Despite the cheesey dialog of the original Predator in 1987, you just have to love the politically incorrect, unapologetic “guy flick” vibe to it. What makes this latest sequel interesting is that:

1. Shane Black, who acted in the original (telling all the lewd jokes), directed this one.
2. This is not a reboot of the franchise, but an attempt to tell a new story that meshes with the continuity already established.

For the first “act” of the film, it looked like Shane Black had really put together something special. Before I go further, though, check out the trailer:

After a half hour or so, the plot starts to get messy. It has the feel of a script that was slashed and rewritten several times, with the final draft lacking in cohesion (especially noticeable in some dialog providing the back story for a couple characters). It also seems like the plots of four different movies were cobbled together–and none of them very original. It’s choppy.

Black just couldn’t resist injecting typical Hollywood messaging, either. The reason the Predators are so interested in Earth is because the human race is heading toward extinction via the Global Warming Boogeyman. But he didn’t foist the obligatory Rambo-With-Tits trope on us until toward the end, and the obligatory LGBT pandering was reduced to some disjointed dialog…at least I think that’s what the dialog was about. Who knows?

The movie had potential, but it turned out to be fairly mediocre.