I saw The Predator (2018) and it's not bad.......it's worse than I thought! (Spoilers)

    Hi everyone, it's Hector again and welcome to another one of my shenanigans, but unfortunately, this is not going to be a pleasant one as the topic I'm discussing today won't be positive as this is my first official rant on this blog of mine. I do my best to stay positive or put a positive spin on various things, but guess a rant was bound to happen sooner or later as this certain movie really did a number on me and my intelligence. Recently, I decided to check out the Predator franchise, particularly the sequels as I did see the first movie a couple of years ago, and thought it was fantastic, but never got around to seeing the sequels, though I wanted to. Predator 2 was uneven, but enjoyable, while Predators, despite its faults, I was quite into thanks to its amazing premise and cast! Then, I moved onto the next installment, The Predator, and let's just say this movie is one of the most stupid, horribly written, poorly thought out, creatively bankrupt, laughable abominations I have seen in a while! 

    Prior to my viewing of the movie, I was more than aware of the negativity surrounding the film. Apparently, the movie had some production issues, as it went through quite an extensive amount of reshoots, as well as having to cut out certain things as let's just say the director, Shane Black, thought it was a good idea to hire someone hugely problematic in their movie, which made one of the stars, Olivia Munn, really uncomfortable and decided to inform Fox. On top of that, the movie decided to make some choices that were "bold", if you want to call it that. Regardless of the mess, I decided to give the movie a go, holding out a bit of hope that it would at least be enjoyable. Based on what I just wrote last paragraph though, fate decided to make me suffer. 

    Before I tear this movie to shreds, I will be fair here and point out some of the things I did admittedly like. For one, the cast do the best with the material they have and are clearly talented people (Olivia Munn and Trevante Rhodes were my favorites). Both of the Predators look fantastic and have some cool moments in it. The first few minutes are fine, there are some fleeting moments of creativity and humor that actually worked, and some decent cinematography. I will say this movie has a lot of unintentionally hilarious moments throughout it, and it's not boring. Plus, it has some cute dogs in it. That's all I got. 

    All right, let's get this over with, what's the story for The Predator and how do I not make it sound dumb? I will go into spoilers in case if anyone is worried, but honestly, nothing is that important to spoil anyway, beyond the level of stupidity you will experience watching this garbage. 

The plot involves a new Predator invading Earth, after a boy with autism (that detail is important by the way) triggers a homing beacon, and in order to stop it, a group of ragtag men and a scientist must find a way to stop the Predator. The plot is generic, but there's a way to make it interesting, and in a way, The Predator manages to be interesting, but in a way that is unimaginably stupid and dare I say, insulting. 

    The movie starts out with Boyd Holbrook's character dealing with a Predator attacking him and his men. He manages to stop the alien, then decides to steal his weapons and helmet, but he doesn't keep it to himself for some reason as he decides to mail this dangerous equipment to his home (Don't question why, the movie hates logic). Afterwards, Boyd's son (Jacob Tremblay) comes across this package, and messes around with the equipment that his dad sent. His son, through the use of his "autism" (I wish I was kidding, but I'm not sadly), triggers a homing beacon of sorts and catches the attention of another Predator that is far more dangerous than the one Boyd dealt with earlier. That's how the events of the movie kick off and I cannot make this shit up for the life of me.

    Don't believe me? Not kidding, this is a line of dialogue written by an actual person: "You know, a lot of experts say that being on the spectrum isn't a disorder. It's actually the next step in the evolutionary chain." How did this piece of writing get approved?! This movie treats autism as if it's a superpower, as anyone with it can solve anything.

It's funny, you think this would sound empowering to anyone with autism or is on the spectrum, but it comes off as best problematic and at worst, disingenuous. 

I've met plenty of people who I'm friends with and have autism (as well as some family members), and how this movie portrays it is beyond stupid and insulting to one's intelligence as there is no nuisance to it whatsoever! 

    Would be nice if autism was a superpower or an advantage, but it's sadly not. I know it's only a movie, but there needs to be a level of authenticity and sensitivity when it comes to this topic and representation, especially when there isn't much of it in mainstream media. Interestingly enough, the Power Rangers 2017 movie also had an autistic character (Billy/The Blue Ranger), but unlike the Predator, it actually respected the audience as the character felt authentic, thanks to the writing, direction, and performance from the actor, RJ Cyler, so it's clear that it can be done properly. Unfortunately, someone at Fox or whoever were more focused on profit (actually, I doubt that as the people behind this movie had no idea what they were doing when making this piece of shit) instead of taking the topic seriously.  You know you got a problem when a show or movie that is targeted towards a younger demographic takes the topic more seriously than an R rated movie that is targeted towards adults. 

    If you think that's bad, oh don't worry as not only autism is portrayed poorly, but also people with Tourette's. There's a character played by Thomas Jane who has Tourette's (who I won't fault here as he's a talented guy who I'm sure was doing what he was told to do by whoever), and they play off it as a joke. Much like the autism portrayal, there's no level of nuisance to it, and to my knowledge, there hasn't been any proper portrayals of Tourette's in mainstream media, so seeing this kind of portrayal was disheartening. Almost all of his dialogue is a joke, so much so that when he actually says something that's potentially meaningful, it didn't click on any emotional level as it felt hollow, trying to add an artificial layer of depth.

    Even if I were to put all the problematic portrayals of autism, Tourette's, and such aside, there are a bunch of other issues to go over! One of my biggest problems with The Predator is the humor as, save for I would say a handful of jokes that were actually funny, weren't funny whatsoever. The majority of the comedy comes off like an edgy teen's idea of humor, a bunch of mom jokes, jokes about sensitive topics, and anything of that nature. Humor is subjective as what I don't find funny can be funny to you or vice versa, and I'm more than okay with edgy humor, if handled correctly, but here, it didn't click with me as it was obnoxious, forced, and in poor taste. I hear a lot of complaints regarding the Marvel Cinematic Universe films having a lot of humor or humor being put in inappropriate places and while there are valid points about it, The Predator does that in a way that I found far worse and unpleasant as at least the majority of the humor in the MCU is funny and written by people that are talented and aren't out of touch with reality.

    Speaking of forced and obnoxious, time to talk about the characters and yeah, they suck, as I had a tough time connecting to any of them. The characters were either thinly written or over the top with their personalities, as none of them (particularly the team that comes up to fight the Predator) don't take the threat of the Predator seriously, despite the fact that they have never encountered anything like this before. There are attempts to humanize them a bit, yet when they do, it fails miserably as the writing is poorly thought out and it's so lacking in heart that I'm convinced someone working on this movie ripped it out, like how a character in Mortal Kombat would to their opponent. There's nothing to ground these characters and the story in a believable manner! 

    What also bogs the movie down is its tone, as it does a terrible job on balancing out the humor and action, as the movie comes off more as a comedy than an action movie that happens to have comedic elements. Relating to the previous issue, the characters don't take the threat of the Predator seriously and most of their screentime revolves around them making jokes and how edgy they can be. If the characters don't take this threat seriously, why should I care about them? Not to mention there isn't a natural way of getting from serious scenes to comedic scenes. To give the best example, there's a scene where Thomas Jane's and Keegan Michael-Key's characters kill each other in order to end their suffering from their injuries encountering the Predator. On paper, this sounds like an emotional moment that hits the audience hard, but in execution, it was one of the funniest things I've ever witnessed as it was overdramatic, the directing was tepid at best, and the movie barely gives them any time for those two to act like authentic people. If anything, I was rooting for the Predator to win! 

     The way the movie expands upon the Predator lore and expanded universe are so lame and yawn-inducing. Aside from the Predator Hounds (which admittedly looked kind of neat), everything else was uninspired and painfully lacking in imagination. I can't think of anything in particular that stood out to me. If anything, I was more distracted by how lazy the filmmakers were with how the story is just another "Predator invading a city" plot, as well as how at one point, there's a scene where two characters are discussing the two Predator films that were set in 1987 and 1997, yet when they show the '97 one, there's clearly an error where it says 1990 instead of 1997 (Predator 2 came out in 1990, but the movie is set in 1997). I usually don't point out that kind of stuff, but it was so blatant in its appearance that I couldn't help but notice it, and it made it clear that the filmmakers working on it were lazy. 

    Let's not forget to mention that its sequel set-up is probably one of the stupidest I've ever seen! At the end, a group of scientists open up a pod of sorts from a Predator ship. Once it's opened, we see a "Predator-Killer" suit attach to one of the scientists, and realize it was supposed to be used to fight the Predator that we previously encountered, which makes the main character think it would be wise to use it in the future as more Predators may arrive. I'm usually against cliffhangers, but the ending we got was silly, lackluster, and gave me no reason to be excited about what the filmmakers might have planned in the future. Interestingly enough, I heard there were two alternate endings, one of where either had Ellen Ripley or an adult Newt from Aliens in that pod (so time travel was considered in this, all right), while there was an early idea that never came to fruition, which had Arnold Schwarzenegger in a cameo at the end, more than likely teasing a sequel of sorts. To be honest, regardless of what ending they went with, it would have been unsatisfying as it would have been either underwhelming or a frustrating tease for something that will never come to light as this movie would never get a sequel of sorts and thank goodness it didn't! 

    Unfortunately, I can go on and on about how atrocious this movie is, as the more I think about it, the angrier I feel! I've seen a lot of movies, and rarely do I get upset, but I don't think I've experienced a movie that made me this angry ever since I saw Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers some time last year, as both movies are perfect examples of Hollywood at their worst! Just a soulless, cash grab that does nothing more than tarnish a good franchise, steal your money, and waste your time, but as much as I hate Halloween 6, at least I wasn't as insulted to some degree. The Predator, on the other hand, insults your intelligence by treating people with autism and other disabilities in disrespectful and or inaccurate manners! It doesn't help that the filmmaking on display in this movie is as amateurish as a film student's first movie, except I guarantee you the student did a far better job than the people who worked on The Predator! 

    The sad thing is after this film's release, this has been Shane Black's last movie. While I'm not saying the Predator killed his career, I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case sadly. I really have no idea what the filmmakers were thinking or what they were trying to achieve here, but I will say it achieved one thing: As of now, this might be my most hated movie ever! I'm sure there's some worse out there, but I rather not experience that pain whatsoever (unless I feel like punishing myself). Now if you excuse me, I will go now and try to forget this movie happened by experiencing better movies and such (Hope Prey, the next Predator movie, is actually good). AVOID THE PREDATOR AT ALL COST!!!