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The Predator

Started by St_Eddie, May 10, 2018, 02:17:15 PM

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Shit Good Nose

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on September 16, 2018, 03:46:10 PM
Is it acceptable to say modern attitudes mean that you'll not get a good daft macho action film, just like you'll not get a really good classic Noir?

That doesn't mean the old ones can't be appreciated without being CANCELLED.

Whether it's acceptable or not, I agree that that is the world we are now in.  In a way it's totally right and I agree with it, and have accepted that there are certain types of films we will never see again.

More worrying to me is the number of people trying to apply current thinking and opinion to old films and, in a way, trying to whitewash film history.  One of my mates said to me the other day he can't watch The Cannonball Run any more because of "all the misogyny", despite previously loving it.  Apply that thinking and reaction then that's at least 50% of films up to the late 90s that could be assigned to the bin if people REALLY start taking it seriously.  I read something a while ago where a spokesperson suggested that all instances of rape and demeaning of women in old films should be cut, using Charley Varrick (which had it's UK blu ray debut at the time) as an example.  I don't condone rape or demeaning women of course, but to alter film history is an incredibly worrying prospect.  The BBFC have already been doing it with horse trips in old westerns, and however ridiculous that proposition sounds now, it could realistically happen sooner or later.

Sebastian Cobb

I reckon that's bollocks. It's important to capture the way things were. It's similar to editing old books with the n-word in them, it's important to know how far we've come.

SavageHedgehog

[VERY, VERY MILD SPOILERS]

I wonder if Jake Busey's character was one of the things affected by all the rewrites and reshoots; seemed bizarre to have the son of one of the stars of Predator 2 playing the son of one of the character's from Predator 2, but in a generic and brief part which never acknowledges this connection outside of the shared surname.

Spiteface

Quote from: bgmnts on September 08, 2018, 07:36:47 PM
Is autistic magic child a Stephen King trope I was unaware of?

I'm sure it's been done outside of Stephen King stuff.

In this film I saw it coming a mile off. I groaned so much at the "next stage of human evolution" line. Either he was going to figure out how to kill the big Predator, or the big Predator wanted him for some reason. I wouldn't have minded if he was just there for the main characters to save and nothing else. There's nothing wrong with someone not being super fucking special.

One for the "Film cliches" thread.

As for the rest of the film? It was fine.

Bogbrainedmurphy

I watched it today. As a fan of the Predator franchise, lore and extended universe it just made me feel, frankly, sad.

timebug

Saw it two days ago. Pretty poor.Next....

Quote from: Spiteface on September 16, 2018, 05:37:10 PM
I'm sure it's been done outside of Stephen King stuff.


The Regulators is the King novel with a magic autistic child.

Rolf Lundgren

I understand the criticism and agree with a lot of it but I still had fun watching this. I'm just happy they keep churning out Predator films which makes me a big, fat hypocrite because I tut and roll my eyes whenever I hear they're adding another film to a any other milked-out franchise. The Predator (the character, not the film) is such a great concept that I want to keep seeing it in films, even with diminishing returns.

It's fair to say that the last third of the film is rubbish. It's uninspired, unoriginal and pretty dumb. The main character is an angry shoot-first type who doesn't have any screen presence. This was the role that Benicio Del Toro was signed up for and there's a definite feeling of what might have been had he stuck around. Olivia Munn was good, loved seeing Jake Busey and the Looney gang were all fine despite Keegan-Michael Key to me still being that guy from ITV2 favourite The Planet's Funniest Animals which is a bit like having Stephen Mulhern rock up in this.

There are some really good parts to this though. At times, it really evokes the action films of the 80's and the Predator is still the Predator being the Predator. There's a good sense of danger for the most part and there is so much potential in the first 60 minutes of the film. With a bit more time, a bit less interference and bit more something else then it could have worked. I don't think it's a disaster by a long stretch but it's not the great Predator film we've been waiting 30 years for.

sevendaughters

on another forum i use a poster, who has an Odeon pass and will watch any old shit and is not at all Mr Fusspot when it comes to cinema, says this is the worst film he has ever seen. the word 'space dogs' were used.

colacentral

I haven't seen this yet and possibly never will but I don't get the big hang up about predator dogs. They're hunters, they have dogs. They had dogs in the third one. It just seems like one person on the internet slated it and now everyone's on the bandwagon. It sounds like there are a million shit things this film is doing, but predator dogs is not one of them, and it seems odd to single it out when there's the autism business and what by all accounts is a horrifically dumb ending.

If they're actually shit in practice, as in it's shit CGI or they get defeated by someone throwing a ball over a cliff or something, then that's one thing. The concept itself seems fine to me.

Replies From View

What if they had Predator chickens on leashes.

sevendaughters

Quote from: colacentral on September 19, 2018, 06:52:07 PM
I haven't seen this yet and possibly never will but I don't get the big hang up about predator dogs. They're hunters, they have dogs. They had dogs in the third one. It just seems like one person on the internet slated it and now everyone's on the bandwagon. It sounds like there are a million shit things this film is doing, but predator dogs is not one of them, and it seems odd to single it out when there's the autism business and what by all accounts is a horrifically dumb ending.

If they're actually shit in practice, as in it's shit CGI or they get defeated by someone throwing a ball over a cliff or something, then that's one thing. The concept itself seems fine to me.

reserving judgment until I've seen it but he went on for 2500 words and covered the plot thinness to the autism to a load of other things too. no idea if he's bandwagoning another review but i suspect he thought they were shit all off his own back.

colacentral

It's something that I've seen and read several times in reviews of this film, along the lines of just "... and PREDATOR DOGS???" with no real elaboration beyond this, as if to imply that just the concept itself is inherently shit, despite it already appearing in a prior sequel and making sense as a thing a hunter would have. That leads me to think it's just a memey thing that's been picked up on and parroted. I don't get it.

Rolf Lundgren

Quote from: colacentral on September 20, 2018, 05:13:44 PM
It's something that I've seen and read several times in reviews of this film, along the lines of just "... and PREDATOR DOGS???" with no real elaboration beyond this, as if to imply that just the concept itself is inherently shit, despite it already appearing in a prior sequel and making sense as a thing a hunter would have. That leads me to think it's just a memey thing that's been picked up on and parroted. I don't get it.

Exactly, it's not as though they're there as comic relief. Of the things they could criticise it does feel like a weak point to be making.

Brundle-Fly

#314
Just seen it. Like a non PC Disney film with swearing and gory violence made for gamers. Plenty of that sub-Tarantino "petty bickering improv comedy" questioning the original film and taking the piss out of old tropes but still sticking rigidly to blockbuster movie cliche, character and plot anyway.

eg:
SPOILER
A corrupt military science dept, an absent father, an estranged wife who still has feelings, a group of outsiders and grunts thrown together, each with their own special skills, one has to be mentally ill,  a bromance, good and evil having to join forces, big punchup finale and the audience knowing exactly who survives at the end.

You get what you deserve if you're over a certain age watching another aging franchise of your youth bleed itself dry. It ain't for you. The Predator passed the time, it had some cool moments, superb work from the magic makers as always, but I will have forgotten the whole thing by tomorrow. I thought Predators (2010) was better and that's typing something.

My wandering mind kept evoking these movies during the screening which probably wasn't what they intended or maybe they did?



Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Quote from: colacentral on September 20, 2018, 05:13:44 PM
It's something that I've seen and read several times in reviews of this film, along the lines of just "... and PREDATOR DOGS???" with no real elaboration beyond this, as if to imply that just the concept itself is inherently shit, despite it already appearing in a prior sequel and making sense as a thing a hunter would have. That leads me to think it's just a memey thing that's been picked up on and parroted. I don't get it.
Internet film critics do seem to love their hyperbole. Just repeat "Predator dogs?!!?" as if it's an inherently risible concept and dunderheads will click like and subscribe.

Because of the way they're used in the film more than the concept

One becomes lobotomised and tame after a gunshot to the head and just wanders around after Olivia Munn looking a bit dopey.

Replies From View

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on September 20, 2018, 07:19:10 PM
Internet film critics do seem to love their hyperbole. Just repeat "Predator dogs?!!?" as if it's an inherently risible concept and dunderheads will click like and subscribe.

If anything predator dogs is too obvious and safe.  Hunters have dogs don't they.  Why not give predators a cumbersome length of rolled up carpet that they need to take out of their back of their jeep and it has teeth at one end.  And they have to thrust the teeth end of the rolled up carpet at people, but it is heavy and keeps trying to unroll into just a flat carpet.  So every now and then throughout the film you see various pairs of agitated predators in the distance rolling their own carpets back up more tightly again.

That would be more alien behaviour than "having a dog", and therefore scarier.

alan nagsworth

I watched the original Predator the other day. Never seen it before. It's not very good is it?

Mister Six

Not really, other than some fun dialogue, but Predator 2 is a lot of fun.

alan nagsworth

Aye, it's just like, wow congratulations you hired literally zero acting talent for this film. Plus for an action film the action is pretty boring. I just found it really underwhelming, no wow factor to it at all.

mothman

At the time, it wasn't that big a step up in action film - that would be Die Hard, the next year, by the same director - and things have moved on A LOT since, but at the time it had an impact.

I'd quite like my eldest to watch the Bonds with me. But I just don't think she'd take to them. How do you watch an early 60s near-travelogue like Dr. No when you've been watching modern action films like Bourne Identity? I could be wrong though, she's massively into listening to Patsy Cline and Doris Day right now.

She didn't get into The Blues Brothers at all. Though rewatching it myself I'm not surprised, it's bloody slow to start.

alan nagsworth

Yeah, Die Hard is a tremendous action film - and I don't really give that much of a toss about the genre. It's just such exhilarating fun.

My partner is dead set on showing me her favourite 80s/90s action flicks and Predator was where we started. Bad move! But I'll stick with it.

Replies From View

The one good thing about The Predator is that the main character (the Predator) has a face that opens up like an unfolding umbrella.  If any other film had come up with that idea, it would have been equally as good.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Quote from: alan nagsworth on September 30, 2018, 08:09:58 PM
I watched the original Predator the other day. Never seen it before. It's not very good is it?
You and I are enemies now.

garnish

Quote from: Mister Six on September 30, 2018, 08:21:51 PM
Not really, other than some fun dialogue, but Predator 2 is a lot of fun.

Predator 2 has the weird thing where everyone's hand pistols have a sight scope on them for no reason.

alan nagsworth

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on September 30, 2018, 10:39:24 PM
You and I are enemies now.

yeah well why don't you go and get to the chopper or whatever it is you predator nerds do eh

go on, get to the chopper. do it.

mothman

Quote from: garnish on September 30, 2018, 10:46:29 PM
Predator 2 has the weird thing where everyone's hand pistols have a sight scope on them for no reason.

It's futuristic, innit? Also the clothes seem to have predicted hipsters, albeit about 15 years too early.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: alan nagsworth on September 30, 2018, 08:09:58 PM
I watched the original Predator the other day. Never seen it before. It's not very good is it?

Stop spoiling my youth, Nagsworth. Reggae and ska, neo -punk and now Predator!?

; )

x


Mister Six

Quote from: alan nagsworth on September 30, 2018, 08:43:56 PMPlus for an action film the action is pretty boring.

That's what gets me. A surprisingly dull film, considering.