The PREDATOR franchise review

I’m not terribly attached to the Predator franchise but I decided to do some prep for the latest installment titled Prey. I had never seen Predator 2 or The Predator, and I’m glad they did because they gave me a fresh perspective on the franchise. I won’t be talking about the two Alien vs Predator movies because i have nothing to say about them other than this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pLHJBxhO9o

Predator (1987)

My coldest take ever: Predator rocks. Not only does it function great as a straightforward action movie, but even better as a subversion of 80s action movie tropes. The first act feels like a parody of Schwarzenegger movies like Commando, opening with an action set-piece so epic and over-the-top it feels like the third act of a traditional action movies before gradually becoming a slasher movie about an alien hunting the squad for sport. It’s smart enough to take the generic setup of a team of badass, musclebound military men with machine guns and turns them into terrified, screaming slasher movie victims.

I don’t have much to say about Predator other than what’s been said a billion times before. It’s one of those concepts that’s perfect for a single one-off movie and then never expanded upon past what’s given in the film. So obviously it’s got four sequels and two spin-offs.

Predator 2 (1990)

There’s lots of great stuff in Predator 2. The atmosphere is palpable, every character looking sweaty and miserable during every single scene of the movie. The LA heat radiates from every frame of this movie.

There’s some fun set-pieces in the second act but Predator 2 mostly feels empty.

I really love the idea of this being a parody of a Lethal Weapon-esque cop action movie with an alien hunter dropped into it like how the first movie was basically a parody of movies like Commando with the added horror element, but the execution just isn’t there with this one for me. The mystique of the alien is gone, so Predator 2 had to make up for that with a really good plot to make up for it and it’s just kinda ehhhh? Predator 2 is a passively enjoyable action movie but not as engaging, subversive or tight as Predator.

Something that becomes very apparent in Predator 2 and in every subsequent sequel is that the Predator itself works best when it’s hidden. When it’s seen in full frame just walking in broad daylight like Batman during the ending of The Dark Knight Rises, or really doing anything outside of the context of the finale of the ending of the first movie, it ceases to be frightening and mysterious and just looks like a goofy man in a rubber costume.

Predators (2010)

The first two Predator films were made in response to the popular action movies of the time, such as Commando, The Terminator and the Lethal Weapon franchise, but the third entry in the series feels more like a reaction to the fan-response to Predator 2 twenty years after the fact.

Coming in at the front end of the trend of reboots and sequels to 80s movies we’ve seen in the last decade, Predators is back to the basics that the original movie set out with: group of people armed to the teeth being hunted for sport by an alien predator in the jungle. And on that front it’s not bad. It’s one of the better reboot movies to come out of Hollywood. The twist that it’s on the alien home-world instead of Earth was fun. There’s lots of solid set-pieces and creepy locations, some fun gore, and the glimpses at the alien hunting culture on their home turf are interesting. The inclusion of the super-duper Predator killing the classic Predator is annoying and lame though. It has major “Spinosaurus killing the T-Rex in Jurassic Park 3” vibes.

Despite it’s positive qualities, the movie feels a lot more slick and a with a lot less personality than the previous two, especially in terms of visuals and music. It’s not as claustrophobic as the first and doesn’t have that feeling of overbearing heat as the second. It’s not a bad movie, but it where Predator feels like a fresh take on the action genre to this day, Predators feels like any garden-variety action movie from 2010.

The Predator (2018)

I had heard absolutely nothing but bad things about this movie for the last four years, and after watching it for the first time yesterday... it lived up to the hype. This movie is so bad that my only way of rationalizing how bad it is is with the interpretation that this is a Freddy Got Fingered-esque joke on the studio on Shane Black’s part. The Predator feels like Shane Black took a look at the landscape of sequels, prequels, remakes, reboots and major franchise movies and in response made a movie filled to the brim with all of the worst qualities found in modern blockbuster movies.

The Predator truly is one of the absolute worst action movies of the 2010s. It doesn’t work on any level that it attempts to; the script is one of the worst I’ve seen in a LONGGGG time, making the previous installment look like Citizen Kane in comparison. The action isn’t exciting or engaging, the horror elements aren’t scary, neither of which are particularly gory in any frightening or satisfying way, and the humor is juvenile and obnoxious. It’s not well shot at all, and there’s no atmosphere to be found like in the earlier Predator movies.

The characters are mostly one-dimensional stereotypes who exist to be cannon fodder for the Predator, but they don’t even confront the Predator until the last 30 minutes, rendering the entire posse of side-characters useless.

Like I said before, seeing a Predator just walking around instead of hiding looks ridiculous. I get that this movie is going for a more farcical tone than the previous entries, but a Predator walking around like a WWE wrestler in hallways just looks wrong. When we see an 11-foot-tall super-duper mega Predator walking around it becomes impossible to buy that that same monster can become a stealthy, silent hunter that could be lurking in the trees anywhere at any moment five seconds after throwing people around like the Incredible Hulk.

Given Shane Black’s track record of making clever movies like Lethal Weapon, The Nice Guys and even Iron Man 3, I imagine he’s trying to lampoon both the Predator franchise and the state of modern blockbusters with this one, but he went and made the worst of both categories.

While none of the sequels are particularly good, certainly never reaching the level of Mad Max: Fury Road, Aliens or Terminator 2, the Predator franchise is unique because each movie feels very emblematic of the era in which they were made, never feeling like the same-old-movie again.

They each feel like they’re tackling different sub-genres of action movies. The first two are the classic 80s action setups with classic 80s action movie archetypes with a horror movie monster dropped into them to throw a wrench in what would otherwise be any old action movie.

The closest it gets to feeling like more-of-the-same is with the 2010 movie, which despite some eye-rolling callbacks to remind you it’s a reboot, still managed to not feel like a retread of the same story.

The 2018 reboot, for all its many shortcomings, feels right in line with that, at least in spirit more so than the execution. The problem is that it doesn’t subvert dumb modern action movies in a clever way, it’s just another dumb modern action movie.

For all its shortcomings, the standalone Predator movies are all still better overall than the Terminator franchise, which does just feel like the exact same movie again and again, and the Alien vs Predator movies, which is faint praise but you know what I wanted to end this on a positive note.