Official
Australian release date: 13/9/18. Viewed: 20/9/18.
Director: Shane
Black
Actors: Boyd
Holbrook, Olivia Munn, Trevante Rhodes, Jacob Tremblay
Genre:
Sci-Fi / Action
Rating:
MA
‘The Predator’ is the fourth film (we
don’t count the two ‘Alien Vs Predator’ films) in the series and does exactly
what it should – has Predators killing people, soldiers killing people, lots of
explosions, some jungle, and some humour. The pretty-thin plot is – an “upgraded”
Predator is sent to Earth to hunt down a rogue Predator. Stick around to the
end to see the silly reasoning.
McKenna (Holbrook, from ‘Narcos’) is the
hero, with his son Rory (Tremblay) having a key part to play. Casey (Munn) is
somehow an evolutionary biologist and the rest of the cast is a ragtag crew of
mentally-unstable soldiers – Nebraska (Rhodes), Coyle (Key), Baxley (Jane),
Nettles (Aguilera) & Lynch (Allen). They all have just enough to do to make
them interesting – and bump-up the body count. Traeger (Brown) is the typical government
agent/bad guy.
It takes about 20min to get going, but
once it does, the pace is good, there’s plenty of action and fighting, but also
a lot of stupid moments, which are also counteracted with some genuine laughs –
e.g. why it’s called “the Predator”. Sufficient amounts of gore and blood. Not
better or worse than ‘Predator 2’ or ‘Predators’, which is good.
Overall: Fun foray back to the Predator-galaxy.
Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars.
