Predator - Upgrade (The Predator)

1,5 / 10

Perhaps better understood as a self-imposed dead end of the Predator franchise, the title of the fourth installment wants to make a definite statement about who the ultimate dominator of Planet Earth is and addresses the current state of the global environment with American veterans also being in the mix. Shane Black’s colossal misinterpretation of the first film’s winning formula showcases every misstep from the following editions and adds a truckload of errors onto the screen. The core ingredients of Predator are not that difficult to grasp: From the collision of hunting tactics between armed humans and the predator, a deeply personal concern or trauma from the protagonist, a continuous adaptation of the opponent’s behavior all the way to the combat minimalism, the battle for survival and the claim of the territory. Comic relief in the form of one-liners and extravagant presence, as seen in Predator 2, should only serve as a tool to ease up the heavy tension.

Shane Black leaves out the human’s hunting tactics, provides almost no backstory for his protagonist Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook) and the battle for survival feels too construed. Instead, he puts way too much emphasis on the comic relief and utilizes horror as pure violence with no connection to reoccurring, traumatic memories or historic events. Whereas the memories from the Vietnam War serve as an emotional anchor for Dutch’s mercenary squad, Black widens up this notion and interprets PTSD, Tourette syndrome and mentally ill-driven jokes as offensive coping mechanisms for the former Marines Nebraska, Coyle, Baxley, Lynch and ‘Nettles’. Quinn meets the group after he’s been sent to jail for his killing of a predator and his secret knowledge about its equipment over the course of a cartel assassination mission in Mexico. Not only are the jokes distracting from the hunting plot, they are disrespectful and tasteless in regards to the lives of real US veterans coming back from their time in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Another distracting factor is the conflict between science and politics. Evolution biologists are being called to investigate a predator which is being held captive in a distant US laboratory. This bigger “hybrid” specimen has inherited human DNA and upgrades itself in order to exert its dominating power onto the whole universe. An obligatory outbreak of the “ultimate” predator follows in combination with a catastrophic avalanche of actions triggered by Quinn and his son Rory McKenna, a child with Asperger syndrome who gets bullied at school and shows signs of intelligence by reconstructing multiple chess game situations.

The father somehow decides to cover up his findings during the cartel mission and sends one half of a dead predator’s equipment to his family’s property – with no warning sticker attached to the box! Rory, being the naturally curious child he is, finds the box and cuts it open on the night of Halloween. He finds a heavy helmet, but also a communication device which he fatally activates. It culminates with him wearing the helmet and becomes part of the stupidest presentation of a trick-or-treat visit possible.

This chain reaction leads to a split of the story into three segments: Rory attracting the hybrid predator’s attention by activating the device, Quinn and his group of ex-Marines searching for the remaining equipment and the US government who wants to track down the equipment and the huge enemy. It’s an absolutely convoluted mess which could have been solved easily by just simply avoiding Rory’s subplot, but Shane Black decides to craft the story's backbone out of development disorders and mentally ill veterans.

Well, where are the colliding hunting tactics between humans and predator? They are there, but not as desired. For some reason, the ex-Marines and the government are hunting themselves while being chased by the big predator. This conflict of interest and the human’s constant cowardice gets addressed by their hybrid enemy who eventually confronts them with their stupidity. It even gives the veterans and the government agents a head start, before it starts hunting them down – the lowlight of the entire franchise. If Predators serves as a playground scenario for criminals who are sentenced to death, then The Predator distorts this premise by portraying the people as careless puppets who are sentenced to death by the aliens and the warming planet.

Out of nowhere, the topic of climate change is thrown into the film and could have been promising with the scientist’s realization that the folk of predators begin to view the planet as their habitat with the rise of Earth’s temperature. But every other character and Shane Black himself treat this issue like an afterthought by focusing on the human existence while other stuff can wait. Either leave out the climate change aspect or make it the key topic of the film, not the disorders and the political conflict.

The protagonist’s charisma strangely decreases from one sequel to another, excluding the prequel with Amber Midthunder. Boyd Holbrook doesn’t have the badass presence like Danny Glover – never mind the former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger – and gets almost overshadowed by his closest veteran partner Nebraska Williams, played by the solid Trevante Rhodes. The rest of the veterans are expendable comic props with Keegan-Michael Key as the most visible actor of them, pulling out one bad joke after another. Olivia Munn’s biologist Casey Brackett functions as the rebel against the greedy government, but falls flat altogether. Jake Busey’s Sean Keyes, the son of agent Peter Keyes from Predator 2, is solely there for tying this film together with the rest of the franchise.

There is an attempt to create one-liners, but any line is quickly forgotten as the end credits roll. It has to be said that the fourth film definitely contains the vilest deaths of the whole franchise with liters of blood and decapitated heads flying across the battlefield which distract from the horrific story arc. The hybrid predator acts totally relentless and nearly shows hubris with his abundant self-confidence and strength in the third act. The finale shows a glimpse of the previous closing altercations with the survival instinct and the usage of the enemy’s own weapons, but also contributes to a check list of CGI flaws. Closing out the film with a “ha, got you!” kind of joke and a futuristic insurance kit, sent by another predator, ultimately carries the following message about the human race: They are dumb as hell, are fighting themselves over personal interests and get roasted by the planet and the alien nation for the rest of the entire life. What a pessimistic schlock.