View From The Vault: The Predator Review

Welcome to GeekVault’s The Predator review. Watch as The Predator returns in all it’s gory. Finally after eight long years The Predator has returned in a new movie, the fourth in the series, excluding the AVP movies. The last one being Predators from 2010, where several humans were dropped on a Yautja hunting planet. Predators generally received average reviews. However we found Predators rather enjoyable at the time. The Predator on the other hand is just awfully terrible. Anyway…

The Prey (No Spoilers)

The story is a pretty typical one. Predator crashes to Earth and is intercepted by Special Ops sniper, McKenna (Holbrook), after killing his men. They both survive the encounter and get picked up by the US government. The Predator wakes in a secret government lab before breaking free and causing havoc. Meanwhile McKenna is put on the armies loony bus. Then the hunt begins. The ragtag crew of army rejects, alongside scientist Bracket (Munn) have to save McKenna’s kid, before a new more advanced Predator arrives and changes the game entirely.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say the movie is all bad, in fact I found it quite enjoyable for the first half. A ragtag crew are always kind of fun to watch. Keegan-Michael Key and Thomas Jane are especially fun. Even some of the humour wasn’t terrible. I appreciate that they were maybe going for something different for The Predator franchise in this movie, however it all became quite generic. Most jokes miss. The CGI is unforgivable for a big budget film. Plus the action is mediocre. Topped off by just a poor story. I wouldn’t really recommend seeing this movie to anyway, it’s partly entertaining but mostly rubbish. I do however always encourage people to make their own mind up about movies. So skip to the bottom to avoid spoilers and see the conclusion.

The Hunt (For Spoilers)

So basically one Predator crashes to our planet on the run from his home-world, that’s fine, almost interesting. This is obviously the first Predator we see, who, after landing, immediately slaughters the nearest humans to him. Then wakes up in a scientist lab and again slaughters everyone he can see, except a naked Olivia Munn, before escaping. However we later learn that the reason this Predator is on the run and on Earth is because he wants to give Humans a gift. Humans are going extinct, global warming, poverty etc. Thus the Yautja want to take over Earth so they can breed Human/Predator hybrids. This is what the Predators have been doing all along, find the greatest prey so the can make hybrids. It is why they take their victims spine, which is kind of neat.

It turns out the first Predator opposes this plan and wants to help the humans fight back against predators. So he’s a good guy? What?! We spend the first half of this film with the Predator just straight up murdering humans for no reason, without any apparent attempt to reason with them and explain why he’s here, but apparently he wanted to help them protect themselves? This predator is promptly murdered by the much bigger, ridiculous 11ft Predator. Then the movie becomes about the hunt for Autism. Seriously. McKenna’s kid played by Jacob Tremblay has Autism. Which obviously allows him to understand alien languages and technology. That’s how autism works, right?

Because it’s the next step in human evolution and the Predator’s want to use it. I guess it doesn’t necessarily put Autism in a bad light but it does show a lack of understanding and tact. The whole thing seems just so pointless and poorly executed (mind the pun), as the film jumps around from one scene to the next. It feels rushed. Especially at the end when they realise they haven’t killed any of the main character’s so they basically all die at once. Looking at you Nettles (Aguilara). Don’t even mention Traeger (Brown) the stereotypical bad human, evil for no reason, because he is overseeing a top secret alien project. Plus the ending with the Predator Killer suit. It’s all awful.

The Execution (Final Thoughts)

It goes from being enjoyably bad to just plain bad. The story, although new for Predator, is generic and predictable. The action is mediocre, the gore seems tacked on. The CGI is just awful, really just terrible. The references they make to past films kind of tell you all you need to know. The characters are likeable enough. The new Predator is ridiculous. At the end of it all we are left with a jumbled up mess, that feels rushed. If you enjoy it then that’s fine, there’s nothing wrong with that. As I said I started to enjoy it but it just kept getting worse. I don’t recommend this to anyone. Let’s hope they do something better soon.

GeekVault Score:

4/10

Let us know in the comments below what you thought about this movie. Do you agree/disagree? And as always check out our awesome collection of Film & TV gear and collectables.