Now that the hit Hulu prequel Prey has proven there’s some hunt left in the Predator franchise, Awfully Good Movies is taking on the previous entry from 2018 that forced it to reboot in the first place: Shane Black’s The Predator!
The same year Shane Black co-starred as the joke cracking Rick Hawkins in the original Predator, his script for Lethal Weapon became as big a hit as Predator was and the rest was history. But 31 years later, after Black came back as a director with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Iron Man 3, 20th Century Fox asked Black to return behind the camera and make the Predator sequel to end them all…which, unfortunately, it nearly did. Sure, having the story focus on a ragtag group of PTSD afflicted veterans led by Boyd Holbrook who must save the earth from two visiting Predators sounds like a promising setup, but the rest of this plot sucks all the promise out of it.
There’s an autistic child who’s being sought after by the Predators because his Asperger’s makes him the next step of the evolutionary chain. We have an evil government agent who thinks the Predators want to steal the boy’s DNA before climate change potentially kills humanity off. Then come a couple of genetically altered “Predator Hounds” whose evil rage can be turned off with a bullet to their head. But what there isn’t is an Arnold cameo, or a deleted cameo from Shane Black’s sex offender buddy as a horny jogger creeping on Olivia Munn, and the film’s original third act has been reshot after poor test screenings and leaked set photos.
While the final result isn’t without fun to be had, it’s definitely a good thing this franchise went back to square one after this loud CGI-packed sequel nearly skinned this franchise alive. When it comes to making modern day blockbusters, Shane Black might just be getting too old for that shit.