InCinemas SG

Opening Date

13 Sep 2018

Rating

M18 Violence and Gore

暴力及血腥画面

Runtime

107 mins

Language

English with Chinese subtitles

Genre

Action, Adventure, Horror

Director

Shane Black

Cast

Boyd Holbrook, Trevante Rhodes, Jacob Tremblay, Keegan-Michael Key, Olivia Munn, Sterling K. Brown, Alfie Allen, Jane Thomas, Augusto Aguilera, Jake Busey, Yvonne Strahovski

Synopsis

From the outer reaches of space to the small-town streets of suburbia, the hunt comes home in Shane Black’s explosive reinvention of the Predator series. Now, the universe’s most lethal hunters are stronger, smarter and deadlier than ever before, having genetically upgraded themselves with DNA from other species. When a young boy accidentally triggers their return to Earth, only a ragtag crew of ex-soldiers and a disgruntled science teacher can prevent the end of the human race.

Reviews

By Jason Lin 13 Sep 2018

Genre fans should receive plenty to digest with an abundance of genre production values. Rapidly edited to visually reflect the velocity of these alien hunters, it also allowed the audience to enjoy the satisfaction of action, violence and gore without lingering too long to feel the guilt and disgust.

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While more is typically more in the case of genre productions, there are times when viewers may prefer to let their imaginations run wild. One might be surprised by the wonders of what one’s imagination could be capable of. Shane Black’s take on the cult classic The Predator opens this week in cinemas with an over-the-top approach, which may earn itself both commendations and condemnations.

Let’s start with what worked.

Genre fans should receive plenty to digest with an abundance of genre production values. Rapidly edited to visually reflect the velocity of these alien hunters, it also allowed the audience to enjoy the satisfaction of action, violence and gore without lingering too long to feel the guilt and disgust.

Black understood the need of balance and thus introduced elements of black humour through scripted dialogues (co-written by Black and Fred Dekker) – something that Black is known to be comfortable with. There are however hits and misses, depending on how one would prefer humour to be served.

Within its category, production values are relatively soaring. There’s Henry Jackman’s pulsating score that sought to retain influences of the original cult film. Not forgetting an impressionable performance by Olivia Munn as a strong female lead playing a rifle-wielding scientist.

Casting highly acclaimed young actor Jacob Tremblay as the autistic talent Rory McKenna was also an impeccable choice as the stark contrast in personalities really helped to offset the otherwise hot-blooded production. Who would have expected a cool-headed boy to play a significant role in The Predator.

Let’s discuss what could have been better addressed.

The overly simplistic storyline might be a strategy to allow greater focus on the film’s core deliverables, but it might come across as dated and dull that could really use some creative imagination. This was further aggravated by the convenient one-liners that littered the entire film. Dialogues only built up during scenes when characters dwell into horseplay and cheap talk.

Although it is a science-fiction action film, several plots and scenes were observed to be illogical (for instance, the elaborated scene where Munn’s character undergoes a laborious clean process only to enter the clean lab and realise that the Predator is merely strapped to a chair with no other security and safety measures in place) and may come across as a film that didn’t take itself seriously at all.

Ironically, the reason why some may not like the film would also be the exact reason why some would like it. Black’s lack of seriousness is fully exhibited in his style unabashedly. This has changed the cult classic from a horror action film to an action comedy.

Depending on which camp one belongs to, The Predator could either be a much needed blood-letting exercise by Black or another unwarranted remake that is one too many.
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The Predator