The Predator (reboot)

j.s. pill II · 24-09-2018 10:23pm

What an absolute steaming turd of a movie.

I decided that I would never watch Terminator Genisys, lest it tarnish my memories of the preceding Terminator films. I really should have applied the same logic to this one.

bogmanfan · 25-09-2018 12:56am

Hugely disappointing given Black's recent output. This is garbage from beginning to end. Terrible characters, bad acting, gaping plot holes and rubbish effects. Was like something you'd see on SyFy channel.

stateofflux · 25-09-2018 1:11am

Awful Movie.

It looked like a mix between the A-team & ET. with complete disregard for what the earlier Predator movies had established.

it tried to be funny but it failed on most counts.

plot was jumping all over the camp with incredulous incoherence.

tried to have serious moments but i didnt give a stuff about the wafer thin characters.

This movie was aimed at a young teenage market.

Predator dog with dreads playing fetch?.... gimme a break

Sin City · 26-09-2018 3:50pm

Saw it yesterday

Was alright, a few cringe moments, viusally stunning but story and characters were terrible . Its like AVP with a budget. Will probably watch it again ,

mrmorgan · 26-09-2018 8:58pm

saw it today, thought it was great fun

homerun_homer · 26-09-2018 9:05pm

Did anyone else laugh when at the end it just transitioned to them opening up the little handkerchief of bits and bobs of all the gang to remember them by? I'm not looking for too much realism in a Predator movie but to hang on to them throughout fighting and to keep a foil unicorn in perfect shape:pac:

TerrorFirmer · 28-09-2018 8:36am

First of all, I definitely don't believe in giving movie a free pass just because it's entertaining. A bad movie is just a bad movie and should be called out as such.....but a flawed movie isn't necessarily a bad movie and is my opinion The Predator is definitely deeply flawed but not half bad in spite of it.

I did expect a little more from Shane Black though, all the same. It's messy at times and just doesn't hang right at all in numerous spots. They say re-shoots hurt this film - and as clear as day, the first half of the film is much, much stronger than the second.

The humor worked fine I thought, bit of a departure for any film set in the Predator/Alien universe admittedly..... essentially it's a Marvel film tone-wise (so it may be alien or incredibly familiar depending on your viewing habits) with much higher levels of violence, . On that point, violence can't make or entirely save a film, but this certainly would've been much worse if it was a PG-13 film ala Alien v Predator and there was some good brutality on display here.

I definitely understand peoples disappointment but it truly isn't that bad and some of the hyperbole is a bit much. Someone a few pages back said the CGI was like an old PC game, another that it was like a SyFy movie....can't say I agree with that at all, on the contrary I thought visually it was very decent.

On the whole....I'd say it's plain as day yards better than AVP and AVP: Requiem, and also than the recent Alien Covenant, and better than Predator 2 which I always felt was hugely over-rated in many quarters. I honestly couldn't compare it to Predators at this time as I haven't seen that since 2010 and can barely remember it, but I know I liked it, so I'd say they're probably much of a muchness.

All in all I'd say it's easily a 6.5/10. Very flawed but gets a lot right and very entertaining with a great 80s/90s vibe to it in spots. I would be happy to watch a sequel.

silverharp · 28-09-2018 2:02pm

have cinemas lightened up on age restrictions or were they even strict in the first place?, I just realised the last 2 movies I took junior to were 16's, Predator being one but he is only just gone 14 and he wouldn't look old for his age.

Reggie. · 28-09-2018 2:16pm

silverharp wrote: »

have cinemas lightened up on age restrictions or were they even strict in the first place?, I just realised the last 2 movies I took junior to were 16's, Predator being one but he is only just gone 14 and he wouldn't look old for his age.

Once money passes hands then I think they aren't too worried

Gamb!t · 10-11-2018 1:51pm

I was some what prepared for disappointment when I saw the trailer but generally shocked how poor the movie was and struggled to get through the full thing without looking to see how much of the 1hr 45 mins was left.

I don't know if its actually any better than AVP 2 it was so bad and that says a lot.

Mrcaramelchoc · 11-11-2018 10:39pm

How can you be given a budget to make a movie and monumentally screw it into the ground.it deserves all the bad reviews it has gotten.
Awful movie.

Also the tourettes guy?he should have been shot in the head at the start.
An alien dog with dread locks? Really?

artvanderlay · 11-11-2018 11:13pm

Agreed.Total and utter ****e. I can barely remember it! That's me done with the Predator franchise, unless by some miracle John McTiernan, The Thomas Brothers, and Arnie come back to it!

helimachoptor · 13-11-2018 12:15am

Jesus that was awful

ILikeBoats · 15-11-2018 5:10pm

Utter garbage

gambithh · 26-11-2018 2:36am

Seen it last night and horrified.Shane black should hold his head in shame!
Huge fan of Predator and also predator 2,( predators was ok)

The part when the predator kills the soldiers in the back of the truck and hold the severed hand with the thumbs up out so the driver believed all is ok was shockingly bad.

Both K9 and predator dog sub plot were lost on me.
The end was a pure mess.

Wedwood · 26-11-2018 11:36pm

There's not enough material to justify a series of movies. First movie was original (if you overlook its a riff on Aliens), second movie was basically same premise, just moved to urban setting. After that, there's nothing new or original to add other than this forgettable straight to video standard.

mloc123 · 27-11-2018 2:33pm

Watched it today... not great.

I would love to know what the original plot that tested so poorly was that what we ended up with was better.

27-11-2018 2:44pm

absolutely horrendous film, even those AVP films are much better.

Ray Bloody Purchase · 27-11-2018 4:00pm

Crap beyond belief. So disjointed and bolted together.

_Kaiser_ · 03-12-2018 12:50am

Watched it tonight and while it starts out fairly well, it quickly deteriorates.

- too much forced humour and completely forgettable characters

- no tension or even real reaction to the events that are happening.. It's like giant alien hunters are an everyday occurrence and like Transformers nothing to worry about if you have some US-issue assault rifles and Black Ops guys

- many of the action sequences are a disjointed mess with events and locations just being a fast-cut blur as we rush to the next one

- The now standard female scientist/civilian who it turns out is a total bad ass and combat expert too

- I didn't realise there were re-shoots until I caught up with this thread but there were several times alright when I was pulled out of the movie with a "eh? What happened there?" moment

- the screaming SEQUEL flag at the end. If they wanted to do a sequel then I wouldn't have minded a proper sequel to Predators which is the far better mismatched group of misfits fight alien warriors movie here. I actually enjoyed Predators quite a lot

Basically while I wasn't expecting to be blown away and can usually just switch off my brain and enjoy the popcorn, the film lost me pretty early on and it was very hard to get back into it because of the glaring editing problems, misplaced humour, and bad characters

3/10 - mostly for the strong opening 20 minutes or so, but wouldn't bother rewatching

gmisk · 15-12-2018 5:13pm

What a disaster. It was a half decent premise, first 10 mins fine, but it was all just so shoddy, the cgi was genuinely brutal in parts, the acting and tone was all over the place (was Alfie Allen meant to be Irish?), Thomas Jane terrible, tone all over the place. What a train wreck of a film 2/10

Skerries · 20-12-2018 9:25pm

pixelburp · 10-01-2019 7:03pm

Wow. It's quite often the case when you consume some media after a deluge of hype or hate, it never quite lives up to those two extremes of other peoples' opinions - but The Predator managed to earn every snippet of bad press. A shocking, amateur, inebriated mess of a production, made all the more disappointing given it came from the pen (and lens) of Shane Black, someone I'd have a lot of time for based on previous material. I had read of studio interference sure, but that somebody OK'ed this final cut is an indictment on professionalism in Hollywood. Nobody should be proud of this work.

It was so bad, the only accurate way I can describe it is that it felt like the kind of film released to keep a copyright; some secret, hasty production never meant for release, made on a shoestring so the studio could cheaply maintain the rights to an IP. In other words, The Predator finds itself in the company of that infamous Roger Corman Fantastic Four film from 1994.

Suddenly the bang-average Predators from 2010 comes off a fresher, better film than it felt the first time around - better CGI too, inexplicably.

Sad Professor · 10-01-2019 8:13pm

The last act is a chaotic mess. I had no idea what was going on. But I didn't think the rest of the film was that bad. Biggest problem with the film as a whole is the editing. It's choppy and cut to the bone.

pixelburp · 10-01-2019 8:32pm

Sad Professor wrote: »

The last act is a chaotic mess. I had no idea what was going on. But I didn't think the rest of the film was that bad. Biggest problem with the film as a whole is the editing. It's choppy and cut to the bone.

I dunno, it felt like there were 3 or 4 separate films competing with each from the get go and it never felt cohesive at all. As you say the last act was chaotic, but the preceding sections were ramshackle.

It also looked really bad, particularly the scenes with the mother and son; bright, flat lighting and felt as if it was shot with TV cameras, the likes used for Hallmark movies.

I guess I was mostly surprised a major studio would release something that sloppy, that mismanaged on a fairly ... loved? franchise.

Venom · 11-01-2019 9:05pm

pixelburp wrote: »

I dunno, it felt like there were 3 or 4 separate films competing with each from the get go and it never felt cohesive at all. As you say the last act was chaotic, but the preceding sections were ramshackle.

It also looked really bad, particularly the scenes with the mother and son; bright, flat lighting and felt as if it was shot with TV cameras, the likes used for Hallmark movies.

I guess I was mostly surprised a major studio would release something that sloppy, that mismanaged on a fairly ... loved? franchise.

There were on set pictures showing Predators working with the US military in matching camo gear doing the rounds a while back which hints of major script changes, editing and re-shoots.

As for the final movie itself, saying its utter garbage is being kind. The plot was awful, the full on changing of the backstory of the Predators took retconning to an entirely new level and the characters were just so god damn bad.

sabat · 12-01-2019 6:40pm

mrcheez · 12-01-2019 6:44pm

Damn, I'm gonna have to see this now.. can't believe a film can be that bad

sabat · 12-01-2019 7:09pm

It isn't that bad as long as you just watch it as a film in its own right, and not as part of a franchise. I'd maybe rank it alongside things like Tango and Cash or Demolition Man as a decent mix of action and humour with a silly, purely incidental plot.

B.A._Baracus · 14-01-2019 12:13am

The movie is nothing compared to the original predator. How could it be.
But it's not as bad as people say. It's like a 6/10 not a 2/10 etc. However that said with an ending like that I can understand why people walk away totally disappointed.

Accordingly ...

If Arnie was to agree to a cameo in the movie he would have been in that stupid coffin at the end.

The Predator (reboot)

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