knowing. Big shock, the Predator gets loose and kills a lot of people. As it turns out, this Predator is actually the prey for an even bigger and meaner Predator, who arrives later and kills plenty more puny humans as collateral damage in their Preda-war. Obviously, it will eventually fall to Quinn and the Loonies to stop the Predators and save small town American suburbia from this galactic turf war.
To be fair about it, Black’s script for The Predator has a couple decent ideas to expand the lore and mythology of the Predators with new details about their inter-species conflict and the reasons so many of them keep coming back to Earth. Unfortunately, those bits wind up buried under a mountain of dumb plotting and tiresome clichés. Trying to turn Olivia Munn into an action heroine by having her scientist character inexplicably become an instantaneous expert in small arms weaponry who runs into battle blasting away with a sub-machine gun is just silly. A storyline about Quinn’s autistic son (Jacob Tremblay from Room) being the next step in human evolution is also a real eye-roller, and a last-minute ploy to set up a cliffhanger for future sequels was probably always doomed to go nowhere.
All that noted, the most depressing aspect of the film is the failure of its forced humor. Black has always been known for his quippy dialogue, but it really goes overboard here, and most of the characters are just annoying. Repeated attempts to turn the word “assburger” into a quote-worthy meme fall completely flat, and a bit where a character spots a row of parked motorcycles and yells, “Get to the choppers!” is just about the worst type of franchise fan-service imaginable.
The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
The Predator came to both Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray in December of 2018, three months following its theatrical run. On the latter format, the film was released for sale either individually or as part of a 4-Movie Collection bundled with previous installments Predator, Predator 2, and Predators. Although I really had no interest in owning either Predators or this entry, I bought the box set solely to get the 4K copy of Predator 2, which to date has still never been released on its own. Until now, I never even bothered to watch The Predator.
The 4-Movie Collection offers all movies on both regular Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD. However, the thick keepcase is very poorly designed and can barely hold the eight discs. Many of mine keep popping off their spindles to float loosely in the case.
Despite being upconverted from a 2K Digital Intermediate, the 4K edition of The Predator is a very slick and polished presentation. The 2.39:1 image appears plenty sharp and detailed to the eye, with vibrant colors and rich contrasts. Although this is often a dark movie in which seemingly the majority of scenes take place at night, the HDR grade retains more than sufficient shadow detail and has vivid highlights. The movie’s photography arguably might look overly digital and sterile, and the color grading has a little too much teal for my liking, but those are matters of personal preference rather than technical issues with the video master.
The Dolby Atmos soundtrack is likewise a first-rate affair. Compared to the tepid standards of most other modern action movie sound mixes, which are usually flattened in dynamic range and limited in surround usage, the audio for this movie is quite surprisingly loud and bassy, with tons of aggressive directional activity, including overhead.
The 4K disc has no bonus features, and those found on the standard Blu-ray are pretty much worthless. Items consist of a handful of deleted scenes, three EPK puff-piece featurettes, a highlight reel of clips from the prior three Predator movies, an image gallery, and the film’s trailer.
Related
- Predator franchise
- Shane Black (writer/director)
- Sterling K. Brown
Note: All screenshots on this page were taken from the standard Blu-ray edition of the film and are used for illustration purposes only.
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