Reviews

I went into this movie with low expectations. I love Predator but I learned my lesson after AVP Requim. AVP(the first one) introduced me into the franchise and is my favorite Predator movie to date.

So "The Predator" follows the same cookie cutter action movie formula with one man, one woman, and if a kid is added to the story then they survive as well.

Our "hero" inadvertantly puts his family at risk by mailing a package with alien technology he found in the forest on a mercenary mission. Granted he was trying to send it to a P.O. box but if you don't pay your bills what do you expect? Anyway the hero's son (Jacob Tremblay) is on the autism spectrum but is a genius who is mild mannered and bullied. I was already rolling my eyes when they introduced the family because you already know where this movie is going at this point. However, I slightly forgave this because the son is played by Jacob Tremblay who is a great child actor and plays the most adorable characters.

Back to the movie. The hero is camptured by the U.S. government because they know he was at the alien site. In order to silence him they put him on a bus with other ex-mercs/ soldiers who actually do have mental disorders to go to the mental hospital. Meanwhile we are also introduced to a female scientist who is brought in by the government to verify their findings. This is added in just to give us a female heroine because later on in the movie the government explains everything to her about the Predators species and the mission of the rogue Predator. So it's like "why are you still here? Because we need a smart heroine to help explain the alien to the meathead ex-soldiers." Honestly though the soldiers don't care about her findings. They just want to survive and kill whatever gets in there way.

Okay so back to the event timeline. At the facility with the rogue Predator where the female scientist is the Predator awakens after sensing the super Predator heading towards the base. By the way the super Predator was able to find earth because the hero's son was messing around with the alien technology sent to the house. The rogue Predators escape helps the female scientist team up with the ex-mercs/soldiers/now fugitives.

Fast forward past the introductions of the fugitives and the scientist. The hero realizes the rogue Predator is trying to locate his weapons (which has a secret package). But where is the package? Back at his home. After going home and only telling his wife that their son is in danger and omitting the fact it was his fault . He then guilt trips his new posse into helping him fight an alien and save his son. They just met but hey I'll fight an alien for You. You see where this formula is going?

Fast forward again we now have the fugitives fighting the super Predators dogs while also trying to kill the rogue Predator. But hey that is taken care of for them since the super Predator appears and kills the rogue. Now at this point I thought they would've been smart enough to leave the stolen alien cargo since it is the reason why the Predators keep tracking them. Despite knowing this they keep it and run away. Now hiding out at a barn the fugitives and the hero's son plan their next move. But soon the government finds them. They're tied up and separated. The "hero" is getting worked over but miracously has no cuts bruises or wounds. Just like the other fugitives.

Meanwhile the female scientist questions the leader of this special government branch and he explains everything to her because they plan to kill her and the other fugitives. Now what he explains gives you a "really???" moment. What we find out is the rogue Predator came to earth with stolen technology to some how save the earth from it's enevitable doom from climate change. The Predators plan on moving to earth once the climate becomes so hot the human race is wiped out. So this gift is somehow going to help the human race. Does the human race deserve such mercy? That's up for debate but it makes you wonder why the rogue Predator killed so many people instead of trying to communicate with them first if he brought a gift for the human race. Granted almost everyone was armed and as we know Predators attack anyone who is armed. But you know... action movies aren't big on consistency.

Now we are towards the end. The government kidnaps the kid because he knows where the ship is located and the code to enter it. Once the fugitives escape they pursue the government in a weather stations helicopter. How they acquired this vehicle is head scratching. Because throughout this movie they seem to magically teleport to areas that should take them a couple hours to get to and acquire vehicles without showing us. One stole a cop car. Like really? Why draw that kind of attention. But he was crazy so...

Back to the ending. Here we have a group of fugitives locating the kidnapped boy and planning to kill all the government agents and soldiers at the alien site despite knowing there is a super Predator on their tail. This would be a great time to join forces. But hey... action movie logic. The fact that the script includes the super Predator pointing out how amused he is at the humans killing one another is pretty bad. By the way I should mention the super Predator has dna from the most dangerous aliens in our galaxy mixed into his dna. This is important because at first bullets were not harming this particular Predator until it became necessary for the hero and female scientist to proveil. If this particular Predator is superior in every way. Why is it a few humans with guns (and a tranqualizer gun) easily take him out?

Anyway towards the finale is when all the fugitives/ anti-hero's at this point start dying. Leaving us with the hero, his son, and the female scientist. Miracously during all the fighting and explosions they didn't get one scratch on them.

In my opinion this movie could've been saved by having the super Predator succeed in kidnapping the boy and bringing him to the Predator planet. And then having the father use the "gift" left behind to go and save his son. But they didn't. It ends with the last three survivors killing the super Predator and left with creating a story to suit their needs because at the end the "hero" is back in his military uniform (he was originally discharged for PTSD. Which no symptoms of it popped up in the movie) at a secret lab where his 12 year old (guessing his age) son now works/volunteers at. By way remeber when I said the son was on the autism spectrum earlier in the movie? Yeah well he fell off it towards the last 25 minutes of the movie. Now he's your happy go lucky, cussing out adults, boy genius. Oh by the way we discover that the gift is actually a suit designed to kill Predators. It's called "The Predator Killer". Which is interesting that the Predators named a weapon after the name humans gave them. Which by the way for comedic effect the fugitives argued about the name choice of Predator for the alien species. But exactly how is this suit suppose to help save earth from the climate change that will erradicate the human race? Well that doesn't matter because the "hero" claims the weapon as his new suit. And as a trained killer we know his mind isn't set on stopping climate change. I don't see a need for the suit honestly if regular bullets and a tranqualizer gun was good enough.

It looks like they plan to have a sequel for this movie and I really hope they don't go through with it. The only saving grace was the comic relief provided by the group of fugitives minus the "hero". But they killed them all off in the last 20 minutes.

If you're a predator fan then watch the movie but wait until it's on Netflix, Amazon prime, or at Redbox.

This movie is about a special space task force sent on a dangerous mission to an outpost on the outer edge of space called Infini. Infini was a mining outpost but was shut down because the material they were supposed to mine turned out to be extremely dangerous and combustible under normal circumstances. All the miners were presumed dead but we later find out from Cart Wright they were alive (but infected) when he arrived. A team from Cart Wrights division on the East coast went to the station to search for a lone survivor but were attacked and transported back. This caused the East coast division to be terminated but Cart Wright travels to Infini to avoid the termination of his East coast division. Now the West coast is being sent to Infini to retrieve Cart Wright and stop a payload of the dangerous material on Infini from reaching earth that the previous loan survivor set up. As the task manager tells the special space task force "there's a lot of black hole B.S." but the main thing you need to know is that 1 earth minute is equal to 24 hours on Infini. Also the payload would be delivered the same way the task force travels to Infini. Of course when they get there the poop hits the fan and it's all about survival.

I wanted to write this review because I felt the negative reviews were a little harsh or didn't give this movie a fair shake. By all means this is not a masterpiece but it is a decent film to watch when nothing else is on. A lot of users have compared it to Doom, Aliens, Event Horizon and 28 Days Later. Maybe it's because I haven't watched Doom, Event Horizon or Aliens in a while but I'm not seeing the comparison besides space, aliens, and isolation. This is also not a zombie space flick. The characters in the film are only infected and very much alive. Once you kill them they are dead. No walking dead is going on here. Now here is my issue with the movie.

Spoilers may follow:

My issue with the movie is the selfishness of the characters. Apparently everyone part of this professional special force team that also has a high level of fatality has family and children. We know this because they keep mentioning it while they are on Infini. This leads to the biggest problem. Once they are infected (they realize this by the way) they are insistent on still returning to earth. Are you kidding me? Yes we get that you want to see your family and loved ones again but you are literally putting them in danger while giving a giant "FU" to the human race. Towards the end everyone is dead besides Cart Wright who has given up and decided to die up there. He leaves a recording for the alien organism that caused the infection, and puts it on repeat before cutting his wrist and bleeding out. At this point I was wondering why he didn't blow up the station or freeze it again. That was explained very quickly because Cart Wright's message had an effect on the alien organism. The alien organism has a change of heart, and heals the recently dead specialists (healing/regenerating ability is explained earlier in film). Also apparently one of the members had an abortion and one of the visual scenes shows life being recreated in her. Um, what?

Anyway all of them remember what happened except for the captain because he died before everything got crazy. So the now the revived crew lies to the captain about the events so he can authorize their return to earth. These are professionals, right? Like they know what happens when they are re-introduced to the population, right? After they are transported back to earth they are temporarily quarantined and asked multiple times if they have been infected. They of course deny this and the interrogators/ quarantine squad say they will know if they're lying. This is how far in the future and we still don't have a decent lie detector machine? Also the crew was acting way suspicious. Especially Cart Wright. You don't need a lie detector to read facial expressions to realize something is off.

Despite this annoyance (along with taking off their helmets) it was still a decent film.

I've seen a LOT of bad movies on Netflix, but this one just really got to me. I rarely write reviews, but I had to express how I felt about this movie.

By now you have already read the summary, and just want to see what other viewers thought. Well to begin the experiment is flawed from the very beginning because of Prof. Zimit. It isn't until after scenario two that you find out Petra and James were purposely given their professions while everyone else randomly selected their professions. Why? Because the Zimit and Petra were having an affair and Zimit couldn't stand that Petra chose James over him. By the way Zimit later on shoots himself because Petra decided to go to Cornell University with James.

Second, the experiments went downhill fast. By Zimit playing favorites with Petra he gave her and James enough power to sway the classroom decision. Petra plays the neutral party where she goes to bat for everyone except in the third scenario where she lets everyone who wasn't chosen in both the first two scenarios into the bunker. In short she would be one of those people who doesn't give first, second, and third place medals, but gives a participation medal to everyone because she doesn't want anyone to feel hurt. Now with James we have pretty much the same character as Petra. In the second scenario when everyone was being selected you find out that the character design assigned to him is gay. He pleads his case to be allowed in the bunker by saying that even though he's gay he is still willing to procreate. Fast forward to the bunker you find out one of the other males let in is also gay (not from the simulation but in the movie). So Petra catches James and the other bunk mate having sex. This is when it's revealed James refuses to have sex with a female because it goes against his rights as a gay male. In short he lied so he could get in the bunker along with the other classmate even though they knew one of the stipulations was that they needed to procreate with the females.

Third, Petra takes control of the scenario and chooses having people who offer fun (the useless in an apocalyptic world) verses people who can actually offer something to the survival of the human race. I say "fun" because SURPRISE there are now two gay students in the classroom now because one was outed by this comment: "Statistically there has to be one more homosexual in this class...". I don't know the process of taking that huge step of publicly coming out gay, but I highly doubt you would come out to your classmates on the last day of school for the sake of a philosophy experiment. Not to mention the other student who outed him just wanted another gay partner to have sex with while in the bunker. Now with James (remember he's gay for this experiment) and the other two students we have three gay guys, two hetero males, and five hetero females. What was the point of all of them entering the bunker again? Oh and James and Petra are extremely intimate in the third scenario. Short of having sex they cuddle, take showers, and all that jazz. So is James now trying to go back on his statement in the second scenario even though in the second scenario he was offered Petra as his mating partner? The third scenario was completely illogical, but because Petra decided it we are supposed to go with it. In a true apocalyptic world Petra, James, and Zimit would be extreme threats to the survival of the group.

There are more issues I have with this film but I would have to write a book to explain everything.