THE PREDATOR : Thursday 20th September 2018.

I finally caught 'THE PREDATOR' earlier this week, two weeks after its release in Australia. It has been 31 years since the cult classic alien man hunting character 'Predator' emerged onto our cinema screens with the titular action hero of that era Arnold Schwarzenegger going head to head and toe to toe with the said Predator in some undisclosed Central American jungle territory. With a crack team of hardened military rescue types who get picked off most gruesomely and violently one by one, it's Arnie who is the last man standing to face off against the menacing alien foe and save the day. That film was Directed by John McTiernan for US$18M and it took at the Box Office US$99M. On the strength of 'Predator' three sequels have so far materialised including this one. In between time there was 1990's 'Predator 2' Directed by Stephen Hopkins and then 2010's 'Predators' as Directed by Nimrod Antal and now 'The Predator' Directed by Shane Black. A crossover with the 'Alien' franchise produced the 'Alien vs. Predator' films, which to date have seen 'Alien vs. Predator' released in 2004 and 'Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem' released in 2007. This instalment was made for US$88M and has so far grossed US$68M and has garnered mixed Reviews generally.

Shane Black who Co-Starred in the original film back in 1987, and who Directs here and also Co-Wrote the Screenplay has stated that the film would be a sequel set in the present day, following on from the events of the first two films, but set before the events of the 'Predators'. He has also indicated that he looked for plot details from the previous Predator movies that he could retrospectively link back to the new film, and that if this instalment performs well, it could be the first in a planned trilogy.

The opening scene sees a spaceship hurtling through space and bursting through a wormhole emerging the other side with planet Earth in the distance. It crash lands somewhere on the outskirts of suburbia in a woodland area. Meanwhile Army sniper Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook) has assumed the undercover sniper position with a hostage retrieval situation going on down below, with his aim squarely on one of the antagonists about to make an exchange. He is communicating with four of his other colleagues all in position somewhere in the dense undergrowth. Just then the spaceship comes into view flying low over head and coming to a crashing halt somewhere close by. McKenna is caught off guard, fires a shot killing one of the goons below and then falls down an embankment coming to rest eventually not far from the stricken ship. He ventures to explore further and finds various pieces of hardware and technology, when a colleague arrives who is quickly dispensed with by an alien creature who strings him up and then slices him in half at the waist. This gives McKenna a split second to incapacitate the alien creature and make his get away.

Will Traeger (Sterling K. Brown) is a Government Agent and Director of the 'Stargazer Project' which has been monitoring the aliens comings and goings since their arrival in 1987, then in 1997 and more frequently with each passing year. He captures McKenna and interrogates him, but not before McKenna has mailed off the retrieved items of alien hardware to somewhere safe. Traeger has also captured the alien which he has termed a 'Predator' because it seems to hunt its prey for sport, and has it heavily sedated and bound in a laboratory for observation, testing and doubtless experimentation. He recruits Dr. Casey Bracket (Olivia Munn) an evolutionary biologist to aid the research team with their studies of the alien being. But of course its not long before the captured Predator breaks free of its shackles like they are dental floss, and promptly and with bloody efficiency dispenses with everyone wearing a white lab coat, or in a security uniform brandishing a firearm.

McKenna meanwhile is escorted out of the same premises and onto a bus with a rag tag bunch of other ex-soldiers all suffering from PTSD. This bunch are made up now of McKenna, ex-Marine Gaylord 'Nebraska' Williams (Trevante Rhodes), military veterans and war buddies Coyle and Baxley (Keegan-Michael Key and Thomas Jane respectively), Blackhawk helicopter pilot Nettles (Augusto Aguilera) and former Marine Lynch (Alfie Allen). Witnessing the alien escape across the roof top of the facility they are now exiting from, the bunch now believe what McKenna was telling them about visitors from outer space and promptly take over the bus over powering the two escorting security guards and the driver.

They see that Bracket has given chase across the roof top in hot pursuit of the Predator wielding a tranquilliser gun like she's Lara Croft. Traeger's Security Guards give chase and are ordered to kill her, but she is rescued by McKenna and his team who ride off on stolen motorcycles headed for the home of his ex-wife Emily (Yvonne Strahovski) and autistic son Rory (Jacob Tremblay) whom he mailed his package to of retrieved alien tech.

Arriving there, McKenna searches Rory's room for the tech but only finds the empty box. Rory has however, as it's Halloween, gone trick or treating down to the local neighbourhood, wearing the alien helmet and gauntlet in an attempt to avoid detection form a couple of nasty school bullies who seem intent on making Rory's life a misery. McKenna and his team split up roaming the streets searching for Rory, when an explosion in the distance alerts them to there being something amiss in da hood. They arrive to find Rory in a deserted floodlit football field in a standoff with two huge Predator dogs approaching menacingly.

Thwarting the dogs and rescuing Rory, the team make off into the seemingly safe harbourage of a nearby school. The Predator chases them in and corners McKenna, Rory and Bracket. Just as McKenna is about to return the alien tech to the Predator in a seemingly vain attempt to save his life, another much larger Predator bursts through the wall and begins to fight with the first, eventually throwing it onto the roof of a car and ripping off its head and extracting its spinal column in the process. The team escape while the Predators do battle with themselves, leaving the second larger more dominant and seemingly more advanced Predator to now locate the lost technology.

Bracket somehow deduces that the Predators are attempting to rapidly evolve themselves with the superior DNA of humans and other inhabitants of planets across the galaxy. The team regroups at an old barn, but Traeger tracks them down, captures them, and shares his thoughts that the Predators foresee that climate change within the next two generations at most will end their ability to retrieve human DNA for their ongoing hybridisation, so they are scrambling to retrieve it now before time and mankind runs out. Rory sketches a map to the spaceship and so Traeger takes the boy away to that location to use his autistic skills to unlock access to the ship. The team escapes and goes after him with the help of a Predator dog suddenly turned tame and obedient, recognising that it is really mans best friend who holds the upper hand in the food chain.

And so now all the interested parties gather at the crashed Predator ship - McKenna and his team, Traeger and his crew, and the second Predator having killed Lynch who was lurking in ambush but was outsmarted by the Predator. Traeger has set up translation equipment to convert Predator speak into the Queen's English, and so the pesky Predator explains through the translation software that it intends to blow up the ship to keep it out of their hands and then give them all a head start of a full seven-and-a-half minutes before it hunts them down predator like and mercilessly dispenses with them all. Needless to say, the Predator quickly kills off most of the team with what's left of McKenna's team and what's remaining for Traeger's crew both heading off in opposite directions in a seemingly futile attempt to thwart the bloodthirsty intergalactic alien antagonist. Traeger tries to use a Predator weapon on the alien but stupidly kills himself in the process.

The Predator captures Rory, believing that his autism is an advancement in human evolution and is consequently worthy of further Predator hybridisation. The Predator takes off in his ship. As it does so McKenna, Nebraska, and Nettles jump onto the ship's exterior hoping to gain access some how, but the Predator activates a force field that slices through Nettles at the waist and his upper body tumbles off the ship. Nebraska is caught on the outside of the force field, while McKenna is underneath it. Nebraska already injured and sensing no further hope, sacrifices himself into one of the ship's turbine engines, causing it to loose power and crash land. McKenna sneaks into the ship and attacks the Predator but is overcome by the strength and power of the alien. Bracket arrives, and with Rory, the three manage to overpower and kill it.

So, there are a few nods back to the first two instalments in this franchise which for the purposes of continuity and consistency are no bad thing. The quips and deadpan humour are here too which adds a certain levity to the violence and gore, and the cast are strong enough and evenly matched, although for me the young Jacob Tremblay is the stand out here displaying all the ticks and idiosyncrasies of a brilliant yet challenged mind. As for the story - well that's pretty shallow, with the audience expected to take huge leaps of faith for example with the apparent overnight programming of alien language translation technology; the rapid deduction that the Predators are harvesting human and other superior alien DNA to enhance their own evolution; and the reason they have visited our humble little blue planet is because of climate change. And there are other plot holes and other storylines that defy explanation too, but suffice to say, Shane Black has crafted a film that is entertaining enough, there is ample blood letting and dismembered bodies, and The Predator as portrayed here by Brian A. Prince, is a convincing antagonist, but you can leave your brain at the door, sit back and enjoy the rapid fire quips & quirks, and violence aplenty, but that's all that this reboot has going for it . . . rather disappointingly.

'The Predator' merits two claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard, from a possible five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-