fbpx
Home
Reviews
Movies

THE PREDATOR (2018)

"This Terrible Sequel Will Have Viewers Running for the Chopper"

Content: -3 Excessive sex, violence, immorality, and/or worldview problems. (Sometimes excessive content such as violence is in otherwise redemptive movies.)
Entertainment Quality:
NoneLightModerateHeavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

Credits →

What You Need To Know:

THE PREDATOR (2018) is a goofy, violent, profane sequel in the series stemming back to the 1987 PREDATOR starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. In it, a predator alien space ship crashes, and a special forces sniper, McKenna, encounters the predator and survives. He steals some alien technology and ships it home, before he’s apprehended by a dark government agency that’s trying to keep the lid on the alien invasions. When the predator goes after the tech, McKenna finds out the tech went to his ex-wife and son, so now he must escape government agents that want to kill and silence him and save his son from the predator heading his way.

THE PREDATOR is a mess. A hodgepodge of characters, none of whom truly take off as likeable or interesting people, muffles all the drama and jeopardy. There’s also bad CGI throughout. Positively, there’s a light theme of sacrifice and selflessness. Other than that, however, THE PREDATOR is full of despicable characters and dumb politically correct moments. There’s abundant foul language and extreme graphic violence as well. So, this PREDATOR (2018) is excessive and unacceptable.

Content:

(B, C, PaPa, EE, EvEv, PCPC, Ho, LLL, VVV, S, NN, A, D, MM):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:
Light moral worldview with redemptive elements where an unruly bunch of soldiers join a fight that isn’t there’s to protect a stranger and his young boy, with sacrifice and selflessness, one character is often referred to as “Bible man” and uses Christian lingo, but he’s also unstable, but strong pagan, environmentalist, evolutionary, politically correct, and hysterical worldview elements, where autism is called the next step in evolution and climate change is said to render humans extinct in one to two generations, plus light homosexual allusions;

Foul Language:
At least 120 obscenities (with at least 80 “f” words, including a few from a child), and eight profanities (multiple strong uses of Jesus’s name);

Violence:
Extreme graphic violence, predator alien impales, stabs, rips apart, bites, shoots, and shreds many humans, multiple people are cut in half with their entrails spilling out, or decapitated or dismembered, many people are shot, and lots of blood splatter and gore;

Sex:
It’s alluded that two men who act like good friends may actually be homosexual lovers, though this is never really confirmed;

Nudity:
A woman strips her clothes off in a contamination chamber, but we only see her from the top of her shoulders, some paintings of nude women have upper female nudity, and brief picture of porn features female nudity;

Alcohol Use:
Alcohol use;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:
Smoking of cigarettes but no drugs; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:
Strong miscellaneous immorality includes broken up family where father chose being a soldier over being present with his family, corrupt government employees, and bullying.

More Detail:

THE PREDATOR (2018) is a goofy, violent, profane sequel in the series dating back to the 1987 science fiction thriller starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The movie opens with a predator spaceship, on the run from another predator spaceship, crash landing on earth. The crash happens in the jungles of South America, and the crash just so happens to interrupt a hostage rescue that Quinn McKenna, a special forces sniper, is doing. McKenna investigates the spaceship and runs into the deadly predator alien, who in turns kills all of McKenna’s men. McKenna escapes, but not empty handed. Somehow, he’s able to snatch one of the predators helmets, a weapon device with alien technology on it and a silver ball that can make him invisible.

McKenna knows that whatever he saw, there has to be a dark government agency that will kill him to keep him quiet. Before he’s apprehended, McKenna manages to mail himself his new alien toys. Sure enough, Will Traeger (Sterling K. Brown), a shadowy figure who runs a task force that handles alien contacts, finds out about McKenna and has him questioned and put on a prison bus.

Meanwhile, Traeger brings in Casey Bracket (Olivia Munn), a biologist with an expertise in evolutionary biology, to shed some light on the predator they were able to capture and have sedated. The scientists discover that the predator has traces of human DNA in it.

Before the scientists get far, the predator wakes up and wrecks havoc, by killing everyone it comes across. Meanwhile, on the prison bus, McKenna meets other soldiers on the prison bus who were all arrested for various reasons. When the soldiers on the bus all see the predator escape the building, with the biologist Casey on its tail, the men revolt against the guards and take over the bus. Casey is unsuccessful at recapturing the predator, so Traeger tells his men to kill her and any other witnesses. McKenna and his new prisoner friends intervene and save Casey.

McKenna knows that the predator is looking for the equipment he stole from its ship, but the package regrettably was mailed to his ex-wife and young son Rory, who’s autistic and brilliant. McKenna convinces the soldiers with him to retrieve the items from his son and protect them from the incoming predator.

THE PREDATOR is a mess. A hodgepodge of characters, none of whom truly take off as likeable or interesting people, muffles all the drama and jeopardy. The 11-year-old Jacob Tremblay as Rory gives the best performance by far, but his role as the autistic savant comes off as tone deaf to the filmmakers, who portray the autistic Rory more as a stereotype that helps their plot purposes instead of a reflection of most children with autism.

Director and Co-Writer Shane Black is known for writing quippy and comical dialogue with flashy action. At first, the action is fun and some of the humor lands, but it doesn’t take long for the CGI to grow old and cheap, and the humor never grows out of its juvenile rut. The music and cinematography offer nostalgic nods to the 80s, where the franchise began, which is a fun addition. By the end of the movie, however, the action become so incoherent, characters and villains die so fast that if you blink, you’ll miss it. The number of plot holes, unresolved story devises, poor dialogue, and out of this world illogical scenes could fill an article of its own.

There’s a light positive theme of sacrifice and selflessness, particularly from the prisoner ex-soldiers who join a fight that really isn’t theirs to help a man and his boy. Other than that, THE PREDATOR is full of despicable characters and dumb politically correct moments. For example, it’s revealed that the reason the predators are coming to earth to snatch humans to experiment on is because climate change is about to render humans extinct. Also, it’s alluded that two soldiers might have a homosexual relationship. Finally, there are multiple moments where the 11-year-old Rory drops “f” bombs and other curse words. All of this, along with the graphic violence, makes THE PREDATOR (2018) excessive and unacceptable.



Share: