Predator

[Mr. X]

Saw this on Friday. Was meh. Olivia Munn doesn't do anything note worthy. I'd say skip the movie.

[Dogfish]

It's amazing how bad everybody except the guys who made the first Predator movie are at making Predator movies. Predator 2 was half decent but it's a mostly terrible series built on an absolute classic.

What seems to bring it down is two things, first this insistence that the 'original' Predator, or something like him, is a hero. This is bullshit. The Predator is a monster, he's the outer space version of a guy who uses ultra high tech weapons and hunting equipment to pick off wild animals. There's no honour to the Predator in the first movie, he's a bushwhacker who spent most of his time peeling militiamen in the jungle before groups of commandos started showing up.

Second is they forget the format of the Predator movie. A properly structured Predator movie is not a Predator movie at first. It's some other sort of movie, which a start, middle and end, but a Predator gatecrashes it and suddenly everybody just wants to escape. I'd have really liked to see them start by doing something very much in the quasi-realistic style and tone of The Hurt Locker or Sicario, then drop a Predator in there.

Instead we get garbage, again.

[Mr. X]

Spoiler

I agree its garbage. I did like that one scene where Munn had to do something stupid to get out of the lab.

Also I am sick and tired of nanites. And the tech on the original wasn't some morphing nonsense. It was just a better heads up display and tracking for a plasma cannon and some stealth tech. Also yes the Predator is basically a redneck illegally hunting deer with a over rated gun. And no one makes a tracking weapon that shoots your own head off. Geez.

I'd love to see an old west version. Or pirate version like where that musket came from.

[Lurkndog]

It's amazing how bad everybody except the guys who made the first Predator movie are at making Predator movies.

Not everybody is John McTiernan. He also did Die Hard, Die Hard with a Vengeance (the other good one), The Hunt for Red October, The 13th Warrior, and The Thomas Crowne Affair.

At the very least, though, you'd think they could succeed on the level of a basic slasher movie.

[Mr. X]

It's amazing how bad everybody except the guys who made the first Predator movie are at making Predator movies.

Not everybody is John McTiernan. He also did Die Hard, Die Hard with a Vengeance (the other good one), The Hunt for Red October, The 13th Warrior, and The Thomas Crowne Affair.

At the very least, though, you'd think they could succeed on the level of a basic slasher movie.

There's an idea. Jason vs Predator.

[Dogfish]

It's amazing how bad everybody except the guys who made the first Predator movie are at making Predator movies.

Not everybody is John McTiernan. He also did Die Hard, Die Hard with a Vengeance (the other good one), The Hunt for Red October, The 13th Warrior, and The Thomas Crowne Affair.

At the very least, though, you'd think they could succeed on the level of a basic slasher movie.

Yeah he was great, but there are great action directors out there still. The thing with Predator as well is that the second unit director, who did the attack on the camp, he wasn't great. That scene with the one liners, the flying bodies, everything exploding, it's like Commando with twice the budget (so, maybe a hundred bucks). And that derpy, pure 80s action, that establishes that we're in an 80s cheesy action movie, and that established tone, that sense of comfort, is overturned when we go back to McTiernan and the horror sci fi story.

I guess what I'm saying is that Predator has a bit of luck in there, all the greats do, a bit of lightning in a bottle. You couldn't make the same movie now, but you could make a good movie tied to it.

[Lurkndog]

I finally rented the movie from Netflix.

I liked it!

I was hoping for "Munn vs. Predator" and that's kind of what I got. Kickass scientist, squad of misfits, and autistic genius? I was on board from the minute that the kid reset all of the chess boards from memory.

It didn't really have the slasher movie vibe of the original, but its "misfits, panic and sheer chaos" vibe worked pretty well instead.

I plan to watch it again before I send the disk back.