 2018's The Predator is an entertaining, unequivocal mess. This is the fourth Predator film, I guess, if you don't count the AVP series, and the fact that the titles of these are ridiculous, they're approaching fast in the furious territory. We have Predator, Predator 2, Predators, and The Predator. Yeah, that's not confusing at all. We come a bit full circle as this one was written and directed by Shane Black, who helped out on the first film and even had a small role. What we have, though, is a far different feel from that first film. Hell, it's a far different tone from the first three. If you're looking for scares, look somewhere else because there are none to be found here. The darker, creepier vibe of the original Predator, and I guess Predator's kind of, is completely gone. In its place is comedy and nonsense action. I'll be doing a movie feud between the original and this one later on, so I'm not gonna do a lot of comparisons because there's a lot of differences between these two movies that would be interesting to talk about. Instead, I'm gonna take this by its own merits or lack thereof. I didn't hate this film. I wouldn't even say that it was a waste of time or money. I found it quite funny. When the movie was over and me and my buddy were leaving, there was a woman trying to get in. She walked out for a cigarette or something and they locked the doors on her so she couldn't finish whatever she was seeing. She asked for my phone so she could try to contact the person inside. I, of course, obliged by throwing it directly into her head and saying, we don't text on our phone while watching a film. It's distracting. I'm joking. I obliged. I let her have it. And while we were doing this exchange, she asked what we went to see. I said, the Predator. She said, oh yeah, was it scary? I said, no, it was really funny. And she was taken aback, almost offended. She's like, the Predator? Fuck you talking about. It was a funny movie. A lot of laughs. And I think that's because we have this camaraderie of this ragtag crew with Olivia Munn and a bunch of boys being boys, causing hijinks, going on adventures, swearing up a storm and killing a lot of things. Olivia Munn is terrible at this. She's not good. And I'm not a, like a hater of Olivia Munn. I celebrate her entire body of work, meaning her physical form. I think she's a treat on the eyes. I call her Olivia Yum. But in this, she has a mouth breathing issue, which happens in movies from time to time and just bothers the shit out of me. She never closes her mouth. Just always a game, always in awe, just. Even when she's not in awe, she's just like, I can't shut my mouth all the way. Boyd Holbrook. I don't think that's going to be a household name, but he plays Quinn, the leader of the squad, completely generic character. Just really all of them have the same traits where they, they swear a lot, they crack jokes, and then they go about their business. Keegan-Michael Key is a highlight for me. He's just always on his game, and he elevates the film here again. I was a little worried when he was introduced that it was going to be a little too much Keegan, but then I thought, wait, that's not possible. So it was fine. Shane Black takes full advantage of that R rating, and that is a warning to parents who are thinking about taking their five or six or seven-year-olds to the theater like the people did behind us. This is not a film for them, and I'm not a judgmental parent. If they can handle it, I guess that's fine, but holy shit. There are countless swear words in this thing, like, up the ass with swear words. There's a lot of sexual jokes in this. There's tons of violent, gory shit going on. Like, I showed my kids the original Predator because I remembered how it was. Like, there's some blood, and it's a little scary here and there, but for the most part, it's not too bad. It's older, so simpler times. But I would never show them this one. Not a chance. If you saw any of the trailers, you'll know that there's a new hybrid Predator who's hunting the Predator who's on Earth, and that guy gets a lot more screen time than I thought he was going to. Arguably too much. Not a huge fan of the Juiced Up Predator. He reminds me of, like, the new Ninja Turtles movies where, okay, the Predator was cool because he was just a little bit bigger than a human. He was pretty fast, you know, relatively speaking for his size. He was camo'd. He was able to, like, stealthily take down guys, much like a Ninja Turtle. And then we get this new one. It's like, oh, this kind of defeats the purpose altogether. Here's a pretty good cast to play. They're all clearly having fun with the material. But the material is really stupid. It's an R-rated Transformers, basically, with a far more generous runtime. I did expect a lot more from Shane Black, though, who's done some really good stuff in the past. Jacob Trambly's in this from Room. I really liked him in Room. I didn't like him so much here. He plays a kid with Asperger's, which kind of basically gives him a superpower. I don't know enough about the... Is it a disability anymore? I don't know what they rank it as. It's kind of a superpower, honestly. At least in the film it is. And they play off that quite a bit. But what they do that is real annoying is they play this parenthood-type garbage music every time he's on the scene. This very touching, kind of dramatic, sad music. And it's just a little bit eye-rolling. See the predator? Don't see the predator? I don't know. If you're bored, I guess, go. You're going to just sit there and think, wow, this makes no sense at all. There must have been reshoots because I don't know how people are jumping from point A to point B and then back again. I really don't know about the production of this thing. It reeks of reshoots or at least some script changes on the fly because none of it really adds up at all. The predator movies are pretty terrible in general. The first one being awesome, the second one being awful, the third one being better. There's some good moments in the third one, actually. This one, this one, though, is rough. I'd say it's better than two, but, I mean, at least two had a story line that you could follow. There's plenty more rats to be found to be unearthed. Just have to click on that link. I'll just stand here and wait awkwardly while you do, making you feel uncomfortable.