The Predator

Shane Black améliore tout ce qui est imaginable, le balance en Dolby Atmos et répond avec succès aux besoins d'un film d'action (il élève beaucoup le final explosif en Dolby Atmos). Ce qui ne fonctionne pas, ce sont les personnages qui sont pléthore, sans qu'aucun ne soit sympathique ou intéressant (le jeune Jacob Tremblay avait un potentiel "spielbergien", mais cela en est resté là). De plus, il y a davantage d'efforts pour l'humour et la coolitude (qui ne fonctionnent pas), que pour l'atmosphère et la tension, pour lesquelles nous aimons le premier opus et dont la suite ne nous dérange pas. Celui-ci est plus intense et plus inventif, mais pas beaucoup plus intelligent que Alien vs. Predator de Paul W.S. Anderson. JEREMIUE (20/09/2018)

As if the Predator got into the hands of Carpenter in the mode of Big Trouble in Little China / Escape from XY. Yes, it's a truly B-rate nonsense. Yes, it's stuck time. Yes, it has little in common with the Predator. But it's extremely fun; sometimes intentionally (it typically uses one-liners in a Black style) and sometimes not (it does not hold together and does not make the slightest sense). Which doesn´t mind because whether it's silly, degraded, B-rate in terms of one-liners, it's just fun at all times. I this movie had been made a decade earlier, it would have been a cult movie today. So, the worse Predator, the better the B-movie. And it´s a damn good B-movie. (12/09/2018)

If you're expecting a classic Predator, you'd better stay at home, because Shane Black will really piss you off. Unlike the first and second films, there is no sense of a fight for life, but instead the building of a mythology that is not very interesting and feels rather funny. Furthermore, Black completely mismanages the action scenes and especially towards the end Predator: Evolution turns into a proper mess. But on the other hand, I can't say I was bored. The running time is just right, Boyd Holbrook more or less handles the lead role, and the other soldiers are likeable, although, unfortunately, they occasionally make some unexpected and off-the-cuff remarks, as if the editor didn't quite get his job together, and they understandably are no match to Arnold's crew from the first film. The new Predator is actually a weird mix of an old movie, a war flick, a bit of dumb comedy, and something that has ambitions to have two more installments. As action sci-fi B-movies goes, it's fine. As a Predator movie, it’s not. (14/09/2018)

A new comic-book toilet flush from Marvel, or maybe even worse, DC, who coincidentally feature the Predators. You piss me off, Hollywood. Why is it that there are almost no good adult films produced anymore? Why is it that when studios pour a lot money, what comes out is uniform, sterile infantility? There is plenty of blood and it does fuck things up all the way to 11, but it has the mental level of a six year-old kid. The characters must utter stupid one-liners and jump 10 metres up in the air, even is nothing is happening, and fearlessly balance on a moving bus and a flying spaceship (!!!). Plus a cute clever boy and a domesticated predator dog. Did we fucking need any of that, really? In a Predator film? In the first half, at least the humour works sometimes, but in the second half, absolutely nothing. It falls apart to such extent that you can even see massive editing mistakes, when there isn’t a fundamental continuity between two consecutive scenes. It is as if parts of it were missing (I got scared at the transition from the barn to the helicopter, I thought I had fallen asleep for a moment). Shane Black deserves nothing but hell from this. And maybe people will start retroactively appreciating Antal’s well executed Predators. (13/09/2018)

Holy shit, who would have guessed how totally fucked up this was going to be? Shane Black as director? That is an absolute win. So, what did go wrong? Maybe the fact that Shane made a bit of a joke out of the Predator. The Predator is rough. It is like if you put a group of the toughest soldiers into Vietnamese jungle and asked them to smash their way through the worst shit. They will go and do it, similarly like Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was shooting the machine gun into the jungle not knowing what was happening around him. However, the fundamentals there were clear. Not to drive fear to the absurd but drive fear to the reality and add a bunch of tough lines that will be legendary even in a third generation. But here? The main theme of Predators is an autistic child and the whole thing revolves around a bunch of weirdos who do not take themselves seriously at all and turn this film into a complete farce. I get that it was meant that way, but I have to say it doesn’t fit Predator at all. Had I not known the original Predator, I would’ve been more or less satisfied. For example, Keegan Michael Key is a great comedian, but does a comedian belong into the Predator? I don’t fucking think so. Pardon my French, but this film does not deserve a more delicate review. (07/05/2019)