The Predator movie review & film summary (2018)

Black wastes no time, opening the film on a predator ship hurtling towards Earth. A sniper named Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook) is on a job when he’s practically hit by an escape pod containing one of the legendary creatures. McKenna gets his hands on some of the alien’s gear, sending some of it home and hiding one particularly bad-ass piece, well, somewhere no one will find it. Instead of going to his P.O. box, the mail ends up on his doorstep, where his son Rory (Jacob Tremblay) opens the package, finding a predator weapon and mask.

Meanwhile, a science teacher named Casey Bracket (Olivia Munn) is brought in to examine the predator that McKenna incapacitated, pushed around by a smug asshole named Traeger (a fantastic Sterling K. Brown, proving he should play villains more often). While that’s about to go predictably haywire, McKenna is put on a bus of fellow military prisoners, including Nebraska (Trevante Rhodes, who should be an action star if there’s any justice), Coyle (Keegan-Michael Key), Baxley (Thomas Jane), Lynch (Alfie Allen), and Nettles (Augusto Aguilera). Nicknamed “The Loonies,” the gang eventually connects with Casey, and they all try to catch up with the predator before he gets to Rory to retrieve his stuff.

Co-written by another ‘80s icon in Fred Dekker, this is a movie that keenly understands and pursues what its audience wants, which is something more action filmmakers could learn from Black. There’s a rhythm and a structure to “The Predator” that’s easy to take for granted but much harder to pull off than people will probably give this film credit for. It’s in the way Black jumps from beat to beat, giving each character just enough dialogue and development for them to register as more than bodies for the predator to hunt but not lingering long enough for viewers to get impatient. Black is assisted greatly by an incredibly charismatic cast, and he knows how to amplify their strengths. Holbrook and Rhodes are the buddy action movie duo you never knew you wanted, Munn holds her own (although her character kind of takes a back seat in the second half), and Jane and Key are fun comic relief.