The Predator is the franchise's most tonally confused entry and its most narratively incoherent, a film of comic ambition and fundamental dramatic inadequacy that wastes the considerable talent of its cast and its director in service of a plot of such persistent incoherence that it generates almost no dramatic engagement. Shane Black's 2018 film has its pleasures: the ensemble's comic chemistry is real, and individual sequences deliver the kind of sharp, irreverent energy that Black's best work has always provided. But the film fails to deliver either the atmospheric dread of the franchise's strongest entries or the sustained comic entertainment its more overtly comedic register promises, leaving it stranded between two registers without fully committing to either.
At a Glance
Director: Shane Black
Runtime: 107 minutes
Starring: Boyd Holbrook, Trevante Rhodes, Jacob Tremblay, Olivia Munn, Sterling K. Brown
Release: 2018
Critics Rating: ★½ (1.5/5 stars, tonally confused and narratively incoherent)
Audience Rating: ★★ (2/5 stars, disappointing)
Review Breakdown
Plot
A sniper accidentally triggers a Predator's distress beacon, bringing a larger and more powerful Predator to Earth. A group of military veterans with PTSD must work with a scientist to stop it. The plot is the franchise's most narratively incoherent, with the Predator's objective, the nature of the upgrade Predator, and the government's response all handled with such superficiality that the film's more seriously intended passages generate almost no dramatic engagement. The third act in particular collapses under the weight of its own narrative contradictions, delivering a conclusion that resolves nothing with any conviction. The production's troubled history, which included significant reshoots and editorial interventions, is visible in the final cut's structural incoherence.
Characters
Trevante Rhodes's Nebraska Williams is the film's most compelling presence, a veteran of warmth and moral conviction whose relationship with McKenna gives the film its most emotionally engaging thread. Rhodes brings a physical ease and emotional intelligence to the role that makes Nebraska the film's most fully realised character, and his performance is the clearest indication of what the film might have been with a more coherent script. Sterling K. Brown's Will Traeger is the film's most consistently entertaining villain, a government agent of considerable theatrical excess and comic energy whose scenes are the film's most reliably enjoyable. Boyd Holbrook's McKenna is the franchise's least compelling major human protagonist, a character of adequate capability and limited dramatic interest whose function is primarily to move the plot from one set-piece to the next.
Tone
Black pitches the film at a register of darkly comic action spectacle, and the comic elements work considerably better than the horror elements. The ensemble's banter has an energy that recalls Black's work on Lethal Weapon and The Nice Guys, and the film is at its most enjoyable when it leans into that register without apology. The problem is that the franchise's central premise requires a degree of threat that the film's comedic register consistently undermines, and the attempts to generate atmospheric dread feel tonally inconsistent with everything around them.
Meaning / Themes
The film gestures toward themes of neurodiversity and evolutionary advantage, using the protagonist's son's autism as a plot device that the Predators find significant. This is handled with such superficiality and dramatic convenience that it never generates thematic engagement, functioning primarily as a narrative mechanism rather than as a meaningful exploration of the ideas it raises.
Direction
Black's direction is technically competent and tonally inconsistent, delivering the comic sequences with energy while failing to generate the spatial intelligence and atmospheric dread the franchise's action passages require. The action sequences are staged with adequate visual clarity but lack the kinetic precision of the franchise's strongest entries. Henry Jackman's score is serviceable without achieving any distinctive identity.
Cultural Reception
The Predator received poor reviews on its release and underperformed commercially, generating significant critical disappointment given Black's involvement and the franchise's post-Predators momentum. The production's troubled history, including the controversy surrounding a scene involving a registered sex offender that was cut before release, generated significant negative press. It is now widely regarded as the franchise's creative low point, a film that squandered a genuine opportunity to build on Predators' modest revival. Its failure was a significant factor in the decision to take the franchise in the radically different direction that produced Prey.
Who Should Watch
Franchise completists only, approached with the lowest possible expectations. Those who go in specifically for Rhodes and Brown's performances will find two actors doing good work in a film that does not deserve them.
Final Verdict: The franchise's most narratively incoherent entry and its most tonally confused. Rhodes's Nebraska is the film's most compelling presence, Brown's Traeger is its most consistently entertaining villain, and Black's direction delivers the comic sequences with energy. But the plot is incoherent, the horror elements are ineffective, and The Predator wastes its considerable talent in service of a narrative that never coheres into anything worth the effort. The franchise needed Prey to recover from this.
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