The Predator

As the summer film season winds down to an end, what a better film to be released than that of a huge franchise? What started out as "Predator" '87, has evolved into "Predator 2" '90, to then "Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem" '07 to "Predators" '10. So, like any other self-respecting franchise who simply won't die, we continue with "The Predator".

 

From the outer reaches of space to the small-town streets of suburbia, the hunt comes home. Now, the universe's most lethal hunters are stronger, smarter and deadlier than ever before, have genetically upgraded themselves with DNA from other species. When a small boy, Rory McKenna (Jacob Tremblay) accidentally triggers their return to Earth, only a ragtag crew of ex-soldiers including Rory's father, Captain Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook), Nebraska Williams (Trevante Rhodes), Coyle (Keegan-Michael Key), Baxley (Thomas Jane), Lynch (Alfie Allen) and Nettles (Augusto Aguilera), and a disgruntled science teacher Casey Bracket (Olivia Munn) can prevent the end of the human race replete with all the dysfunction and unpredictability a crew could muster up.

 

Others to round out the cast are Sterling K. Brown as Traeger, Jake Busey as Keyes, Yvonne Strahovski as Emily, Quinn's ex-wife and Brian Prince as Predator.

 

This was directed by the action-film king Shane Black ("Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" '05, "Iron Man 3" '13, "Edge" (TV movie) '15, "The Nice Guys" '16). The staging and pacing by this filmmaker puts these characters in a place that shows its audience the peril they are going through as they are combatting this creature. But, with the experience Black has, it's easy to see how he can execute this. If Black is a director you can trust, his "Doc Savage" has been announced. It was adequately written by Fred Dekker and Black based on characters created by Jim Thomas and John Thomas. Even though both of these writers have a substantial amount of experience, the storyline is still a bit disjointed in that it has a tendency to meander attempting to find the story that they wanted to convey. As the story was trying to find itself, once it did the story then simply moved right along. It was almost as though new writers were commissioned approximately half way through. With these consummate pros, a bad day at the laptop? Not sure, but it definitely gave us that element of escape which is important in this day and age of uncertainty. The visual effects predominanyly created by MPC (Moving Picture Company) and the makeup special effects designed by pros Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr. were absolutely seamless.

 

Hey, it's still summer so big-budget, adrenaline ridden, explosive films are still in vogue so there has to be an element of forgiveness. When you go see this, you actually get what you'd expect which is an escape, popcorn summer flick that the audience can sink its teeth into. Flaws? Sure, but what a roller coaster ride.

 

Out of 4 Stars: 2.5                                       Rated: R                                          107mins.