Category: Predator movies

Prey (2022, Dan Trachtenberg)

Prey is roughly thirty years late. It’s a Predator prequel with ties to the existing franchise (mainly the second one), but it’s a conceptual no-brainer and one they’ve been doing in the Predator licensed comics for decades. The movies established the Predators had been to Earth before, so why not show one of their earlier encounters? Of course, obviously, anthology series never work; studio reticence makes sense. It’s still a no-brainer.

The film takes place in the eighteenth century on the Northern Great Plains. A Comanche tribe happens across a visiting Predator and, thanks to the ingenuity of a (shouldn’t have been) unexpected hero, survives to tell the tale. And tie into the future continuity.

Amber Midthunder is the unexpected hero, though she’s only the unexpected hero to the tribe. Especially once big brother Dakota Beavers rather shittily reveals he’s been cribbing off Midthunder’s notes their whole lives and taking credit for the synthesis. Her brains, his brawn; well, specifically his male brawn. Midthunder’s a capable hunter, but she’s still a girl. Can’t give the girls too much to do; who else will get up early and go gather.

Beavers leads the tribe’s war party; about a half dozen other red shirts who don’t even care Midthunder knows how to track or treat wounds. Girls, icky bad. Beavers appreciates her contributions, occasionally letting his confidence buck cultural constraints, but he still treats her like competition, not a comrade. Prey could’ve used another six or seven minutes on their relationship, especially how their presumably deceased father figures in. Michelle Thrush plays their mom, but they don’t have any family scenes together, just Thrush and Midthunder, then Midthunder and Beavers, then Thrush observing Beavers’s successes as a hunter from a distance. There’d have been time for it (and not just because the end credits are a shocking eight and a half minutes, Prey desperate to get away from the ninety-minute mark like it’s a nineties action movie).

Even underdeveloped, Midthunder’s a strong enough lead—and Beavers is fine enough support—to keep Prey going through its first and second acts. The third act, when the film becomes the inevitable, rushed series of original Predator homages, is pretty good but never adds up for Midthunder. The problem with doing character development in a Predator movie is the formula doesn’t actually need any, and director Trachtenberg and screenwriter Patrick Aison stick very much to the formula.

They just put another movie at the beginning of it.

Trachtenberg’s direction is always okay and sometimes inspired. Unfortunately, none of those inspired moments come in the third act. Despite four (or six, depending on how you count) precursor Predator movies, Trachtenberg’s got no fresh ideas for his homage sequence. It’s almost like they shouldn’t have done it. But still, always okay, sometimes inspired, never bad.

Lovely cinematography from Jeff Cutter, good music by Sarah Schachner, solid editing from Claudia Castello and Angela M. Catanzaro. Prey has a bunch of pastoral sequences, establishing Midthunder and her faithful dog (alternately the star and not the star of the show), but Trachtenberg hurries through them. At the film’s beginning, I was expecting Prey to go long with its Malick moments. But it doesn’t go anywhere near long enough with them.

Quibbles aside, Prey’s done more for the franchise than anything in decades. Hopefully, Disney’s better making movies about invisible alien monsters killing (mostly deserving) humans than Fox. They sure seem up to the task after this one.

The Predator (2018, Shane Black)

The Predator has a really short present action, which is both good and bad. Good because one wouldn’t want to see screenwriters Fred Dekker and director Black try for longer, bad because… well, it gets pretty dumb how fast things move along. Dekker and Black don’t do a good job with the expository speech (for a while, Olivia Munn gets all of it and deserves a prize of some kind for managing it, given how dumb the content gets) and they do a worse job with character development. They’re constantly forgetting details about their large ensemble cast, if they’re not forgetting about where their ensemble cast is in regards to the onscreen action. Black does a perfectly adequate—if utterly impersonal job—with a lot of the directing on a technical level, but he really has got zero feel for his large ensemble. Even though the story’s ostensibly about lead Boyd Holbrook (in a mostly likable performance) becoming a better dad to son Jacob Tremblay. Dekker and Black really want to pretend it matters; see, Tremblay is a kid with Asperger syndrome, which turns out to be real important since he’s the only person on the planet who can decode the Predator language and figure out what’s going on.

Though—again, Dekker and Black just make up whatever they need in a scene to keep it moving, logic be damned and double-damned—though at one point evil scientist Sterling K. Brown (who is distressingly bad) somehow knows about the internal politics of the Predator planet. Because it moves a scene along and pretends to have some kind of forward plot momentum. It turns out it’s all a bunch of hooey and the ending is a painful sequel setup, but it’s not as though the screenwriters have been successfully fooling the audience. There’s no good ending to The Predator because it’s a really stupid movie, full of mediocre action (Black’s got no ideas when it comes to his big surprise villain in the second half either and he really needs some ideas for it), and a bunch of occasionally good, usually tedious performances from actors who probably ought to have some serious conversations about why their agents made them do this movie.

Holbrook’s the lead. He’s this bad dad, bad husband (but not too bad) Army sniper who happens across a Predator attack and ships the helmet and a laser armband home to son Tremblay. Only not. He ships them to his P.O. Box and they get delivered after Holbrook defaults on the rental. So it’s seems like he’s gone for a while—however long it takes to send alien technology through customs from rural Mexico and then the post office to give up on him paying for his box—but he’s really only gone a few days because the evil government scientists have tracked him down, brought him back to the States, and are setting him up to be lobotomized or something to keep him quiet.

But then there’s Munn, who gets drafted to work for Brown and the evil government scientists because, in addition to being a world famous biologist, she once wrote the President she’d like to help with alien animals or some nonsense. Again, the character “detail” is just nonsense but nonsense Munn can bring some charm to in her delivery so it’s in. It’s usually fine with Munn; it’s bad when it’s from a charmless performance, which—to be fair—The Predator only has a few. Like Brown.

Remember before when I said the story outside the alien monster hunting people in what appears to be the Pacific Northwest because the movie’s just a rip-off of that godawful second Alien vs. Predator movie is about Holbrook getting to be a better dad. Not really. The closest Black comes to finding a story arc is Munn. She loses it after a while, but when she’s got the spotlight, even when the film’s wanting, it’s got its most potential. Holbrook’s a fine supporting guy, but he’s not a lead.

The rest of the cast… Trevante Rhodes give the film’s best performance. Keegan-Michael Key’s stunt-ish casting is fine. Thomas Jane’s is less so, mostly because Jane never gets the time to establish his character. The film forgets about Alfie Allen so much he could just as well be uncredited. Augusto Aguilera is fun; not good, not funny, but fun. Jake Busey’s kind of great in a small role, just because he brings so much professionalism to a project completely undeserving of it.

Tremblay’s kind of annoying as the kid, but only because the script also wants to pretend it’s about the little boy learning there are space aliens thing too.

There’s just not enough time for all the movies Black and Dekker try to pretend The Predator can be so instead they give up and do something entirely derivative, something often dumb, something to waste any of the good performances, something lazy.

The Predator is an exceptionally lazy, pointless motion picture.

And the music, by Henry Jackman, is bad.

Good CGI ultra-violence I guess? Though Black doesn’t know how to use it. Because apparently Predator movies are really hard to figure out how to make.

Predator (1987, John McTiernan)

Predator has a lot going for it. Acting, directing, editing. But not usually all at once. The film opens with a quick introduction–Arnold Schwarzenegger and company are on a special mission in the jungle (after establishing an alien space ship in the first shot). It feels very macho and very forced, but the editing is so incredibly good, it doesn’t matter. Even when Mark Helfrich and John F. Link are cutting together Arnold and Carl Weathers’s male bonding moments, the film works great. It just moves.

Then, as the film brings in the rest of the supporting cast (Weathers or Shane Black give the worst performance and both of them are totally fine), director McTiernan establishes the film’s visual style. Predator doesn’t have much of an action style when the alien finally does show; McTiernan handles it matter-of-fact (cinematographer Donald McAlpine doesn’t appear to have the ability to do much else), so McTiernan instead stylizes the dialogue sequences with particular close-ups and, even more, how he shoots the actors in relation to each other and the jungle they’re in. Predator never looks flashy, but it’s always thoughtfully visualized.

There is one great sequence with Arnold and company running through the jungle before he goes mano-a-mano with the monster. That sequence has McAlpine’s best photography and McTiernan’s best action directing. It’s fast-paced, hectic, but comprehendible and rather sympathetic. The concept–these big muscle men terrified of the unknown monster–works. It makes a lot of Predator work. But only because of the actors.

In the supporting cast, Bill Duke and Richard Chaves are best. Duke’s got the most character arc while Chaves has near the least, but is just really good with it. Then there’s quiet, stoic Sonny Landham and he sells it too. McTiernan’s direction is really important for these performances. Jesse Ventura and Elpidia Carrillo are both good. And, like I said, Weathers and Black aren’t bad. They just aren’t doing anything special; however, given the silliness of Weathers’s character (super-buff CIA stooge), it’s impressive how much Weathers resists caricature.

Nice, memorable music from Alan Silvestri.

The movie falls apart a bit in the finale, which is a little rushed. But McTiernan and his editors turn it around satisfactorily. McAlpine’s photography, which is too flat–both for action and the locations–does contribute to the film’s success. Predator plays way too thoughtful. McTiernan takes it way too seriously. The story is never consequential enough, but McTiernan and the actors ably pretend otherwise.

Predator: Dark Ages (2015, James Bushe)

Predator: Dark Ages is a fan film, simultaneously amazing, appropriately bad and inappropriately bad. It’s bad because director Bushe’s script borrows its structure and dialogue from the original Predator movie. Only he’s got Knights Templar saying the lines. It’s goofy. It could be funny goofy, but it’s not because otherwise Bushe handles Dark Ages completely straight-faced. It’s not a commentary on eighties action movie silliness.

And maybe once or twice mimicking a line from the original would be funny, but Bushe does it over and over again. It’s very messy.

But it’s also awesome. Bushe is a fantastic director. The medieval knights and the Predator? The visuals really work out. It mixes two expectations, two genres, beautifully. Bushe keeps it moving along too. His scenes are wonderfully cut (except the strange action movie one liners). Great photography from Simon Rowling.

Dark Ages is an excellent, unintentionally bad action movie.

3/3Highly Recommended

CREDITS

Written and directed by James Bushe; director of photography, Simon Rowling; edited by Bushe and Dragos Teglas; produced by Bushe, Tim Clayton, Ben Loyd-Holmes, Lucinda Rhodes and Rowling.

Starring Adrian Bouchet (Thomas), Amed Hashimi (Sied), Sabine Crossen (Freya), Ben Loyd-Holmes (Damien), Jon Campling (Richard), Joe Egan (Godfrey), Bryan Hands (Brother Joseph) and Philip Lane (The Predator).

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Predators (2010, Nimród Antal)

How’s this one for a double standard? When director Robert Rodriguez made Desperado, he demanded a Mexican actress (Salma Hayek) play a Mexican character (against studio wishes). When producer Robert Rodriguez made Predators, he cast a Brazilian actress (Alice Braga) as an Israeli character… Braga’s fantastic in Predators, but really… why isn’t anyone crying foul?

Predators is a semi-remake, semi-sequel. It’s a sequel to the events in the original, but basically remakes it in structure. I’m sure the filmmakers would call it homage, but I’m not sure, for example, John Debney’s score contains one note not from Alan Silvestri’s score for the original. It doesn’t matter because it’s fast paced and rather well-directed. A lot of it is really poorly plotted–screenwriters Litvak and Finch are apparently completely incapable of coming up with a surprising turn of events. I guess Rodriguez, as producer, didn’t care enough to hire a soap writer to get some twists and turns in it.

The film’s rather well-cast, which helps a lot. Adrien Brody’s muscle man turn is solid; he should probably play a similar role in a real movie. I already mentioned Braga. Walton Goggins is great but wasted. Oleg Taktarov impressed. The other two names–Topher Grace and Laurence Fishburne–are problematic. Fishburne does a good job in an undercooked role. Grace is just playing the same characters he’s played before, though I suppose (for the most part) less annoyingly.

Did I already mention Antal does a great job?

Predator 2 (1990, Stephen Hopkins)

Predator 2 is a great looking movie all because of director Hopkins. Early in the movie, right after a heavily Robocop influenced shoot-out (the whole first hour is nothing but a Robocop rip), Danny Glover’s up on a roof with the LA skyline behind him. Hopkins and cinematographer Peter Levy turn the shot sequence–it probably lasts thirty-five seconds–into a beautifully simple cinematic moment. It just looks perfect. There are quiet a few of these perfect moments in the film, which is probably why Predator 2 gets away with being so lame.

The first hour is wasted with supercop Glover and his team of bad actors (Rubén Blades is actually just mediocre, but Maria Conchita Alonso and Bill Paxton are terrible) chasing the Predator. While I can understand the reasoning behind hiding the Predator for the first hour–for those unfamiliar with the first film–it’s absurdly unnecessary. Killer aliens are a sci-fi standard. Actually, it was probably budgetary. Anyway, Hopkins compensates with some good angry cops fighting against oblivious superiors shots and giving the whole first hour a horror feel. It’s cheap and deceptive, but he makes up for it in the end.

Predator 2 ends with a lengthy–around twenty minute–chase scene. Thirty minutes if you disregard a six minute break for Glover to find out all about the first movie (you’d think he would have seen it).

While Glover’s good in the leading role, the script’s so bad–he’s constantly making heated, macho movie man observations–there’s little he can do with it. His best scenes are the ones where some subtext is implied (given the movie has none). Producer Joel Silver opened his regular acting stable out for Predator 2–Gary Busey, Robert Davi and Steve Kahan–and, along with Glover, it feels like an attempt to remind people of Lethal Weapon.

Busey’s awful, no surprise, but the terrible supporting cast is a little bewildering. They should have been able to hire some decent character actors–Kent McCord is particularly bad and Adam Baldwin is laughable. Any movie where Morton Downey Jr. gives one of the better performances is trouble.

But those last twenty minutes make up for everything. It’s a chase scene across rooftops, beautifully directed. Hopkins really doesn’t get enough credit. The conclusion–with the various money shots (a dozen additional Predators)–is idiotic (what were all these other Predators doing while the main one was out hunting, watching Maury Povich?), but it looks kind of cool and Predator 2 doesn’t encourage any thoughtful consideration. In fact, it strives not to encourage that sort of thing.