Reviews & Ratings for
The Predator (2018)

A Predator ship crash-lands on Earth. U.S. Army Ranger sniper Quinn McKenna and his team are attacked by the Predator while on a hostage retrieval mission. McKenna incapacitates the Predator and has parts of its armor sent off by mail to prove the existence of extraterrestrial life. Government agent Will Traeger has McKenna captured and held for examination. Traeger also takes the Predator to a lab for experimentation and observation, recruiting evolutionary biologist Casey Bracket to study it, who discovers that the Predator's genetic makeup contains human DNA. The Predator awakens, breaks out of its restraints, and kills the lab workers and armed guards, but spares Bracket, the only unarmed person, before escaping.

The world was introduced to an extraordinary creature through 1987's landmark action film Predator. The eponymous Predator was an unknown, stealthy, intelligent monster equipped with high-tech gadgets that would one by one hunt down a pack of soldiers in a thick forest. Since then we've had many movies featuring the Predator, yet none were able to capture the same magic as the original movie.

2018 brings yet another reboot for the franchise after the previous reboot failed to take off in 2010. This time it was Shane Black's (who incidentally had a small role in the original movie) chance to turn the fate of the waning franchise around. But unfortunately despite having a highly acclaimed director and a bunch of talented actors, the movie fails to stand out from the usual generic creature flick. There is no flair, the tension or the self awareness of the 1987 original.

The movie is less of a Predator movie and more of a Suicide Squad clone which isn't a compliment at this point. The movie ditches the survival horror genre of the original to go the other way by being an all out action comedy hybrid about predators and humans fighting for survival. The movie tries to keep things jovial and moving through witty banter and humour that has been a staple of Shane Black's movies. Sometimes the gags are extremely funny, sometimes the jokes don't land, but half way into the movie the humour starts getting irritating l in your nerves.

The action is a mixture of cgi gore and practical effects that are just serviceable, nothing extraordinary about it. The Predator Vs an even bigger Predator wasn't as exciting on screen as the prospect of it was on paper. The cast consisting of big names like Boyd Holbrook, Keegan-Michael Key, etc does its best to keep you entertained but they are no match to the charisma and grandeur of the iconic Arnold Schwarzenegger. The plot is a mess that waste ideas with great potential, and was clearly written with sequels in mind.

Watch this movie only if you are in the mood for a dumb mindless flick that has action and humour, but is ultimately flimsy and forgettable.