The Predator is a weird mess, but I think I know why

The Predator is a messy movie.  We don’t mean gross, though it does have it’s fair share of gore and dangling entrails (just like the original).  No, it’s a mess due to an incoherent script and erratic pacing that jams too many ideas into a 1oo minute film.  You may be entertained, but it’s gonna leave you frustrated the more you think about it.

The disappointing part of all of this is that this is the product of Shane Black, a veteran Hollywood scriptwriter who has proven himself as a talented director with remarkably great modern films like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, The Nice Guys, and Iron Man 3.  Known for witty banter and extremely tight storytelling, I had high expectations for another Shane Black film which I would assume he’d take even more seriously as his first credited acting role was that of Hawkins, the foul-mouthed jokester that becomes the first onscreen casualty for the predator in the original 1987 film.

In just about every way, this is the wrong movie to hire a sexual predator among its cast members

As I write this, The Predator has a 49 on Metacritic.  It’s not THAT bad.  By the time our rag-tag team of crazed ex-soldiers and Olivia Munn (playing scientist Casey Bracket as convincingly as Olivia Munn can) form a squad of unlikely heroes you’ll start to feel like the film is finding its footing.  It’s only when the film tries to inject way, WAY too many ideas, like different predators each with their motivation, or maybe the human genome harvesting subplot, or maybe the autistic kid who is trying to fit in at school, etc. that the film starts to feel bloated.  The final third of the film feels incredibly rushed likely due to much discussed reshoots that feel wildly different than the rest of the movie and host special FX on par with an episode of Sliders.

I can’t say much more without getting into heavy spoilers but before I do I did want to call out how impressive Sterling K Brown is in this movie, despite how much the rest of the film just fails.  He plays the role of Traeger, the mercurial leader of the government agency tasked with researching these aliens, essentially the Paul Reiser role. He chews up every line he has (typically while also chewing gum) and steals every single scene he’s in.  He deserves better material than what’s offered here but almost makes this movie work by himself.

Sterling K Brown somehow elevating the movie just by being in the shot.

If you’re on the fence, I’d recommend waiting to watch this at home.  But if you’re a Shane Black fan or big fan of the franchise, plow ahead because there’s enough here to like to enjoy the film despite how bad it gets near the conclusion.

BEWARE — SPOILERS AHEAD

With that said, there are some glaring problems with this film that can’t be ignored.  Part me thinks it has to do with the reshoots or edits to compensate for a script that isn’t attainable.  Reportedly Schwarzeneggar was to reprise his role of Dutch as the helicopter pilot at the end the teams are racing to meet.  That would be a heck of a ton better than the alien space ship fight / forcefield nonsense that occupies the finale.  How did Nebraska jump into the engine that’s behind the forcefield?  How did Olivia Munn travel miles in minutes to stab the predator?  Why does it shift from day to night to day again over the course of about 20 minutes? The conclusion is a complete mess. The appearance of Dutch would also remove the need for the ridiculous (and long) resolution setting up a sequel that will and should never happen.

Additionally there are so many plot points here that are left unresolved or inconsequential that feel totally unnatural for a Shane Black movie. Why spend so damn long watching Rory reset the chess boards at school demonstrating his gifted memory if the only application is that he can unlock an alien door later (not by memory by the way)?  Why dedicate a scene and a subsequent conversation confirming predators don’t attack unarmed people if it has no bearing anywhere else in the film?  Why have the alien dog get partially lobotomized into becoming Olivia Munn’s pet if he just randomly shows up in the final fight and has no impact on anything? And why the focus on mental health including the soldiers and Rory to never bring that back to a noticeable (and obvious) conclusion?

So this is the “good” predator again, right?

Again, there were reported reshoots which would explain the ridiculous ending.  But I have another hypothesis that would explain this mess of a story that’s too full of ideas to ever make sense.  I don’t think it was written as a movie.

This strikes me like an attempt to produce an episodic show that instead got distilled down to a 2 hour movie.  There’s just way too much going on to explain coherently in this runtime.  It seems like you could have an episode about Quinn’s experience in Mexico as the pilot, an episode about stopping Rory from hurting anyone at Halloween, an episode dedicated to the alien dogs, an episode at the school and football field to reveal the super predator, an epsiode to introducing our heroes on the bus, and even conclude with the episode of the survivors trying to escape the jungle clearly reminiscent of the original Predator. Instead scenes are filtered down to the key exposition never given an attempt to be enjoyed or understood and smash cut together in attempt of firehose storytelling that never stood a chance of being great.  Spread out over 10 episodes on FX, this could have been great.  As a 2 hour movie, this thing is an unfortunate mess.