The Predator (another sequel)
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Here are my views on The Predator. I would be grateful if you checked it out. Something a little different.
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My thoughts are that this should get merged with the thread in the upcoming movies sub-forum.
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I really just want you all angry and confused the whole time.
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I was really disappointed at first.
Then I realized maybe it's unrealistic to assume a franchise should "grow up" with me. At that point I could just roll with it and enjoy it. It's not an evolutionary step in the movie series, but that may not be a bad thing.
There is camp. It's like Slither in smart ass humor and silliness. Or a dumb version of Serinity in style. Maybe. Throw in a good bit of John Carter and Battleship and you got this for expectations. Honestly it has a vibe of 80's cheese that had the 10-13 year olds around the theater rolling. I'm not going to get THAT back at my age but it was nastalgic to hear the kids enjoy it as much as I might have way back when.
Then I realized maybe it's unrealistic to assume a franchise should "grow up" with me. At that point I could just roll with it and enjoy it. It's not an evolutionary step in the movie series, but that may not be a bad thing.
There is camp. It's like Slither in smart ass humor and silliness. Or a dumb version of Serinity in style. Maybe. Throw in a good bit of John Carter and Battleship and you got this for expectations. Honestly it has a vibe of 80's cheese that had the 10-13 year olds around the theater rolling. I'm not going to get THAT back at my age but it was nastalgic to hear the kids enjoy it as much as I might have way back when.
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Short version, it's not good.
Long version, I didn't hate it or anything but it's got some visibly bad editing and structural problems (slog of a first act, a major character death happened in the blink of an eye in darkness, etc.), its expansions on Predator lore are questionable (as are its attempts to grapple with psychological issues like autism or PTSD), and its humour can turn from funny to ugly at the drop of the hat (such as Tom Jane's character being a walking Tourette's joke). It also feels like Shane Black's fallen into self-parody with some of this dialogue and writing. Oh, well.
Long version, I didn't hate it or anything but it's got some visibly bad editing and structural problems (slog of a first act, a major character death happened in the blink of an eye in darkness, etc.), its expansions on Predator lore are questionable (as are its attempts to grapple with psychological issues like autism or PTSD), and its humour can turn from funny to ugly at the drop of the hat (such as Tom Jane's character being a walking Tourette's joke). It also feels like Shane Black's fallen into self-parody with some of this dialogue and writing. Oh, well.
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Short version, it's not good.
Long version, I didn't hate it or anything but it's got some visibly bad editing and structural problems (slog of a first act, a major character death happened in the blink of an eye in darkness, etc.), its expansions on Predator lore are questionable (as are its attempts to grapple with psychological issues like autism or PTSD), and its humour can turn from funny to ugly at the drop of the hat (such as Tom Jane's character being a walking Tourette's joke). It also feels like Shane Black's fallen into self-parody with some of this dialogue and writing. Oh, well.
Long version, I didn't hate it or anything but it's got some visibly bad editing and structural problems (slog of a first act, a major character death happened in the blink of an eye in darkness, etc.), its expansions on Predator lore are questionable (as are its attempts to grapple with psychological issues like autism or PTSD), and its humour can turn from funny to ugly at the drop of the hat (such as Tom Jane's character being a walking Tourette's joke). It also feels like Shane Black's fallen into self-parody with some of this dialogue and writing. Oh, well.
It's weird how I can lower my expectations for this one, but not so much for SW movies. It is also interesting how the Alien saga has taken the direction to try to be more mature or heady while its cinema cousin here has taken the relative low road in comparison.
I do know that if the theater did not have a handful of preteen boys really getting into The Predator, I would not have been able to enjoy it at all. They did remind me of what it was like to be a kid excited by crap at their age, so in a way I think it kind of hits a mark. Not my mark, but I would have probably loved this 30 years ago. So it's hard for me to measure this one as good or bad, in that context.
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The callbacks were very hit-and-miss for me, especially the ones that twisted around iconic quotes from the original (e.g. "you're one beautiful motherf*cker" or "get to the choppers").
I think it's rather easy to have low expectations for the Predator franchise since, like Jurassic Park, the first one was the one true classic and none of the other 3-5 films from the subsequent 30 years have really come close to matching it. As for comparisons to Alien, they were always going for different things from the very beginning (Alien was horror first/mostly, Predator was action with shades of horror) so it's no surprise that the franchise's individual trajectories are so divergent (and there are certainly parts of this that made me think of Covenant, namely in trying to "explain" the monster, though I'd say Covenant was the overall superior film).
I think my audience consisted entirely of adults but people were still laughing at it quite a bit (and so was I) - it's hard to gauge a film's quality based on how much it makes you laugh, though. Like I said before, the humour does huge zigzags in terms of quality.
I think it's rather easy to have low expectations for the Predator franchise since, like Jurassic Park, the first one was the one true classic and none of the other 3-5 films from the subsequent 30 years have really come close to matching it. As for comparisons to Alien, they were always going for different things from the very beginning (Alien was horror first/mostly, Predator was action with shades of horror) so it's no surprise that the franchise's individual trajectories are so divergent (and there are certainly parts of this that made me think of Covenant, namely in trying to "explain" the monster, though I'd say Covenant was the overall superior film).
I think my audience consisted entirely of adults but people were still laughing at it quite a bit (and so was I) - it's hard to gauge a film's quality based on how much it makes you laugh, though. Like I said before, the humour does huge zigzags in terms of quality.
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My thoughts are that this should get merged with the thread in the upcoming movies sub-forum.
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All I'm saying is that people have been posting their thoughts for weeks/months on end in this other thread so it seems redundant to start a whole new thread about it, especially when your own thoughts on the film don't go any further than "I haven't seen it and I think the trailer looks bad". It's standard practice on forums to avoid making unnecessarily repetitive threads about the same subject matter, hence why there's a search function to look for existing threads about the same subject to avoid that. You can roll your eyes at me, but I'm sure other members and moderators will back me up in this regard.
But anyway, you want to know my thoughts? This is what I posted - in that other thread.
But anyway, you want to know my thoughts? This is what I posted - in that other thread.
Short version, it's not good.
Long version, I didn't hate it or anything but it's got some visibly bad editing and structural problems (slog of a first act, a major character death happened in the blink of an eye in darkness, etc.), its expansions on Predator lore are questionable (as are its attempts to grapple with psychological issues like autism or PTSD), and its humour can turn from funny to ugly at the drop of the hat (such as Tom Jane's character being a walking Tourette's joke). It also feels like Shane Black's fallen into self-parody with some of this dialogue and writing. Oh, well.
Long version, I didn't hate it or anything but it's got some visibly bad editing and structural problems (slog of a first act, a major character death happened in the blink of an eye in darkness, etc.), its expansions on Predator lore are questionable (as are its attempts to grapple with psychological issues like autism or PTSD), and its humour can turn from funny to ugly at the drop of the hat (such as Tom Jane's character being a walking Tourette's joke). It also feels like Shane Black's fallen into self-parody with some of this dialogue and writing. Oh, well.
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My personal hot take is using this forum to promote another website or your own personal stuff. Then again its early and I'm drinking half and half coffee. I'm probably an acehole as well.
Yeah, I'm finally seeing this today and I'm excited.
Yeah, I'm finally seeing this today and I'm excited.
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When I saw people talk about the bad edits, I was like "man, I wish I was perceptive enough to catch stuff like that" .
Then I saw the movie and I was like, "oh wow, how'd we get here?"
I don't want to spew a pile of vitriol, so I'm just gonna list the bright spots...
Then I saw the movie and I was like, "oh wow, how'd we get here?"
I don't want to spew a pile of vitriol, so I'm just gonna list the bright spots...
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Maybe a director's cut will alleviate some issues, but I can't think of one I've ever seen that did. There was about a half a hour of footage of Edward James Olmos as a general that got canned as well as the final act being re-shot 3 times.
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All I'm saying is that people have been posting their thoughts for weeks/months on end in this other thread
Anyway, I've merged this with the existing thread. Please only start new threads if your comments can't easily go into an existing one. If they can't, or if you want to delve into the film more, then you'd want to put your thread in Movie Reviews, rather than General Movie Discussion, for future reference.
Thanks.
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Well it was entertaining,but this has nothing close to what the original 2 movies were, sometimes it s laughable how the tension is not even there and the movie runs through the motions, i guess this franchise needs to have cameos for arnold and danny glover to give it better sense of :" oh yes this is the predator franchise" and not just another movie in hollywood
They've been angling to bring back Dutch since Predator 2 but Arnold's consistently turned down any requests to reprise the role up to and including this movie's originally-planned ending (but that wouldn't exactly help the nostalgia-bait criticisms). Speaking of which, apparently the powers that be shot yet another alternate ending where - I sh*t you not - the "Predator killer" inside the cargo pod was going to be none other than Ellen god-damn Ripley. Yes, really, so be grateful they just settled for a knock-off Iron Man suit.
Rollogic, we hardly knew ye.
Rollogic, we hardly knew ye.
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This movie was terrible, I'll be nominating it for worse movie of the year at the Mofo Film Awards this year.
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I'll probably nominate it for biggest disappointment, but believe it or not there were so many films I found less enjoyable this year. I've seen roughly 100 new releases from 2018 and this one is currently hovering around the 60 mark.
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I just realised...
This movie isn't called The Predator.
If you look at all the DVD, BlueRay art and movie posters, the movie is actually called:
ROTADERP THE
This movie isn't called The Predator.
If you look at all the DVD, BlueRay art and movie posters, the movie is actually called:
ROTADERP THE
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Resident Evil: Retribution was my one-pointer
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