The Predator (2018) doesn’t know what makes this franchise tick — presumably because when it did tick, it wasn’t yet a franchise.
One of the reasons the original Predator works is that it is deadly serious about itself, or at least it looks that way. Both the shooting of the film and its plot come down to an alpha male pissing contest. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s and Jesse Ventura’s egos alone ensured planet Earth wasn’t big enough for them and the Predator. That’s part of the movie’s charm. Whether by design or accident, it functions as a sort of self-parody in which all kinds of macho stereotypes don’t die with their boots on because their boots are all that’s left of them.
Another reason is that it takes the audience seriously. As over the top as the action is and as cheesy as the one-liners are (“stick around,” anyone?), it’s all delivered with deathly earnestness. The performances, the locations, and the practical effects guarantee as authentic an experience as a science fiction action horror film about an alien mass murderer hunting down humans in the jungle can be.
Predator does not let on whether it’s in on the joke, and it behooves it to play dumb. Playing “smart” has the opposite effect for The Predator — starting with calling the title character a “predator” only to point out it’s a misnomer. Or describing it as an “alien Whoopi Goldberg,” which might be racist and/or sexist. Or referring to it as “one beautiful motherfucker.”
Get it? Because Arnold called the original Predator an “ugly motherfucker,” and The Predator is determined to be the opposite: a prettified Predator movie with stylized CGI visual effects and sterile sets such as a sleek laboratory with immaculate white walls so they really bring out the blood when it splashes on them — which of course only succeeds in highlighting how fake-fake the blood is (as opposed to real fake blood). Like Ventura, this film ain’t got time to bleed.
The script relentlessly panders to the viewers by belittling its source material, ultimately doing a disservice to both. There is a line of dialogue about “sequels” being “stupider.” Is that a dig at Predator 2 (1990) or Predators (2010)? Either way, movies who live in computer-generated houses should not throw rocks.
Or maybe it’s The Predator’s oblique way of positioning itself as an “intelligent” sequel. Allow me to disabuse the filmmakers of that notion. Whenever it’s not taking potshots at the franchise to which it belongs, the film does a halfhearted attempt to add to its mythos — mainly by throwing around the word “evolution” without knowing what it means. It’s likely that the basic mechanism of evolution would be the same on whatever planet the Predators come from as in ours; i.e., not at all like this movie thinks it works.
Whatever makes this stuff tick, if indeed anything does, it’s not self-referential humor. Going meta can yield excellent results, as in Wes Craven’s New Nightmare — but then that film is not self-deprecating; it’s highly discerning and has tons of respect for that franchise lore which demands awe and dismissive of the commercially oriented baggage that weighed it down in the late 80s-early 90s. The result is meaner and darker than anything that preceded it.
Conversely, The Predator has more in common with co-writer/director Shane Black’s standalone efforts such as Last Action Hero and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which I would normally mean as a compliment but it’s just not a road that Predator should ever be taken on.
