The Predator is Everything Wrong with Movies Today

I tell you what I believe you're not kidding my Rastafarians friend in 2018 [ __ ] very much did happen and that [ __ ] had a name the predator you know I really loved the original predator for me it's one of the best sci-fi action movies ever made a big meaty unapologetic slab of 1980s testosterone that stood the test of time better than any of today's crap is likely to it's perfectly paced it subverts our expectations by going from a standard action movie to a sci-fi horror film it's filmed in stunning real-life locations and introduces our genuinely intriguing and unsettling monster an atmosphere of slowly building menace and danger punctuated by scenes of bloody carnage an explosive set pieces not to mention some of the biggest action stars of the day [ __ ] man even Van Damme was gonna be in this at one point although thank God they went down a different route predator 2 moved the action from the steaming rain forests of Central America to the equally hostile concrete jungle of Los Angeles Petrine la as a stinking dog a war-torn [ __ ] that nobody wants to live in not too far from reality I guess predator 2 gets worse [ __ ] these days but I actually thought it was a Nokia movie that expanded on the lore of the series and respected its predecessor without straight-up copying it it even had some pretty cool action scenes holy [ __ ] man this guy does more coke than I do unfortunately they made the fatal mistake of putting this piece of fanservice in mostly just for a laugh but there's one guy who wasn't laughing in fact he decided it would make a great basis for a shitty cast grab crossover movie that effectively torpedoed two franchises at once you [ __ ] legend Paul never change then they try to go serious with predators a movie that taught me three things one Adrien Brody is not a viable action hero to a predator should never be shown fighting a sword wielding Yakuza in field of swaying grass and for you need to use numbers properly in your movie tales rather than just given a subtle and confusing variations on the same [ __ ] word the upshot here is that the predator series was in dire straits much like alien had been rebooted and reimagined so many times that it was hard to remember how or why had ever actually been good then came the announcement that a new movie was on the way with shin black writing and directing though this seems like good news at the time Shane black did some of the script work and even appeared in the original predator back in the eighties and he'd gone on to become one of the highest-paid screenwriters in Hollywood's this was a guy who knew his stuff a guy who helped start off the entire franchise and if anyone could restore predator to its former glory it was him I really should learn from past experience anyway I'm about to go into my deep and penetrating plot analysis of the predator saw drinking if you've gotten because like my stepdad used to say you're gonna need it by the time I'm done with you so the predator begins with a space battle that looks like a piece of b-roll from a Star Trek Voyager episode a predator ship is under attack which cripples the engines forcing it to crash land on earth and as luck would have it it comes down at near a US Special Forces team headed up by that guy from narcos his team finds a crashed escape pod from the ship along with the predator helmet and gauntlet thing and without skipping a beat narcos guy puts the gauntlet on and it locks into his arm and he's like no I'll be fine what are you doing you [ __ ] ham sandwich this is an unknown piece of alien technology you're holding why are you even touching it never mind putting it on your arm it could be radioactive or crawling with deadly bacteria for all you know why are you not concerned that you can't remove it what if it's stuck to you forever what if it's a [ __ ] bomb anyway then the predator shows up and kills everyone except narcos guy who uses the gauntlet thing to temporarily stun it wait what why wasn't the predator actually wearing this stuff why would it remove its own protective gear when it just in a hostile alien world why is the gauntlet even compatible with human physiology wouldn't there be some kind of sensor or computer inside it that would register the fact it was no longer attached to a predator arm it's worth pointing out that all of this stuff happens in the first five minutes of the movie anyway so narcos guy runs away and then a chopper lands and some [ __ ] named trigger shows up to recover the predator technology and what's this exciting multifaceted character all about he really likes gum great work Sheen you're worth every penny mate so trigger in his mix catch up to narcos guy in a nearby town the following morning how did he find him don't know but it's so key anyway because narco guy has a cunning plan he turns invisible using a magical [ __ ] ball that he borrowed from Black Panther then threatens a local bar owner into meal in the store and predator gear to his P or box address back in the States then he swallows the magic invisibility ball so you can [ __ ] out later what is going on why would you ever assume this guy's gonna do what you ask him when it's pretty [ __ ] obvious you're an extremely shady character on the wrong side of the law and the gear you're trying to smuggle out of the country is highly illegal and possibly dangerous what's to stop this guy handing it in to the local police or the US military units that showed up literally seconds later or even selling it on the black market for a massive profit wouldn't US customs officers check a package like this and find that it contains dangerous alien technology when it arrives in their country also why did you swallow the magic invisibility ball and allow yourself to be captured when you've literally just demonstrated that it can turn you invisible where you born a [ __ ] or was it like a conscious decision so anyway no we're in nowhere Ville North America where narco guy's son is getting [ __ ] from other kids at his school because he's got autism or something then he goes home and the stolen Predator gear gets delivered there by postman park because narcos guide didn't keep up his pure box payments so it went to his home address instead this is what I really want from my sci-fi action movies are deep insight into the workings of the US Postal Service Sauron man decides to open the package up and start messing with the predator gear and you can totally do that because of his super autism okay this is where I have to pause the review why do movies like this portray autistic people as crazy mega geniuses instead of you know normal people who have trouble reading social cues why does this kid display no actual evidence of autism apart from disliking loud noises but then later he's around gunfire and explosions and it totally doesn't bother him raah whatever so then we meet another random character where is that psylocke from x-men apocalypse ha so she gets recruited by Trigger to help study the captured predator because she's a super-smart scientist or something wait why is Jake Busey in this movie a [ __ ] alien oh [ __ ] off film meanwhile narcos guy is being interrogated by treeger who's looking for the crash creditor ship and he's just like yeah I don't give a [ __ ] man I'm triggers like neither do I so they dump him on a prison bus with Theon Greyjoy the Punisher and a bunch of other random [ __ ] who each have a Corky Shane black character trait and I mean one each you might say they have one dimension where are they even going anyway so Psylocke and the other science people do their science thing with the predator and they discover that it's got human DNA in it where ever seen this before and then it wakes up and kills everybody well you couldn't have restrained it better than this or put it inside a sealed chamber or something he's heavily sedated why would you just assume that your drugs are gonna keep it sedated it's a [ __ ] alien with completely different physiology you dicks then it finds a spare predator mask that's lying around and uses it to hack the one that Rain Man is messing with and I'm not kidding it reads his [ __ ] street address from a poster on the wall of his workshop that is real that is a thing which happens in this movie a [ __ ] alien I'm starting to think that Shane black might be a little bit autistic himself so she goes after it with a tranquilizer gun because you know an untrained scientist with a single shot weapon will totally succeed where dozens of armed soldiers failed so then narcos guy and his mates get stopped in the bus outside the compound and they happened to see the predator escaping across the rooftops wow that was lucky that they all happened to be in the same place at the same time then narcos guy and his mates escaped the prison bus because apparently that's a really easy thing they can totally do kinda makes you wonder why they haven't done it already to be honest anyway they run into psylocke and she tries to shoot the predator but then she falls over and shoots herself in the foot and passes oh well I guess I can't accuse the script have turned her into a mirror sue at least and then the predator escapes by hopping onto a transport truck and pulling this Swift move sooo they take her back to narco guys house where he expects to find the store and predator gear but it turns out that Ramon's decided to go trick or treating with it how exactly is a small child able to wear a predator helmet designed for a creature several times his size weight and muscle mass that thing should weigh more than he does but then some [ __ ] throws a tin can at him because that's what people do to small children I guess and the helmet activates and blows up his entire house and that's supposed to be funny you're like 10 years old and you're responsible for ending a man's life kid hope this doesn't give you a long-lasting emotional trauma but then he gets chased by a pair of predator attack dogs yep that's another thing which is real and they conveniently stand there while narcos guy shoots at them they blow up one of them and shoot the other one in the head with a [ __ ] bolt gun but instead of killing it it turns into some kind of actual [ __ ] dog what what am I even watching a [ __ ] alien what is the point in these dogs that do absolutely nothing except suck up bullets they're even more dumb than the idea of using dinosaurs in a [ __ ] war magic we had these puppies in Tora Bora [ __ ] off Vincent D'Onofrio so they run into Rain Man school put the predator catches up to them and it pins narcos guy up against the wall but then an even bigger mega predator shows up and kills it is this literally what you've got no it's like a regular predator only bigger so that must make it better so they decide it's probably a good idea to run away now but then trigger finds them and six Rain Man hostage because he knows where the crass predator Schippers because his super autism lets them understand the predator language this is not how autism works but then the [ __ ] predator dog helps the others escape and they all arrive at the crash ship about the same time as the steroid predator who sets the ship to self-destruct and tells them they should run away because he's going to hunt them all down and for some reason they all decide to become best friends and work together Wow lucky they all happen to arrive at the same time this is gripped is pretty much built on a series of insane coincidences and chance encounters so they run away and the steroid predator picks them off one at same and trigger tries to shoot it with a shoulder cannon but he looks the wrong way and blows is on [ __ ] head off I love her bullets do absolutely nothing to this thing now like they're hitting it with rifle grenades claymores automatic gunfire and it just carries on like nothing's even happening what's the point in even trying to fight it if it's [ __ ] invincible the original predator wasn't invincible like this yeah it was strong and fast and tough but it could still be injured its advantage lay in its ability to go invisible and a lot of the tension revolved around never actually knowing where it was or what it was gonna do next but now we've just got this big hulking ridiculous thing coming out so the predator takes Renmin away to his own ship but narcos guy and some other [ __ ] jump on board because you can totally jump onto a moving spacecraft from like a hundred feet above without falling off or breaking every bone in your body and one of them throws himself into one of the engines to make it crash what the [ __ ] that would be like the Starship Enterprise getting crippled because it hit a flock of seagulls are you seriously telling me this interstellar warship wasn't designed to survive stuff like this so the ship crashes but naturally everyone survives and narcos guy tries to fight the steroid predator but it does the same [ __ ] thing that every villain for the past 10 years has been doing it picks him up and throws him around over and over again wasting precious time and effort and doing almost no damage why you can crumple cars and kill fellow predators with one punch you walking plothole what is wrong with you did you get a bolt gun to the head as well anyway then psylocke shows up and they blow up with a mine and it dies and the movie ends when they discover the regular-sized predator brought a suit of Predator killing armor that looks like Iron Man suit probably should have worn it then shouldn't you your dick and that's it thus the plot of the predator Jesus I actually feel like I've gotten Dumber just by talking about this movie you know when I think about the predator the word that best sums up my feelings is why there are so many writing and production decisions here that are simply mind-boggling why is this movie trying so hard to be a goofy snarky comedy with cringe inducing one-liners and ridiculous death scenes the predator isn't supposed to be funny the first two movies took themselves seriously then the result was a compelling an exciting story that actually managed to be pretty on sale and it seems that still freaks me out man yeah predator dropped the occasional joke especially near the beginning but once people started getting sliced and diced the script doesn't [ __ ] around they saw business from that point on this abomination of a film is basically a hundred and seven minutes of talking to some really boring dude with low self-esteem who desperately wants to be liked so he throws in every [ __ ] joke in the arsenal open one or two of them will actually land and the thing that really boils my piss is the constant references to the first movie [Music] you know all this is really doing is highlighting just how [ __ ] your own movie is in comparison rate Sheen what is the plot both monumentally dumb yet ridiculously convoluted the original movie had a pretty simple concise set up a Special Forces team gets sent in to Central America on shady business they complete their mission but on the way out they start getting picked off one at a time by some monstrous invisible creature until the last man standing has to take it on by himself and that's it that's pretty much the story because that's all you ever needed know we've got all this convoluted [ __ ] about peel boxes dumb government conspiracies betrayals kidnapping shocking revelations that make no sense and Jake Busey a [ __ ] alien this movie is trying to be an action film a sci-fi movie a heist flick a body comedy and a family drama all at the same time and as I've learned from long experience if you try to be all things to all men you end up disappointing everyone just ask your mom ha ha ha why you predators know bulletproof the original predator was strong in first but it was just as vulnerable to damage as us it could be injured by small arms fire it's equipment can be damaged by explosions and it's thermal vision could be compromised in the right conditions its advantages was its ability to remain hidden it was dangerous but it wasn't invincible and I had a weakness that humans were able to exploit know we've got this [ __ ] joke that can take grenades and claymores to the face and keep going like nothing happened a monster that's invincible until the plot decides that it isn't the bio scenes here are like watching the end boss fight in a video game slowly chipping away at an enemy's health bar until the final cutscene gets triggered by a predator is so interested in harvesting human DNA to upgrade themselves when humans are physiologically technologically and intellectually inferior to them the only reason we've beaten them in the past is a combination of luck improvisation and superior numbers there's nothing about humanity they should find even remotely useful why did the special effects and cinematography look like something out of Star Gate sg-1 it's so close in angles Stasik camera shots an unconvincing CGI maybe it was just my TV or something but this movie looks [ __ ] cheap and lame in a way the original never did you know I mess films that actually look like films instead of cheap soap operas why is every character in this movie a one-dimensional walking stereotype this is the jokey one although he's about as funny as a trip to an STD clinic this is the crazy guy this is the guy who conveniently knows how to fly a chopper this is the mostly solid dude with a dark past this is the explosives guy whose accent is [ __ ] mind-boggling how exactly does an Irishman end up in the US Marine Corps seriously if there's any Marines watching this I'd love your insight gentlemen the original movie had a diverse and interesting cast of characters played by actors who mostly took the role seriously there was a strong sense of camaraderie and teamwork in the early stages there were jokes and references to past missions there was even a bit of friendly rivalry but the results saw a seed of tension and mistrust within the group that gradually caused it to splinter apart as their situation became increasingly desperate some characters started out rock-solid but ultimately broke under pressure others who began as selfish and secretive ended up turning good and redeeming themselves one of them even resigned himself to his fate and sacrificed his life to buy time for the others to escape but in this movie there's absolutely nothing to work with none of the characters have anything approaching an arc none of them are remotely interesting people that you'd want to know more about none of them change or develop in any way they just do what the plot requires and then they die why do people think it's a good idea to set your predator movie in small-town America the steaming jungles of Central America were a hostile almost alien environment all by themselves they create an atmosphere of tension claustrophobia and paranoia the bleak crime-ridden streets and back alleys of the second movie worked pretty well as a predator hunting ground because it felt like a place that was just as hostile to humans as the predator itself both of these locations were dangerous and intimidating and it fed well into the tense brooding atmosphere of those movies but you know what isn't tense and brooding a clean neat tidy suburban neighborhood an American school a pine forest that looks like it was shot somewhere in Canada to save money everything about this film is lazy and dull and uninspired it's basically the epitome of everything that's wrong with modern-day cinema a misguided reboot of a hardcore nineteen eighties classic for the MCU generation raised on movies that are designed to be safe clean generic and predictable the end result is a cynical low effort attempt to set up an ongoing franchise that can be milked for all it's worth because everything has to be a franchise now but as it turns out the predator is worth a lot less than the studio was banking on oh well if anything good Kim from this disaster it's that re-watch the original predator for comparison purposes and to wash away the foil taste of the new film so I'm going to finish this review on a positive note the drinker recommends you do yourself a favor grab a beer kick back and watch the movie that started this whole thing [ __ ] if you've got time then give the second one a try as well it's probably not as bad as you remember [Music] anyway thus so I've got for today go away no

Channel: The Critical Drinker

Views: 3,583,505

Keywords: Shane Black, Olivia Munn, Arnold Schwarzenegger, get to the chopper, Traeger, McKenna, review, humour

Id: 8jRTUeGflCM

Length: 21min 1sec (1261 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 21 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/MontagoDK]

The music that drinker uses or the list ?

[u/kiecolt_67]

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Non-copyright- strikeable, of course.