The Predator (Dir Shane Black, 1h 47m)

 
Whilst The Predator is a bad film, to say it's an enjoyably bad film is, to be honest, not true. For a series that has gone from an enjoyable B-Movie franchise to the nadir of the two AvP films to the intelligent if underperforming Predators, The Predator is a  mispaced and undemanding shlocky blockbuster, with a few errors, and ill-advised choices, pitting the titular monster against a ragtag team of a sniper and his family, a  group of demobbed soldiers and a scientist trying to uncover how the predator has evolved

By far the biggest issue with The Predator is the film's tone-whilst the Schwartznegger original, and the first sequel, Predator 2, have enough humour, quotable lines and get to the chopperisms among the gory, suspenseful action, The Predator goes too far in the humour, with a good half of the rather one-note cast of discharged and mentally ill soldiers given mannerisms that are largely played for laughs, from one soldier suffering from tourettes, to another fundamentalist Christian, to a duo of bickering soldiers with a shared history, to another whose nihilistic humour is so underutilised that his summary dispatch late in the film is so matter of fact that it itself is funny.

Black, however, further extends this to a tongue in cheek exploration of the Predator franchise, critiquing everything from their name downwards, throwing in references to the original films, whilst referencing the other films in irritatingly obvious pastiches. Whilst this has worked in film series as far apart as Friday 13th (Wes Craven's New Nightmare) and the Scream movies, and there is certainly a way for it to be used cleverly (Arnie cameo, anyone?), here it smacks of a director not entirely at ease with his horror chops, lazy writing and making up for it with poorly written comedy.

The other issue with the Predator is the whole demystification of the Predator species in this film-with much of the plot revolving around a rogue predator (with human DNA no less) trying to aid humanity against the genesplicing and self-improving predators, who send a larger, even more dangerous Predator to destroy the traitor, it's a narrative that throws bizarre twists, including the end-credit roboPredator, and a strange Aesop about climate change in to explain that the predators are not all evil, rather than simply chalking this intraspecies fight down to clan-based headbutting that could have led to a predator v predator battle on a grander scale.

Moreover, there is something inherently, even for a creature that can cloak itself and vanish from sight, goofy about this creature wandering around suburbia, even if it leads to some excellent scenes-there is, after all, a reason why the other films have largely been set in the jungle, and Black is simply not inventive, except in a few locations, to use his locations with any confidence, with a lot of the sequences never using the locations to their advantage, and with even the colossal larger predator failing to have any particular impact on its arrival.

Far closer to the mark is the gore and violence of this film-here, Black's chops are far more on the money, with the Predator once again rending, tearing, and leaving utter carnage in its wake-the film takes full advantage of its 15 certificate, with a gory, visceral and blood-spattered take on the beast, with all manner of enjoyably over-the-top deaths, not least when the larger, even more dangerous and more evolved version of the Predator makes its appearance, defeating and killing the orther creature with terrifying ease, and indeed both Predators are, as ever, the star of the show

Unfortunately, this is more that can be said for the rest of the characters-the soldiers themselves are largely boring, one note, and in some cases, offensive characters, with a lot of their mental health issues played either for plot conveniece, or for laughs, and the same can be said for the protagonist's son, whose autism, unfortunately, comes to be part of the main plot, and indeed the fulcrum of it in a lazy, messy and poorly implimented concept. Indeed, most of the characters are poorly written, poorly acted and, despite the obvious camaradare between the group, rather dull

Despite this, there's a shlocky charm to seeing the crabfaced creatures go about their hunt, and one hopes that, with the series back in the public imagination, their next outing will be more satisfying, whilst keeping the gory charm.

Rating: Avoid