Is “The Predator” the Biggest Disappointment of the Year So Far?

Dylan has long been a fan of Shane Black, the director of The Nice Guys, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Iron Man 3. He has been cautiously optimistic of his new film The Predator, the latest entry in the Predator franchise that began with Predator, the 1987 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Both Dylan and special guest Buddy Watson gave their impressions of the film on the latest What Do You Wanna Watch? and they were not flattering…

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below, or sound off on Twitter.

Dylan: What a fucking disappointment, honestly. How many shows, programs, real-life discussions, everything, was I talking about this movie going “Look I don’t really like the trailers but it’s my man Shane Black. He won’t let me down. He will not let me down. Love all his movies, he is going to save the franchise”. And then it’s the second worst one as far as I’m concerned. Only to Predator 2. So it’s probably my biggest disappointment of the year movie-wise I feel because I was legit excited and thought I had so much faith in him. But it was just bad.

Buddy: I pretty much agree with everything you just said then. I was pretty hyped as well. Same type of thing as you Dil. Shane Black. Hopefully with a bit of OG Predator, you get that kind of throwback to what the Predator 1 was. But it was completely kind of the opposite of that. There’s heaps of cringe-worthy dialogue, two lines in particular just made me audibly cringe. My wife, Kim, in the cinema, she knows when I’m getting upset or frustrated at movies and I just get this side glance or like a hand on my knee that’s like “I’m sorry it’s not what you want it to be.”

Dylan: In what order do the lines happen because I can’t remember which one pissed me off, which one came first?

Buddy: Are we saying the lines?

Dylan: Well yeah. I mean it’s not really a big spoiler.

Ashley: Someone said, “Get to the chopper”? Ruined.

Dylan: Yeah. But I can’t remember if “Get to the chopper” came first or second because it was the second one that pissed me off.

Buddy: Second.

Dylan: OK. That’s the one that really pissed me off. That’s the one where the first line which was – what was it?

Buddy: She leans down into his ear and is like “You’re one beautiful motherfucker”.

Dylan: Yeah, “You’re one beautiful motherfucker” instead of ugly motherfucker. That one I was like “I get what you’re doing. I’ll give you a pass”. You’re on the line but I’ll give you a pass for that one. 20 minutes later or 15 minutes later when she literally turns around and goes “Get to the chopper”. And I was like No.

Ashley: Was she at least doing an Arnie impression?

Dylan: It sounded like she was trying to stop herself from doing an Arnie impression as she delivered the line which made it even weirder. That’s the one where I went “Really? You had to do two? You had to go down that road?” But overall I think my biggest problem with it is, in my mind, the first Predator movie is a horror movie. Everyone likes to argue that it’s more of an action movie and stuff, but that movie scared the living shit out of me when I watched it when I was twelve for the first time. You barely see the Predator until towards the end of the movie. For the majority of the film, it’s just this creature in the trees and you hear the sounds, the trees breaking and people are getting lifted off out of nowhere. It’s basically like your typical horror slasher movie where people are getting picked off in the background, you don’t see who’s killing them and then you get to see more of your Jason or whoever towards the end of the movie. And Predator was like that. Then the throwdown in the original was really smart. Arnold Schwarzenegger had to outsmart the Predator, he had the mud to get rid of the heat signature and they have this really good battle of wits, it’s not just that he has a bigger gun or whatever. This one fails to make the predators interesting or scary. The way they beat the Predator, and spoilers, they beat the Predator —

Buddy: What? It’s not The Empire Strikes Back? The Predator doesn’t win?

Dylan: It’s crazy. The way they beat the Predator at the end of the movie is just ridiculous, the way they win is not through brain power or anything, it’s just luck basically. It’s like you got lucky. Cool. Moving on. And then by the end of it, they try and make it out like the human race is so fucking tough and smart and stuff. No, you got really lucky. And they set up for a sequel that I don’t want. I don’t care. I don’t care for whatever that sequel is.

Buddy: You look at the tent-pole franchises that were huge in the late 70s, early 80s from that perspective. You got Alien, The Terminator and Predator. They all pretty much share similar traits. They’re all horror movies, you hardly ever saw the Xenomorph or the Predator and then when you did see the Terminator, that was more like a slasher-chase movie. So all those number ones were horror movies. Then what they did with the sequels, you look at Aliens, Terminator 2 – well, Terminator 2 was probably the pick of the bunch – but they changed the formula away and it seems to be that they keep changing that formula and have kind of forgotten the roots of what made them so great originally. It’s pretty frustrating. I was disappointed and it felt really archaic too. I was like “Cool, this is going to be good 80’s throwback movie” but it was in a bad way. It left a real sour taste in my mouth leaving the cinema and the more I’ve had time to digest it and other people say “I saw Predator. You saw Predator too, you wanna talk about it?” I’m like “Not really”. The more I think about it, the worse it was if you were the view I have of it I guess

Dylan: And a waste of a bunch of actors, I feel, that just got really weird dialogue at times and characteristics. And the tourettes person played by Thomas Jane was really weird.

Buddy: That was bizarre. That character was fucking bizarre.

Dylan: So I wouldn’t suggest it is the moral of the story.

Ashley: Would it have been improved if there was a jogger who hit on Olivia Munn‘s character?

Dylan: No.