action movie freak
|
|
action movie freak
|
|
|
QUINN, his "Team of "Loonies", a Boy Genius, and an Evolutionary Biologist |
 QUINN Boyd Holbrook |
 RORY Jacob Tremblay |
 NEBRASKA Trevante Rhodes |
 COYLE Keegan-Michael Key |
 BAXLEY Thomas Jane |
 LYNCH Alfie Allen |
 NETTLES Augusto Aguilera |
 Dr. BRACKET Olivia Munn |
|
The General, the Fugitive Predator, and the Mega Predator |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
||
|
IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE [1] Like the original movie, Predator, this movie opens in space . . . But it's not the 1980s anymore and the special effects are SO much better it makes the opening of the first movie look like a TV Show. We see a rip created in the fabric of space as an alien ship (being chased by another alien ship) passes through it to narrowly escape by leaping to some other location. When the ship makes it through to its destination, we realize it's Earth when it collides with a satellite. One engine sputters and there are sparks in the cockpit dashboard. Since the ship is damaged, we know it's going to crash. Inside the ship, we see a Predator. It has that Bad-Ass, heavy stomping walk even on the spaceship. And like the original movie, the alien ship jettisons something (the Predator in an escape pod) as it descends. BACK TO THE JUNGLE In the next scene, night has fallen and we hear jungle noises. There's nothing more Predator than that! It put me right back in the original movie feeling. We see a human eye in foliage. This is our hero's Big Dog Entrance. Pretty freakin' cool, I might add. Of course, he's military, in camouflage. When he communicates with his team members, it's clear his unit is on a mission, but what they are also doing is placing bets on whether a drug cartel has executed hostages. Pretty cold.
Chasing drug cartels turns out to be a throwaway plot line just to place the soldiers somewhere so you learn what the hero does and so you can have them in a jungle setting. You think they're active military on a hostage-rescue mission. When the Predator's escape pod crashes into an all-too-close powerline tower, the camouflaged soldier is forced to stand up and run for cover and the phrase "the jungle came alive" really hits here. Part of what makes Super Soldier movies so cool is that they do shit like this. Like Rambo in the wall of mud, until he was forced to stand up, he was invisible. Actor Boyd Holbrook, who plays the lead soldier "Quinn," is 6' 2" in real life. I was glad they had some big guys/muscle in this movie (meaning not someone Adrien-Brody skinny). Quinn narrowly escapes the crashing pod. The sight of green blood and the Predator signature noise add to making it feel like the original movie. They even use that birds-fleeing-noise from the reveal of hanging bodies from the first movie. I thought it was a great choice. The prevalence of sounds from the first movie to convey the same emotion in a scene (danger, fear, a warning, etc.), works like shorthand [2]. A missing soldier, Haines, is revealed— hung upside down by his feet in a tree by the Predator who crashed. It wasted no time killing and uses Haines as bait. The special effects, like the Predator's cloaking, are the same—recognizable yet updated. I LOVED that. Quinn recovered the Predator's mask and arm weapon (wrist gun/blade gauntlet); weird, cool weapons are another part of the Predator appeal. When Quinn tries pn the arm band weapon, it conforms to fit his arm. After the Predator fires at Quinn, the weapon discharges, firing at the Predator and protecting Quinn. New twist. We even get a repeat of "Those eyes" as The Predator's eyes open when the blood pours down on him from Haine's severed torso above. This is the first Gnarly Kill . . . more like a re-kill! It growls. Quinn runs.
Nobody can over praise the music from the first movie. Proof of that is how many other shows used or emulated it after that. The signature "danger" melody when Arnold had to run for it mark when Quinn gets up to flee. Military march music as a helicopter lands (like when Dutch and his men arrive on the beach), makes us feel like we are back 'in the shit'/on high alert. The familiarity (if you've watched the first movie a hundred+ times like me) communicates so much. Black Ops looking soldiers jump out followed by what can only be the head honchos in street clothes. Right away we realize they know it's a "bug hunt," and they are there to deal with the crash. When Quinn runs away from the choppa, rather than joining them, we are left to wonder what's their relationship, and, when he asks a villager to mail the helmet/mask he found, to whom it was sent. A small metal ball ejected to Quinn by the arm band, turns out to be a cloaking effect device that has a chicken-wire-looking pattern (like we saw on the Predator before it got hit and covered with blood), another cool advance. Quinn swallows the cloaking ball but we know it'll be back. Next, we meet his family. His kid is autistic. We get to see him receive the package of the arm band and mask. You just know he's going to figure it out somehow. Like you know he's going to find a way to use the "mask" for Halloween. GROUP TWO "God makes shitty people." Like government flunkies who want to cover up the Alien encounter Quinn had, so they give him a psych eval and load him on a bus along with rag tag crew calling themselves "Group Two". They all have psychological problems, but are, at least, ex-military, which makes you wonder what crazy shit they will do later. It's an interesting twist that this is Quinn's new "team," and that the movie is not about him and his initial crew. The dumb dirty jokes and Camaraderie in the bus feels a lot like the helicopter flight into the jungle in the first movie.
Enter Olivia Munn, as Biologist Dr. Brackett. Olivia is very good in this scientist role. Loved this nod to the original title of the 1987 screenplay (more Predator lore):
And when she tells the sedated Predator "You are one beautiful motherfucker." Predator fans eat this shit up. She catches on fast, too, and realizes that because Quinn knows about the Predator, they are going to try to silence him. They also use "Get to the choppa" with a creative twist.
FLORIDA MAN It's hilarious to me (living in Miami) that the pursuing enemy alien ship finally finds its way to where the Predator ship ended up, Earth, but, specifically, it flies over Florida. Explains a lot. Especially since Dr. Brackett asks, when they reveal the Predator has human DNA, "You wanna know if someone fucked an alien." Probably a Florida Man LOL. #funnynotfunny Baxley is brave, though. She takes a tranquilizer gun and heads in the direction of the green blood trail of the wounded Predator. Group Two gets transportation and then, company arrives. Too bad Baxley shoots herself in the foot literally. Kinda misogyny, kinda hilarious that she is not caught by Quinn when he offers to catch her if she jumps off the top of the vehicle into his arms. More hilarity ensues until Quinn's kid goes trick or treating. "I DON'T LIKE MONDAYS"[3] Watching this movie again in 2023, I realized that just five years ago, when the movie came out in 2018, school shootings weren't the huge national problem they are now. Not saying there weren't a lot of shootings before this but you can see when it skyrocketed on the chart below (SOURCE). So, watching them shoot up a school wasn't as cringe-y as it is now. Now, it's super cringe-y!!
At the point where The Predator grabs Nettles, you begin to wonder if this is going to be a who-dies-next movie, and if Group Two is going to make it out alive. Then you realize that you've become kinda attached to them all. THE BIG ONE This movie kicked it up a notch with an 11-foot Predator. Here's the Fugitive Predator hoisting 6 ft. 2 in. Quinn.
And here's the Mega Predator
hoisting the Fugitive Predator for scale:
SMOKE 'EM You have to wait until around 1 hr 20 min for the real jungle shit, but they're outmatched. At this point, it seems SUPER STUPID that Nebraska is smoking. It was stupid from the get go, but NOW? Now it's the real do or die, or do and die. Alien weaponry aside, this movie is PACKED full of an incredible array of guns. I can't do it justice here but head over to IMFDb (Internet Movie Firearms Database) if you want to see what's what. The only thing I could not find is what they all shoot at the 11-foot Predator that covers him in what seems like smoke and then sets him on fire. That's pretty wicked. Now it's a who-dies-next movie. Baxley and Coyle are a "couple" like Mac and Blain. You do and you don't expect them to go out the way they do. It makes you realize that this "Group Two" is not going to be in the next movie. That's sad. They were really entertaining. "GIVE ME BACK MY SON!"[4] And just when you thought the Gnarly Kills were over . . . The movie has a few more treats in store. Yes, Action Movie Freaks laugh at this gruesome shit. I guess in the same way horror fans do but it's somehow more satisfying in Action Movies. UPGRADE They definitely left the story open for a sequel, and a really cool idea, but what are they still waiting for . . .? According to avp.fandom. com:
The Assassin Predator was there to assassinate the Fugitive Predator in order to prevent him from delivering the "Predator Killer" pod to humanity, so that humans could fight back against a Predator invasion. I would still like to see that. The final scene makes me wonder if this is where they got the idea to "cook up" the bigger, better, Captain America in a pod. Another thing that was cooked up was an alternate ending with "Newt" from Aliens coming out of the pod. They even shot it. That would have been interesting as a cliff hanger. Ripley was also supposed to be a possibility but that would have come off as cheesy to me. Read all about it (with lots of photos) at avpgalaxy.net. From avp.fandom.com:
The movie effects were a total upgrade to be sure. The 11-foot "Upgrade Predator" is a "purely CGI creation" according to avp.fandom.com. The Fugitive or Rogue Predator was 7' 5" and played by 6' 9.5" actor Brian A. Prince. Talk about a physical role. At the very end, all I could think was how cool this human/alien, pod-created, version of a kicked-up Super Soldier would be, and how would a whole squad of them fare . . .
Here's the trailer:
|
ROGUE aka
