The Predator series is one that shouldn't exist. It should have been just one movie. Hollywood has proven time and time again that they cannot make interesting, creative, or even particularly fun movies with the property. I don't mean to put the 1987 Schwarzeneggar original on a pedestal, seeing as it's hardly "great," but at least it was iconic in its use of its monster and fun in a mindlessly violent way. For three decades now, Twentieth Century Fox has tirelessly reminded us about its titular monster with cinematic failure after cinematic failure. Finally, after too many bland, boring, badly made movies involving the Predator to count, Fox tried something interesting: handing the reins to Shane Black, the subversive action-comedy writer and director responsible for the Lethal Weapon series,, the best of the Iron Man trilogy (the third), and the underrated crime comedies The Nice Guys and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
To be honest, that sounds like a fantastic idea to me. It's too bad it didn't work out.
I don't know what happened. The Predator doesn't really feel like a Shane Black movie at all. Shane Black movies are distinctive. They're sharply written, tightly plotted, casually funny, and they generally turn out strong performances from their casts. But The Predator doesn't really do any of that. The film gets a few laughs from Keegan-Michael Key's and Thomas Jane's ex-military buddies Coyle and Baxley, but a few too many come at the expense of portraying the characters' respective mental disorders accurately or fairly. Aside from the occasional hearty chuckle here or there, the script is surprisingly bare-bones and functional, and when it does attempt wit or creative flair, it instead flounders around in cheap small-talk laughs not unlike those of Grown Ups. It's a jarringly bland and "ordinary" script, coming from Black.
The one place where I can see a little bit of Black's signature approach to storytelling is in his quirky band of main characters. We primarily follow the perspective of Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook), an ex-military sniper whose sanity is called into question by his higher-ups when he claimed to have a run-in with a space alien while on a mission. The second-lead role is filled by renowned biologist Casey Brackett (Olivia Munn), who is called in by military intelligence to consult on and study the same alien that McKenna encountered. The two classically cross paths when said alien (the Predator himself) wakes up from his sedated state and breaks free from the compound at which Brackett is studying him... which just so happens to be the same military compound where McKenna has been questioned and subsequently shoved onto a "loony bus" with other mentally unstable former soldiers. In the chaos of the alien breakout, McKenna introduces Brackett to his new-found band of misfits (of which the aforementioned Coyle and Baxley are standout members). Jane and Key give zany, committed performances, despite the fact that they are playing unrealistic caricatures of mental disorder, and the gang decides to liberate themselves and go on a monster hunt.
The action that ensues is rarely fun and never creative, largely obscured by dark lighting and fast camera work. The action-horror element of previous films has been entirely abandoned in favor of half-baked action-comedy. Combat scenarios are familiar: a group of men stands in a circle in the forest, looking around for their invisible alien stalker, as they're picked off one by one in bloody CGI fashion. Unfortunately, after the bullets begin flying in the latter half of the film, what little color and character the loony soldier gang had is all but snuffed out by sci-fi explosions and spurts of blood.
Boyd Holbrook is given little to work with as McKenna, a snarky, rude-'tude, badass who—conveniently—finds that he has a heart of gold just in time for the finale. He's another Raleigh Beckett from Pacific Rim (Charlie Hunnam); a self-confident hardass overflowing with gruff bravado and little personality beyond his senses of duty and sarcasm. It's hard to fault Holbrook for such an uninteresting character, though I can't give him much credit for adding to the role either. It's a similar situation for Munn as Casey Brackett; she's a tired, templated character on paper, and Munn does nothing to add flavor. And aside from Key and Jane as Coyle and Baxley, the loony soldier gang is entirely forgettable (and short-lived). Sterling K. Brown's military intelligence antagonist Traeger gets a few good lines and a confidently tongue-in-cheek performance, but ultimately has little to do in the story and his rivalry with McKenna is undercooked.
I was on board for about the first half-hour. It was offbeat enough with its witty, smug tone and oddball characters that I thought it might continue down that path to give us a really unconventional action-horror-comedy romp. But instead, it devolved into banal blockbuster normalcy. I wanted The Predator to be good; I like Shane Black, Sterling K. Brown, Keegan-Michael Key, and Thomas Jane. I'm relatively indifferent to the Predator property as it is, but I'd love to see it be great. Sadly, this isn't the entry that's going to do it. If you love the Predator alien, there might just be enough Predator in The Predator to make it worth your while. But without the compelling horror element or interesting action, that might not be enough for even the most rabid Predator fans. And if you're not a rabid Predator fan, just skip it; there are plenty of better action, horror, and comedy films already out this year—hell, there are probably a few better action-horror-comedies out this year too.