I was only 38 minutes in and I went to check Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB to see if this movie was a stupid as it seems or if I was just missing something. You know you're in trouble when you're shouting back at the screen "no, that's not how that works." I paused the film and sighed, wondering if I should even finish it. It's too bad--I actually liked his "Iron Man 3" and "The Nice Guys." Maybe Shane Black just can't handle action. Also, using the "F" word in every sentence doesn't make a movie edgy. It's a big dumb movie that makes my brain hurt. And it feels like they wrote the script on set during filming. Few things are foreshadowed, things are set up and never paid off, and it's 1:40 minutes and even that feels padded.
The script feels like a rough first draft before anyone read it and said "um, okay. Nice effort. Now let's have this polished several times." It's all a weird mix of quips and dumb puns combined with relentless CGI action and blood spraying everywhere. It feels like a poor man's Deadpool without the heart or the humor. Buckets of blood combined with dumb jokes does not automatically create a masterpiece.
And the plot is incoherent, coincidences just happen because they're required to advance the plot, and dumb things happen over and over. Characters do things that don't make sense over and over. For example, in the opening spaceship crash, a sniper is observing a hostage situation. For no reason, he shoots one of the kidnappers but runs away before rescuing the hostages or taking out the other kidnappers. He runs into the woods to find the spaceship and yells loudly for his friends. If you're doing covert operations, you're not yelling. He finds some parts of the predator's suit (a helmet and arm thingy) and a friend joins him and he says "give me the backpack" and the guy happens to be carrying a big EMPTY backpack. The predator--who took the time to kill another human and string him up from a tree - don't ask--attacks and the sniper fights back, failing to hurt the predator until the predator's OWN arm thingy fires, hurting him and cutting the hanging human in half. His blood and guts drip all over the fallen predator and the human's intestines are all hanging out. Funny, right? That's just in the first ten minutes. If I were to make a list of all the logic problems in this "movie," I'd be here all day, but here are some of the major script fixes I would have made. SPOILERS.
3:40 - the ship isn't even going to crash near the sniper, so there's no reason for him to get up and run away, fall down a mountain, and find the crashed ship 5:20 - "Comms aren't working" isn't explained 5:25 - "give me the pack" who carries an empty backpack through the forest? 5:30 - "ain't nobody gonna believe this one" and "it's above our pay grade" 5:45 - clandestine military team shouting loudly into their radios 6:10 - predator is already there? The ship crashed in one location and his escape pod ejected WAY far away. He had time to cover all that ground AND kill a human AND string him up just to scare these folks? 7:00 - predator arm weapon hits predator, cuts human in half, dripping blood and entrails. Yummy! 8:25 - character mainlining Nicorette gum. Never mentioned again 8:45 - sniper clears out a bar by showing his gun to ONE old man. Everyone else just gets up and leaves without seeing the gun 9:05 - sniper uses alien marble to turn invisible to impress a Mexican bar owner. If you can turn invisible, why DRINK THE MARBLE in the next scene? Also I don't think you can do that. 8:50 - sniper actually asks the bar owner to mail the helmet and arm thingy TO HIS SON in the US. This is an actual plot point. Okay, so customs? 9:24 - sniper says "mail what's in the pack, not the backpack." Why does that matter? The bar owner's just going to throw it away and the backpack would help cushion the item in transport. Seems like an odd line to make it into the final script when there's no point 10:30 - autistic kid watches others play chess. Doesn't like loud sounds. Bullies come to beat him up, decide not to, knocks over chess pieces. Autistic kid REMEMBERS how the board was set up and puts the pieces back. WHOA. So cliched. 10:47 - bullies converstation: "looky, looky, loo," "I'm hungry for an ass-burger," "sounds delicious" and "A nice big juicy ass-burger." Sorkin-level dialogue this is not. 12:30 - creepy expository conversation about the autistic kid's father with a post office worker. Turns out the sniper is the kid's dad and he's got a package! The kid says "he kills people so you can be a mailman." Get the oscar for best screenplay ready!! 13:07 - Olivia Munn is Dr. Brackett. She's walking her dog when a government dude who looks like a generic version of Willem Defoe recruits her to investigate the alien. " 16:15 - The helmet is really-well packed when it arrives. The kid find it encased in bubble wrap and a dozen ziplock bags full of white rice. Maybe the bar owner should open a shipping store. 19:30 - clunky scene on the bus to introduce all the PTSD group members. Each gets a line and a thumbnail description 21:00 - "Is it just your imagination, or is this haunted room ACTUALLY stretching?" Okay, the first joke of the movie to actually make me laugh out loud. Too bad they got the line from The Haunted Mansion wrong and added in the word "haunted." 21:20 - second pleasant surprise - Jake Busey as a scientist. Funny 22:00 - oh, good, the Predator's alive. Couldn't tell from the earlier scene. Didn't he get shot? Looks fine now. Oh, and I can tell you right now those restraints aren't gonna hold him down. 22:30 - overly-explained back story for how Oliva Munn got recruited. People probably thought that was boring so, at the same time, she's taking off her clothes to be "decontaminated." Jake Busey's ALSO taking his clothes off to be "decontaminated" even though HE WORKS THERE and has presumably been there for weeks. Why is he getting naked too? 23:15 - Traeger, the main doctor, explains why they call it the Predator and Olivia Munn says he sounds more like a game hunter or "bass fisherman." Yup, that's in the script. Traeger replies that "we voted and Predator just sounds cooler." Right. 26:45 - Alien #2 arrives but the autistic kid, who's playing with the alien helmet, apparently has already figured out their language the second ship can turn invisible but the kid figures out how to turn it off. Kid is just doing random things but manages to help the military. 28:30 - Predator #1 breaks free. I told you those restraints wouldn't work. Edited scene happens too fast, no tension as things jump around and we don't see anything except random killing. Here's a thought: SHOW the Predator holding the knife BEFORE he throws it and kills a guy. It's easy. Set-up, pay-off. Guards start to shoot at the Predator, he grabs a woman and holds her up as a human shield. Set-up, pay-off. Take your time. This scene ends up feeling like it took no effort for the Predator to get loose versus him actually using the environment and the people around him to earn his escape. Jake Busey gets shot and we don't see what happens to him. Olivia Munn grabs a gun--she has a military background? Not mentioned beforehand. Stuff just happens, people run around, no tension. She grabs some kind of yellow goo in a test tube that hasn't been mentioned or explained before and runs away. Why did she grab that? What is it? Is it important? Does it matter? 29:15 - everyone else in the room gets killed. To escape, Olivia Munn has to pass through the "decontamination" area and get naked AGAIN. Predator finds her but doesn't kill her. 31:45 - oh, Jake Busey's NOT dead? Okay, good. "Don't let him get away." "Not my space animal," she says. 32:20 - busload of PTSD guys and our sniper see the alien. Good scene as they take control of the bus and chase the alien. Olivia Munn also chases the alien across the rooftop, then jumps on the bus. Sure. Then falls off the bus after SHOOTING HERSELF in the foot with a tranquilizer gun. So the random white gun she grabbed earlier and has been carrying this whole time was a tranq gun? Gotcha. 35:40 - Predator #2 fights human fighter planes. Human ejects from plane before plane is hit 36:20 - Dude sees a group of motorcycles to steal and yells "Get to the choppers!" Get it? It's a call-back to the first movie when Arnold says "get to the chopper." Get it? GET IT?????? 37:30 - Predator #1 jumps into the back of a truck and kills everyone. Driver says "everything okay back there?" Predator holds up the severed arm of one soldier and GIVES THE DRIVER A THUMB'S UP with the arm. Driver says "You f-ing guys." SEE IT'S FUNNY RIGHT!! But how does the Predator know that a thumb's up means "Okay everything's fine?" 37:45 - the Predator has dogs! Sweet.
I got 38 minutes in and gave up tracking this by scenes. Here are the remaining highlights:
The wife knows EVERY detail of the sniper's record-wouldn't that all be classified? The autistic kid wears the Predator stuff as a Halloween costume. Random RV with a police radio that's a "reverse clown car." Space dogs have dreadlocks too. Predator #2 is twice as big as Predator #1. The high school has a sign that reads "Welcome Parents and STDS" - has anyone ever shortened "students" as STDs? A seven-year-old kid says "Sorry I didn't grow up the way you wanted." Bad guys find good guys with no explanation. Space dog is suddenly friendly. They call the Predators "Thing #1" and "Thing #2." All the aliens are visiting Earth because of climate change--good one. The Predators using the same "falling letters" screensaver as they do in the Matrix but it's in red. Predator #2 uses child drawings TWICE to find the kid and a missing spaceship. Space dog rescues woman because the plot requires it. Hiding from the bad guys when you have an orb that turns you invisible. Random translator machine that never worked before now translates Predator speech into English, who gives them a 7:31 minute head-start before he's going to hunt them all down. Predator randomly "hacked the vehicles" so everyone has to flee on foot. (I swear to God it's like they made this plot up on set.) "You and me are gonna dance." "I got my shoes all picked out." They lock the space dog in a van for no reason but he gets out. Bad CGI Predator bites a soldier's head off. Predator gun/vest shoots the head off the guy wearing it with no explanation and he's the MAIN BAD HUMAN. Shooting at the alien spaceship with three of your friends in the way. When he needs to communicate with this father, the kid suddenly has a phone. Force field forms slowly so they have time to avoid it. Olivia Munn--and the dog--run miles through the forest in five minutes to attack the Predator. Sudden knowledge of how to use tech--and the space dog--lets them defeat Predator #2. Kid gets a job working with the Predator research teams. Alien space pod was gift to humankind. Guess what it is? A Predator Killer. Oh SNAP! Another even bigger monster? No, it's a suit a human wears--to kill Predators. SEQUEL!!!!
Things I liked: stealing a news helicopter, "is this room stretching," Jake Busey, Keegan-Michael Key, the Greyjoy kid, "Don't look at the dead guy," space dogs with dreadlocks. I guess if you throw enough random crap at the screen, something will pay off, right?
Review by Greg EnslenVIP 6BlockedParent2019-04-25T16:22:28Z
I was only 38 minutes in and I went to check Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB to see if this movie was a stupid as it seems or if I was just missing something. You know you're in trouble when you're shouting back at the screen "no, that's not how that works." I paused the film and sighed, wondering if I should even finish it. It's too bad--I actually liked his "Iron Man 3" and "The Nice Guys." Maybe Shane Black just can't handle action. Also, using the "F" word in every sentence doesn't make a movie edgy. It's a big dumb movie that makes my brain hurt. And it feels like they wrote the script on set during filming. Few things are foreshadowed, things are set up and never paid off, and it's 1:40 minutes and even that feels padded.
The script feels like a rough first draft before anyone read it and said "um, okay. Nice effort. Now let's have this polished several times." It's all a weird mix of quips and dumb puns combined with relentless CGI action and blood spraying everywhere. It feels like a poor man's Deadpool without the heart or the humor. Buckets of blood combined with dumb jokes does not automatically create a masterpiece.
And the plot is incoherent, coincidences just happen because they're required to advance the plot, and dumb things happen over and over. Characters do things that don't make sense over and over. For example, in the opening spaceship crash, a sniper is observing a hostage situation. For no reason, he shoots one of the kidnappers but runs away before rescuing the hostages or taking out the other kidnappers. He runs into the woods to find the spaceship and yells loudly for his friends. If you're doing covert operations, you're not yelling. He finds some parts of the predator's suit (a helmet and arm thingy) and a friend joins him and he says "give me the backpack" and the guy happens to be carrying a big EMPTY backpack. The predator--who took the time to kill another human and string him up from a tree - don't ask--attacks and the sniper fights back, failing to hurt the predator until the predator's OWN arm thingy fires, hurting him and cutting the hanging human in half. His blood and guts drip all over the fallen predator and the human's intestines are all hanging out. Funny, right? That's just in the first ten minutes. If I were to make a list of all the logic problems in this "movie," I'd be here all day, but here are some of the major script fixes I would have made. SPOILERS.
3:40 - the ship isn't even going to crash near the sniper, so there's no reason for him to get up and run away, fall down a mountain, and find the crashed ship
5:20 - "Comms aren't working" isn't explained
5:25 - "give me the pack" who carries an empty backpack through the forest?
5:30 - "ain't nobody gonna believe this one" and "it's above our pay grade"
5:45 - clandestine military team shouting loudly into their radios
6:10 - predator is already there? The ship crashed in one location and his escape pod ejected WAY far away. He had time to cover all that ground AND kill a human AND string him up just to scare these folks?
7:00 - predator arm weapon hits predator, cuts human in half, dripping blood and entrails. Yummy!
8:25 - character mainlining Nicorette gum. Never mentioned again
8:45 - sniper clears out a bar by showing his gun to ONE old man. Everyone else just gets up and leaves without seeing the gun
9:05 - sniper uses alien marble to turn invisible to impress a Mexican bar owner. If you can turn invisible, why DRINK THE MARBLE in the next scene? Also I don't think you can do that.
8:50 - sniper actually asks the bar owner to mail the helmet and arm thingy TO HIS SON in the US. This is an actual plot point. Okay, so customs?
9:24 - sniper says "mail what's in the pack, not the backpack." Why does that matter? The bar owner's just going to throw it away and the backpack would help cushion the item in transport. Seems like an odd line to make it into the final script when there's no point
10:30 - autistic kid watches others play chess. Doesn't like loud sounds. Bullies come to beat him up, decide not to, knocks over chess pieces. Autistic kid REMEMBERS how the board was set up and puts the pieces back. WHOA. So cliched.
10:47 - bullies converstation: "looky, looky, loo," "I'm hungry for an ass-burger," "sounds delicious" and "A nice big juicy ass-burger." Sorkin-level dialogue this is not.
12:30 - creepy expository conversation about the autistic kid's father with a post office worker. Turns out the sniper is the kid's dad and he's got a package! The kid says "he kills people so you can be a mailman." Get the oscar for best screenplay ready!!
13:07 - Olivia Munn is Dr. Brackett. She's walking her dog when a government dude who looks like a generic version of Willem Defoe recruits her to investigate the alien. "
16:15 - The helmet is really-well packed when it arrives. The kid find it encased in bubble wrap and a dozen ziplock bags full of white rice. Maybe the bar owner should open a shipping store.
19:30 - clunky scene on the bus to introduce all the PTSD group members. Each gets a line and a thumbnail description
21:00 - "Is it just your imagination, or is this haunted room ACTUALLY stretching?" Okay, the first joke of the movie to actually make me laugh out loud. Too bad they got the line from The Haunted Mansion wrong and added in the word "haunted."
21:20 - second pleasant surprise - Jake Busey as a scientist. Funny
22:00 - oh, good, the Predator's alive. Couldn't tell from the earlier scene. Didn't he get shot? Looks fine now. Oh, and I can tell you right now those restraints aren't gonna hold him down.
22:30 - overly-explained back story for how Oliva Munn got recruited. People probably thought that was boring so, at the same time, she's taking off her clothes to be "decontaminated." Jake Busey's ALSO taking his clothes off to be "decontaminated" even though HE WORKS THERE and has presumably been there for weeks. Why is he getting naked too?
23:15 - Traeger, the main doctor, explains why they call it the Predator and Olivia Munn says he sounds more like a game hunter or "bass fisherman." Yup, that's in the script. Traeger replies that "we voted and Predator just sounds cooler." Right.
26:45 - Alien #2 arrives but the autistic kid, who's playing with the alien helmet, apparently has already figured out their language the second ship can turn invisible but the kid figures out how to turn it off. Kid is just doing random things but manages to help the military.
28:30 - Predator #1 breaks free. I told you those restraints wouldn't work. Edited scene happens too fast, no tension as things jump around and we don't see anything except random killing. Here's a thought: SHOW the Predator holding the knife BEFORE he throws it and kills a guy. It's easy. Set-up, pay-off. Guards start to shoot at the Predator, he grabs a woman and holds her up as a human shield. Set-up, pay-off. Take your time. This scene ends up feeling like it took no effort for the Predator to get loose versus him actually using the environment and the people around him to earn his escape. Jake Busey gets shot and we don't see what happens to him. Olivia Munn grabs a gun--she has a military background? Not mentioned beforehand. Stuff just happens, people run around, no tension. She grabs some kind of yellow goo in a test tube that hasn't been mentioned or explained before and runs away. Why did she grab that? What is it? Is it important? Does it matter?
29:15 - everyone else in the room gets killed. To escape, Olivia Munn has to pass through the "decontamination" area and get naked AGAIN. Predator finds her but doesn't kill her.
31:45 - oh, Jake Busey's NOT dead? Okay, good. "Don't let him get away." "Not my space animal," she says.
32:20 - busload of PTSD guys and our sniper see the alien. Good scene as they take control of the bus and chase the alien. Olivia Munn also chases the alien across the rooftop, then jumps on the bus. Sure. Then falls off the bus after SHOOTING HERSELF in the foot with a tranquilizer gun. So the random white gun she grabbed earlier and has been carrying this whole time was a tranq gun? Gotcha.
35:40 - Predator #2 fights human fighter planes. Human ejects from plane before plane is hit
36:20 - Dude sees a group of motorcycles to steal and yells "Get to the choppers!" Get it? It's a call-back to the first movie when Arnold says "get to the chopper." Get it? GET IT??????
37:30 - Predator #1 jumps into the back of a truck and kills everyone. Driver says "everything okay back there?" Predator holds up the severed arm of one soldier and GIVES THE DRIVER A THUMB'S UP with the arm. Driver says "You f-ing guys." SEE IT'S FUNNY RIGHT!! But how does the Predator know that a thumb's up means "Okay everything's fine?"
37:45 - the Predator has dogs! Sweet.
I got 38 minutes in and gave up tracking this by scenes. Here are the remaining highlights:
The wife knows EVERY detail of the sniper's record-wouldn't that all be classified?
The autistic kid wears the Predator stuff as a Halloween costume.
Random RV with a police radio that's a "reverse clown car."
Space dogs have dreadlocks too. Predator #2 is twice as big as Predator #1.
The high school has a sign that reads "Welcome Parents and STDS" - has anyone ever shortened "students" as STDs? A seven-year-old kid says "Sorry I didn't grow up the way you wanted."
Bad guys find good guys with no explanation. Space dog is suddenly friendly. They call the Predators "Thing #1" and "Thing #2."
All the aliens are visiting Earth because of climate change--good one. The Predators using the same "falling letters" screensaver as they do in the Matrix but it's in red.
Predator #2 uses child drawings TWICE to find the kid and a missing spaceship. Space dog rescues woman because the plot requires it.
Hiding from the bad guys when you have an orb that turns you invisible. Random translator machine that never worked before now translates Predator speech into English, who gives them a 7:31 minute head-start before he's going to hunt them all down.
Predator randomly "hacked the vehicles" so everyone has to flee on foot. (I swear to God it's like they made this plot up on set.) "You and me are gonna dance." "I got my shoes all picked out."
They lock the space dog in a van for no reason but he gets out. Bad CGI Predator bites a soldier's head off. Predator gun/vest shoots the head off the guy wearing it with no explanation and he's the MAIN BAD HUMAN. Shooting at the alien spaceship with three of your friends in the way. When he needs to communicate with this father, the kid suddenly has a phone. Force field forms slowly so they have time to avoid it.
Olivia Munn--and the dog--run miles through the forest in five minutes to attack the Predator. Sudden knowledge of how to use tech--and the space dog--lets them defeat Predator #2. Kid gets a job working with the Predator research teams.
Alien space pod was gift to humankind. Guess what it is? A Predator Killer. Oh SNAP! Another even bigger monster? No, it's a suit a human wears--to kill Predators. SEQUEL!!!!
Things I liked: stealing a news helicopter, "is this room stretching," Jake Busey, Keegan-Michael Key, the Greyjoy kid, "Don't look at the dead guy," space dogs with dreadlocks. I guess if you throw enough random crap at the screen, something will pay off, right?