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The Predator
Starring: Boyd Holbrook, Trevante Rhodes, Jacob Tremblay
Director: Shane Black
Genre: Sci-fi/Action
Rating: 15+
RUNTIME: 107 Mins
With its bawdy sense of humour, disorderly cast of characters, and hard core kills and action, The Predator does a lot right to reinvigorate the 31-year-old series.
It doesn’t hit the heights of the original starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, and few action films ever will, but this is finally a follow-up worthy of the name.
Shane Black (who played a supporting role as Hawkins in the 1987 original) co-wrote and directed this continuation of the franchise, bringing his signature blend of dark, profane comedy, and offbeat familial dynamics to the material.
The Predator blends humour and heart as it explores two broken families: one, a group of self-proclaimed ‘Loonies’ – psychologically damaged veterans bound for a military psych ward – and the other is the McKennas, a military family that’s fallen apart for a host of reasons.
The latter includes dad Quinn (Boyd Holbrook), a former soldier now employed as a mercenary, mum Emily (Yvonne Strahovski), and their young autistic son Rory (Jacob Tremblay).
Both families imbue this Predator film with a humanity that’s been lacking in the series for some time, and the solid ensemble cast Black has assembled bring his battered creations and sharp dialogue to life with verve and conviction. I found myself truly connecting with this group and willing them to succeed as their dynamic evolved and layers of their personalities were revealed.
Not that all of the characters have that much to them though, mind you. Olivia Munn’s evolutionary biologist, Dr Casey Bracket, initially seems like she might serve a key function by offering exposition and scientific insight but at a certain point she becomes just another character with a gun.
Strahovski has a couple of decent scenes that show Emily is almost as much a force for the bad guys to reckon with as her estranged husband, but she’s not terribly consequential in the long run.
Faring far better are Trevante Rhodes as ‘Nebraska’ Williams, (seemingly) the most well-adjusted of the Loonies who gets a few nice male bonding moments with McKenna, and the duo of bickering-but-devoted buddies Coyle (Keegan Michael Key) and Baxley (Thomas Jane) get the lion’s share of the jokes. Augusto Aguilera’s Nettles also gets a few dumb-sweet moments along the way, but as entertaining and likable as the Loonies are they’re merely supporting players to Quinn McKenna.
Holbrook brings a world-weary resignation to the role; McKenna has seen it all, so much so that he doesn’t even seem particularly surprised to learn that aliens exist. He has some warm moments with his son that help humanise him, but when you get down to it McKenna is there to kill and break things.
Holbrook’s gruff-but-relatable portrayal helps make this otherwise-cliché macho character appealing. Meanwhile, Jacob Tremblay once again proves he’s one of the best child actors working, giving a nuanced performance as Quinn’s gifted son Rory, a role that could’ve easily been overplayed or reduced to a plot gimmick in lesser hands. But as much as a solid crew of human characters are necessary for an audience to be emotionally invested in a story about many of them being gruesomely hunted for sport, a Predator movie lives or dies based on how cool and intimidating its title character is ... and that’s where The Predator proves woefully inconsistent.
While we get all the usual path of destruction associated with the alien hunters, the introduction of a bigger, meaner variety of the already absurdly lethal original version raises the stakes of what the creature and the series is capable of ... until it just peters out.
Outside of his strength and size, this new Predator doesn’t seem particularly better or more cunning than his smaller counterpart.
Furthermore, the home stretch is a little disappointing, with the action and the characters’ fates so quickly rushed through that it’s hard to keep track of who’s alive and who’s dead, short-changing both the titular alien hunter and the emotional payoffs to several of the main players’ arcs.
Some of the digital effects in the final sequence on-board a Predator’s starship are also ropey at best.
Despite that, The Predator is, in many ways, a throwback to what made the 1987 original so beloved: it includes many of the same elements, such as the rowdy camaraderie amongst ludicrously macho protagonists, a debauched wit and a primal battle between man and beast.
If you can forgive a slightly underwhelming ending, it’s well worth hunting a ticket.
Now showing in: Cineco, Seef I, Saar, Wadi Al Sail, Mukta A2, Avenues
Kristian’s verdict: 4/5
