Another reboot to the franchise brings more blood, guts, and humor to one of our favorite Arnold Schwarzenegger 80’s film ‘Predator‘. Now, it’s simply titled ‘THE PREDATOR‘, which vaguely addresses the past two films with zero mention of any characters. Shane Black is at the helm of this distant sequel to the original film, which is interesting, to say the least. Shane was in the first film back in 1987 and played the part of Hawkins who told the funny jokes through the film. Shane went on to write the ‘Lethal Weapon‘ movies, ‘The Monster Squad‘ and more importantly ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang‘, ‘The Nice Guys‘, and ‘Iron Man 3‘, before taking this on with his fellow ‘Monster Squad‘ collaborator Fred Dekker.
I know there is some controversy surrounding this movie as of late, but I won’t go into that. However, I discuss numerous deleted scenes that were left out of this theatrical cut due to that controversy and one important character played by Edward James Olmos. Yes, the Battlestar Galactica Admiral had a major role in this new ‘Predator‘ movie, but his character has been entirely removed, which cut down the runtime significantly. This is unfortunate because there are a ton of moments that don’t make a bit of sense where characters say or do things that don’t coincide with the story. It feels a bit rushed and in a good way – to the main point, which is action and carnage. I just wish we cared about these characters a little bit more like we did in the 1987 film, in that with each death, we felt a loss. In this new one, we do not by any means.
‘The Predator‘ plays out where a Predator ship crashes on Earth, which is being chased by another Predator ship. On a military mission, a soldier sniper named McKenna witnesses this crash and the alien. He steals some of Predator’s gear and ships it to his autistic kid, which he mistakes for a Halloween costume. Soon, that Predator and a much bigger Predator are after the gear which pits McKenna and a ragtag team of misfit military guys in a fight for survival in a suburban neighborhood. What Shane Black does well here is keep the pace flying at a super fast pace with hilarious vulgar jokes and banter between Keegan Michael Key and Thomas Jane.
The jokes are plenty and the action is almost non-stop. There are some inventive kills and the blood flows in overtime. There are a ton of good concepts brought to light in this new film, which will set up at least two more movies in the future, however, due to the many deleted scenes left out, nothing really felt cohesive. That all being said, ‘The Predator‘ is a lot of fun and highly entertaining to watch. I laughed throughout and even a bit terrified in some of the scenes with the big bad ‘Predator’. I’d be on board for a sequel or two here.