Ever since Arnold Schwarzenegger and Apollo Creed first battled the ultimate in alien hunters in a jungle,audiences have enamored with the deadlocked death machine know only as The Predator. SPOILERS AHEAD!
It was bigger, faster and strapped with better weapons than we could ever imagine. The odds always seemed impossible when trying to defeat or simply survive these killers from outer space. Makes you wonder if a military “Space Force” was around could we have stopped them from coming back ever again. Sadly, we didn’t have one then and since we’ve played host to their intergalactic shenanigans a few times.
They’ve stolen human prey to take back to their planet, fought other aliens with us caught in the middle and even involved Danny Glover when we all know he’s gotten to old for this, um…stuff. Now it seems that The Predator race is back to hunt one of it’s own on our turf. A Predator Edward Snowden, if you will.
The cast is comprised of a variety of talent that are there for a plethora of reasons and they are effectively used in those roles throughout the movie. The lead character of Quinn McKenna is a military sniper that has seen a bit too much and is locked away with other “crazy” or PTSD stricken soldiers.
Thomas Jane plays a vet with tourettes, a man who deflects his pain with comedy (Keegan-Micheal Key of Key and Peele fame), there’s also Alfie Allen taking a break from his role in Game of Thrones to kill some aliens. Olivia Munn rounds out the motley crew as a scientist that has always wanted to study an alien. Sterling K. Brown is Traeger the shady government agent that is hunting down the group of vets and the Predators that are loose on earth. He’s doing his very best to not be his character from This is Us, but he does a good job of being smarmy.
As an action film it’s not bad. In fact, I quite enjoyed my self while I watched this movie. Where the movie lost me was during the extremely eye rolling revelation of why the big Hunter Predator wanted to go after Quinn Mckenna’s young son. I won’t spoil anything but when I told my little brother who’s on the spectrum he sighed, heavily. I felt like maybe this inclusion in the script was patronizing to those who are touched by autism or care for those who are autistic. As an action movie I had a rather good time with this film but, disliked the groan inducing inclusion of autism as a plot ploy.
