R Rating Ep6 - The Predator (2018)

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hello, everybody, and welcome back to our rating the show where I get there with a couple of my buddies and we talk about a movie franchise, break it down by movie, give it an overall score, and then put it up on the board to see where it ranks compared to other movie franchises. This month we're talking about the Predator franchise. And today we're talking about The Predator from 2018. I'm joined, as always, by Will and Brian. And Will's going to give us a synopsis of what the Predator is all. [00:00:24] Speaker B: About, more or less. All right, here we go. A group of wrongfully disgraced militants are caught in a lethal game of cat and mouse. And no matter how crass and violent these lunatics appear, nothing can stop their hearts of gold from shining through. Except for perhaps a razor sharp blade from a roided out alien. In Predator. In the Predator. Aw, that the whole thing up in 2018, the predator may just be the perfect hunter needed to save earth from the deadly predator that is hunting the predator Hunter. Predator. It's all a synonym to me. All right, there we go. Good enough. [00:01:11] Speaker A: Nailed it. Absolutely. [00:01:14] Speaker B: Edit that out. Fix that, Holmes. Fix that up. [00:01:22] Speaker A: All right, so we're talking about 2018's the Predator. This is a movie I'd never seen before. Two days ago, I'm gonna say, yeah, two days ago. First time I'd ever seen this one. Will, have you seen this movie before? Would you? Have you? This is your first time coming to it? [00:01:37] Speaker B: No, I, I did. You know, I forgot about this movie. I don't know how it's a gem, but I did see this movie probably on release and then never again since. So it all came back to me. [00:01:49] Speaker A: Very quickly on release, like in theater or like when it came to. [00:01:52] Speaker B: I may have seen it in theater. I'm not 100 on that, but defin saw it early on. I love a good action movie. [00:02:01] Speaker A: What about you, Brian? You've seen this one before? [00:02:03] Speaker C: Yeah. You know, I'm a big fan of this franchise, of course. One of my favorite franchises. So I did go see this when it released in theaters and this is my second time watching it. Also my last time watching it. [00:02:16] Speaker A: That seems fair. [00:02:18] Speaker C: Just a heads up, I am very frustrated with this movie. This movie bothered me, so. [00:02:28] Speaker A: All right, well, nothing like burying the lead, so. All right, well, you. You're kind of starting us off there. I feel like I might have a more. A slightly more positive take that. Why don't you start us off? What bothered you about this movie? I think that literally going to be everything do we just fully encompass. [00:02:47] Speaker C: No, no, no, no. Specifically, the biggest thing that. That I really didn't like about this was that it felt like they took what the best parts of the Predator franchise was and just kind of glossed over those. From the very first moment that you see the Predator in there, you're like, that doesn't look like the Predator. I know, right? Like, he's got fancy high tech gear. He's all glossed over. The lighting in the ship is like really high tech, but also a very cheap set. And the. The look of the Predator and the feel of the Predator is all lost. And it feels like they didn't take any time to get the Predator right because they were so anxious to get to their new upgraded Predator. And they pay a lot of homage and allude to the Predator and past movies and stuff, but it all felt very cheap and almost insulting. And then they went, like, put a whole bunch of effort into all this other stuff that has. That was completely different from the franchise. And so I feel like they missed the point and they did an insulting job of the things that we really liked the most about the previous movies and just totally failed to get it right and tried to make all these cheap thrills all around it. And it really bothered me. I felt offended at how they portrayed my Predator in. In this movie. So that was the thing that bothered me the most. There's a ton of other stuff I'll get into, but basically the central portrayal of the Predator that we all know and love from the first couple of movies, they. They completely missed the point on that. [00:04:28] Speaker A: Fair enough. Strong words to start us off. [00:04:31] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a. [00:04:33] Speaker A: Where's your thought process in this book? I feel like you're not quite as negative, but certainly not positive. [00:04:38] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, I don't think I'm as. I don't think I'm as hurt as. As Brian is with this movie, but I also don't have the investment that Brian has in the Predator franchise, I believe. So maybe that's the difference. I do feel that in a lot of action franchises such as this, the Terminator, things like that, I feel like they get to a point where they just almost become a parody of themselves. And I feel like this is really. That this is where it really hits home, that this is kind of parodying itself a little bit. It still tries to progress the backstories of the Predators and things like that, but I feel like, you know, they're just kind of making fun of themselves a little bit as they go along with It. Because we all know the shtick now. We know what predators are. So that's not going to be anything new. So let's just make fun of it to kind of make it still enjoyable. Did that work? Not for Brian. [00:05:43] Speaker C: No. Didn't work for me. [00:05:45] Speaker A: No. That's totally fair. I think for me, you bring up a good point with the Terminators. Like, I feel like there's a lot of franchises that kind of do more with less. Like, the smaller the budget, the smaller the cast, kind of the more interesting they can be. Take something like Alien, take something like Terminator, take something like Predator. You just give like one monster. You don't really know what's going on. You got a small little crew, and it's. It can be kind of terrifying. And the bigger the spectacle gets, the less interesting it can become. And that's kind of this movie's biggest foible, is it just kind of gets way too big for itself. My biggest, My biggest, easily my biggest issue with this movie is the plot in the sense that, like, it feels like they took seven different ideas, half baked every single one of them, and just threw them all together and called it a movie. [00:06:34] Speaker C: I agree. Plot and direction, for me, real, real low. Real low. [00:06:38] Speaker A: There were, there were some ideas in this movie that I actually thought, oh, this could be actually kind of cool. And then they just drop it so quickly and move on to something else. And I'm just like, oh, all right. Like the opening scene where they're flying through space. I don't love the Predator ship all that much. Like, the, the, the concept of it isn't great, so it didn't grab me in that sense, but, like, they're flying through space and they rip open the sky and fly right through it. And I was like, that. That's a pretty cool effect. That looks really nice. I like that. And like, okay, you got Predator on Predator for not quite the first time. You see it a little bit in Predators. Yeah, Predators. But it was kind of like, oh, where is this going? Like, are we going to see like a civil war of some kind? Like, what. What are we going to get from this? And then that kind of went away and you move into like this sniper area and then that kind of goes away and you move into this other area and then that kind of goes. When you move to another area, you're like, okay, what. What central plot am I supposed to be following here? Because it's just feels really, really disjointed every. Well, not most of the scenes on Their own. I kind of liked. And I was like, okay, let's see what this movie looks like. And they weren't interested in following that movie. They were just interested in getting to the next scene and not really wrapping up what happened in the previous scene. Just kind of like moving on and moving on and moving on. So I had issues with this movie from a plot perspective, but like, most everything else actually kind of worked for me. Like, the actual look of this movie, the look of the predators, I didn't mind nearly as much as Brian did. They didn't offend me in quite the same way. The dogs, correct me if I'm wrong, they didn't look like the same dogs from Predators. They had a different. Different dogs. [00:08:09] Speaker C: Yeah, These ones had dreadlocks. The other ones had those big spines. [00:08:12] Speaker A: I like the big spines way more than the dreadlocks. Weird dreadlocks. I'm like, oh, that's an interesting look because it almost gives the dogs, like, skullets, which is weird. But I didn't. [00:08:23] Speaker B: Nothing against skullets, but, yeah, rocket dogs on dogs. [00:08:28] Speaker A: It's weird. Let's. We can all be on that page, right? If you're giving your poodle a skullet, that's weird. But it didn't offend me in the same way. Like, I was actually kind of okay with the Predator. I think they pretty much nailed the look of the Predator in 1987 and have carried that forward through all these movies. Like, they're all pretty similar to give a little, little bit of tweaks, but overall they all look pretty good. What was your overall problem with the original Predator in this movie? Like, what. What about it did you feel was being disingenuous to the original? [00:08:57] Speaker C: So right from the jump, his ship looked very different in the interior. I. I noticed a lot of the scenes in this, they had a lot of lighting. Everything was well lit. Like, we had a science lab area where it was a lot of bright white light everywhere, and everything was really well lit, which is different from all the others where he's skulking around in the shadows. Right. So you did get to see him. However, the. The actual predator without his mask on and without any of his ornaments on. His. His gear and stuff looked fine. It was the traditional mask. Although I felt he seems smaller. He seems to be getting the. The traditional predator seems to be getting smaller and smaller in these movies. Maybe that's just because they don't have a 7 foot 2 dude to jump into that suit. But regardless, without all that ornamentation, it was fine. But they like in the beginning when he's like messing with his gauntlet, his mask, everything looks like hyper space age. Like they tried to make it super sci fi and they didn't need to. They lost that tribalistic look, that animalistic look, that leathery feel to everything going with this sleek sharp metal everywhere. Bright red lights in his ship, lots of smooth like chromed out everything. And it didn't feel like the Predator I knew. Then jump to halfway through the Predator when they over explain the unnecessary plot of this artificial predator that jumps in. They did the same thing to, to the Predator in the Predator that they did to the alien in Alien Resurrection. They made this huge mutated obsession scene beast that we were already on board with the Predator. You just mutated it into this monstrosity. That didn't make much sense to me. I mean, I mean it made sense in their mixed up plot line, but it looked terrible to me. It was now just an overgrown monster. It was a monster movie and it was all CGI and it just, it really just lost touch with its, its roots and it just went in a direction I didn't care for. [00:10:59] Speaker A: That's totally fair. Now, excuse me. One of the things I mentioned in this movie is the predator that we're used to, the original predators you're calling it is. I mean he's still a threat. Like he still wipes out that lab pretty easily. But they mentioned that he's almost like a Peacekeeper. Right. Like he's coming to Earth to try and save humanity because he doesn't like what's happening to us. [00:11:20] Speaker B: Right. [00:11:21] Speaker C: And yet he's still kind of slaughtering. [00:11:22] Speaker B: Humans everywhere he goes, kills everybody. [00:11:27] Speaker A: And that just. Yeah, it's. [00:11:28] Speaker C: It didn't really make sense. [00:11:29] Speaker A: Yeah, that's fair. I was just wondering like maybe he's not one of the bigger predators. Like maybe that was kind of a. You don't have a 7 foot 2 dude to play him. But maybe there's. [00:11:38] Speaker C: He was the run of the litter kind of. [00:11:40] Speaker A: Right. Like he is the scientist type of their race. Right. Like he's not. [00:11:44] Speaker C: Yes. [00:11:44] Speaker A: The big must. [00:11:45] Speaker C: Why didn't they over explain that part of the plot then? [00:11:48] Speaker B: You know, instead of him just, just trashing that whole place. [00:11:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:52] Speaker B: I feel, I feel like part of the shrinking of the OG predator is 1 the 7 foot 2 guys not around to do it. But more is that they are trying to make bigger and more threatening predators. Because obviously it has to be bigger to be more threatening. That's how the world works. So they're shrinking the OG predators a little bit more and more each time so that the bigger predator looks more and more menacing each time. [00:12:21] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:12:24] Speaker A: I mean, it could be. I kind of go with Brian on this one though. Like, the idea of introducing a larger predator doesn't really make sense because like the regular sized predators are a massive threat to humanity. Right. [00:12:34] Speaker B: Well, and it doesn't also. It also doesn't make sense because what they're talking about is stealing DNA of the best predators, hunters, creatures in the universe and inputting that into them selves. That doesn't necessarily mean they're just going to get bulkier and be able to turn their skin to rock. [00:12:53] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:12:53] Speaker A: What part of humanity is increasing your mass? [00:12:56] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:12:57] Speaker C: Can we talk about that for a minute? How they completely took. I wouldn't say completely. They took a hard turn with why the predators are hunting us. It's no longer a trophy predator. They're taking our spinal cord for the fluid to stick, to get the DNA to make themselves better hunters. They changed the reason for all of this. I didn't think they needed to do that now. [00:13:24] Speaker B: Did I hate that they changed it? Yes, a little bit. Do I understand the reasoning behind it also? Yes, a little bit. Like, it makes sense that the best hunters, predators, trophy collectors in the universe want to always get better somehow. And what better way to do that than just mix DNA of like other incredible creatures? Like that's kind of a fun concept. Did they pull that off in this movie and explain it well and, and lay it out to us in a, in a great way? Absolutely not. [00:14:00] Speaker C: No. [00:14:01] Speaker A: There's also something worth mentioning, which is people hunt sharks to put their teeth and jaws on the wall. But also we use shark cartilage as something. You know, we put that in medication and stuff like that. So like we do the exact same thing. Like it's not one or the other. We do both. [00:14:19] Speaker C: Okay. [00:14:20] Speaker A: Right here on this planet. That's the only example I can think of of that. I don't know that we use like lion DNA for anything. [00:14:25] Speaker C: But, you know, but this, this movie portrays it as. They are trying to really make the, the original plot way more complex. Like this whole, oh, wow, that's what this was all about all along. They were trying to improve themselves. That's what they. And they obviously did not have the chops to pull off that kind of depth in the plot. They just, they didn't have. This movie was making fun of the franchise more than it was really doing. They added comedy to this movie. Like they injected or attempted to inject a lot of comedy into this movie. Now, going into it and going, okay, this is now a movie that's a parody of itself. They're making fun of the franchise. They are. They're alluding to things in a humorous way. And. And, okay, when I got that through my head the second time around, I actually chuckled at some of the jokes. I kind of had a good time on the. On the Nutty bus, you know, it was. It was okay. It wasn't what I was here for. It wasn't what I wanted in this franchise. But when I let go of what I wanted and just went, okay, I'm here for this ride. I'm going to see how bad this gets. I had a good time with some of those jokes and some of that humor, but it was at the expense of what I. What I really showed up for. [00:15:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I. I didn't come for the humor. It didn't offend me, but mostly because it just wasn't good humor. Like, I feel like if it was actually fun, if it was legit, really. [00:15:49] Speaker C: Aren't your bag. [00:15:50] Speaker A: Not those ones. No, no. Well, I also have heard most of those before. Right. Like, how do you circumcise? Like, we've heard that since I was 12. Yeah, it. It. I didn't. Like, there was comedy in it, but you could have convinced me that it was okay if the comedy in it made me really laugh out loud, but it came nowhere close. Like, the closest I came to laughing at this movie, I don't think was supposed to be in it. And that's the photo I sent you guys the very beginning when they go to the school and it's like, welcome parents and std. Like. Yeah, I don't know if they. Was that on purpose? Was that supposed to laugh at that? I'm not sure if that was a joke on purpose or that's a short form for some students, but that was the closest I came. Right. Like, I like Keenan. Mikey Ple. I like a lot of the actors in this movie, actually. So this movie came with a ton of goodwill that the movie itself didn't necessarily earn. [00:16:36] Speaker C: Yeah, I kind of liked the banter between some of the characters. Coil. That was a Keegan. Michael K. Is that his name? [00:16:44] Speaker A: Yes. [00:16:45] Speaker C: Okay. Key. I liked some of the banter between the characters. They were goofy and silly. The guy with Tourette's didn't really pull off Tourette's. Well, in my opinion, Thomas. Yeah. Yeah. But some of that banter between those characters was okay. I don't want Again, I don't want them in my Predator movie, but if this is what I'm stuck with and I'm trying to look for the silver lining. That was kind of funny. All the allusions to the previous predators were more like, let's hunt stupid Easter eggs rather than, oh, that's a cool way to tie it in. It was like they were. They were just like on the nose with a bunch of stuff and kind of mocking things sometimes. So, yeah, plot and direction for me in this movie was. Was very abysmal. That really stopped me and then can. Do you guys want to keep talking about plot direction or have we hit this enough? [00:17:39] Speaker B: Do whatever you want, man. [00:17:41] Speaker A: The only things I want to. I mean, I kind of want to touch on more specifics with the plot. Like, just a couple of things where I'm like, that was an interesting go. [00:17:46] Speaker C: Yeah, tell me what you think, because I've ranted my. [00:17:50] Speaker A: Okay, so I'm gonna have some thoughts about Boyd Holbrook, which played the main character of Quinn McKenna. But right off the bat, we're introduced to this guy. He's a military sniper. Or I. I mean, correct me on any of this if I get anything wrong, he's a military sniper. He comes across like a serious hothead. Like, he's just in the moment. He's gonna do whatever he's gonna do. And, like, that's not the impression that I get about military snipers. Like, I feel like you have to sit in one position for hours at a time. You need to be able to be calm, cool, collected, have your together. And this guy feels like he wants to get on a Harley and just fly off into the sunset any given second. I'm like, nope, that doesn't work for me. He finds an alien at the very beginning, takes its armor, mails it to himself. Interesting choice. Takes a ball that he has no idea what it is. Could be radioactive, could be anything. Chugs that down and is like, I'm going to carry this around till it's plot dependent. Like, at no point does he know what that thing is. He's just like, ah, that's in my body now. Cool. Somehow gets on an airplane with a giant metal ball in them that doesn't trigger anything off. It's just like, I don't understand what your logic is on this. Everything about his character bothered me quite a bit. I looked up him on IMDb he's in actually quite a few movies that I did enjoy. He's in. I haven't seen it yet, but the bike Riders is one that Brian and I watched the trailer for and looked really good. So I'm super curious about this actor. He's been in some stuff I really enjoy, but he's not a person that sticks out for me at all. Whereas a lot of the rest of this cast, like, oh, him. Oh, them. Oh, I know these people. And he's the one who felt like, kind of just missed the mark. As far as casting. I'm not saying he's a bad actor. I'm not even saying he does a bad job in this movie. But kind of like Adrian Brody in Predators, he just doesn't feel like the right casting for what we're going for on this one. [00:19:29] Speaker C: I. I couldn't relate to any characters in this movie, really. Like, all of them kind of, yeah. Were unrelatable for me. [00:19:38] Speaker B: I'd say that maybe the best characters in this movie are. The biologist was. Okay. The lady who's like, Olivia Munn. I'm telling you guys what's going on here, and nobody gives a. [00:19:51] Speaker C: But my problem was that her. Her character was just too much. Like, she. She was like a badass in every way. Like, unbelievable. Okay. By the way, she is running underneath the Predator, keeping pace with him, carrying that big, huge sniper tranquilizer gun. He's doing 100 meter dash, and she's pacing with. She's a biologist, right? She should not be able to do that. She shouldn't be able to jump onto a moving bus. Right? Like, well, there was just so many unrealistic things about her character. How she was so good, so smart, so badass in every single way that it was like, come on. Like, I don't know. [00:20:36] Speaker A: No, that's totally fair. The one thing I really liked about her character, and to some extent, the Emily character, Yvonne Strahavowski Stravalski. Anyways, her. The wife, the ex wife is. They didn't correct me again, correct me if I'm wrong. They didn't shoehorn any love stories into them whatsoever. Like, they were allowed to just be their own characters in the movie. They're surrounded by men, but at no point do you get that, like, oh, she's really flirting with Quinn. Like, both of them are like, eyes on the prize. Like, there's like, our lives are in danger. There wasn't even a moment at the end where they cuddle when, like, their explosion was coming. I actually really liked. They allowed them to keep their autonomy. She was just. They were both allowed to be. I mean, as. As fully fledged as these characters were going to Get. They. They stayed in their lane, if that makes sense. [00:21:18] Speaker C: Yeah. There was no romance between them. There didn't need to be. I was okay with that. What was weird was there was no romance between Emily and. And Quinn either. His. His wife. His estranged wife. [00:21:30] Speaker B: Yeah, they were. [00:21:31] Speaker A: They were divorced. [00:21:32] Speaker C: Oh, they were divorced. I must have missed that. [00:21:34] Speaker A: So she says very clear, like, this is not your home anymore. And. And other. [00:21:39] Speaker C: I didn't care enough. There was problems with their marriage, but there was. Yeah. So when. When that occurred, when there was like that distance between him and his ex wife, estranged wife, whatever, I thought they would try and make some sort of romance that would be cliche between him and the biologist character, but they. But they didn't. And I'm glad. I'm glad they didn't try to do that because that would have been one more thing they wouldn't have been able to pull off. [00:22:04] Speaker A: Just fail in one more category. No, I liked. I like. They. They just left everybody alone. She's along for the ride. She's in danger, just like the rest of them are. I thought that was really good. The closest thing to a romance we got was actually between Keegan, Michael Key and. Was it the Thomas Jane character back? [00:22:21] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:22:22] Speaker A: Max, Leo, like that's as close as we got. And it was just kind of like, okay. Like, I'm okay with that. Subtle. Like, is it a friendship? Is it more than a friendship? You don't really need to know. It's. It's kind of. Is what it is. [00:22:32] Speaker C: Kind of a humorous death scene. I mean, it was stupid, but yes. I was like, okay, they're. They're making fun of everything here. Let's make fun of the way these guys die. I'm okay. [00:22:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:22:42] Speaker C: Will, did you have any. Any other characters? I kind of jumped on you. Oh, that's okay. [00:22:47] Speaker B: I think my other favorite characters. And this is this also. I had to write down the quote of the movie as soon as I heard it. My other two favorite characters were the school bullies at the beginning of the picture when the one kid says, I could go for a nice juicy ass burger. When they're talking about bullying a child. [00:23:07] Speaker A: Yeah, sounds delicious. [00:23:10] Speaker B: Who says that I could go for a nice juicy ass burger? [00:23:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:17] Speaker B: Oh, that was incredible. That's what set this movie off for me in the right way for being a complete train wreck. Because it's like no kid would ever say this when they're going to go beat up some kid in school. Nobody ever said. But it's such a funny line. So I Knew from that moment I was gonna enjoy this film for all the wrong reasons. [00:23:39] Speaker A: I did like that line as well. The other one that got me, not quite as bad, but the one that I liked a lot, he's in the, the main character is in the, the bus they're driving up and he's like, I'm a military sniper. Get me in close. I'm like, that's, that's not what snipers do. But okay. Snipers are good at close combat. [00:23:55] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:23:56] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. [00:23:58] Speaker C: He didn't do like any background training to see what his role was. Would really produce child actors. Child actors for me, make or break a movie, they never seem to hit the middle ground. This one definitely destroys this movie for me. I did not like this kid in the movie. I didn't like the way they portrayed somebody who apparently has Asperger's. I'm not really sure. Just, just didn't, just didn't do it for me. They, they gave him like sort of quasi mental superpowers and that's what the Predator was chasing after. There was going to be supposedly a big plot twist which we all kind of saw coming. I really didn't like the kid in this. It was just one more thing they just tried to cram in to this over baked plot. And, and, and this kid didn't have the chops to, to hold down a character that complex. [00:24:51] Speaker A: I feel like the Asperger's is something the bullies said. I don't know that the parents or anybody actually diagnosed him with that. So I wouldn't be like, oh, this is exactly what's going on with this kid. [00:25:00] Speaker C: Yeah, he's trying to over explain the plot. Right. So they threw in this line. [00:25:03] Speaker B: Yeah, no, he's definitely got autism of some kind. Like he's on the spectrum. Spectrum. [00:25:07] Speaker A: He's definitely on the spectrum. I'm just saying I wouldn't be like, oh, that is clearly the diagnosis, I don't think. [00:25:11] Speaker B: Yeah. But they also talk about like how being on the spectrum and having autism could be a higher form of, you know, evolution and things like that. And then that plays right into the hand of the predator being like, I. [00:25:25] Speaker A: Only feel one true warrior. [00:25:29] Speaker B: Warrior is here and It's a small. [00:25:31] Speaker A: 10 year old boy. [00:25:33] Speaker C: So I will give you a head start of seven minutes. Yeah. Yeah. Why did, why did we need talking? As soon as they started doing subtitles for the predators, I was like, oh, this, I'm out of here. This is, this is terrible. [00:25:46] Speaker A: The thing that bothered me most about that was not that they were doing the subtitles cuz like okay, fine, they have to have a conversation between the two of them. So be it was they did subtitles in Alien and then subtitles in English. Why, why not take the alien and change that into a cool looking English? We'll read it, it'll be fine. But it's like, no, no, that's just gonna stay an alien down here and we'll have English. Just in case you didn't know that it was the alien talking. Just in case you were confused about what you were seeing. [00:26:12] Speaker B: Also, can I add at the end of the movie, spoiler alert when they get the package delivered. Pod03. Why does it say pod03 if it's coming from the Predator who doesn't use English or numbers that the English or the human race have invented. [00:26:34] Speaker A: Why was the pod that I don't. [00:26:36] Speaker B: Have labeled pod03 so weird to me? Whereas everything else they had to use translators and do all this and all that. But at the end they just have Pod 03 ready to go. [00:26:46] Speaker A: At least it didn't say like Predator killer right on it. Like yeah, they just said that in English with a racing stripe or something. I know the movie's over, but I'm out the alien suit. I hate myself so much for saying this. The Predator killer suit I did think looked cool. And a part of me is like, I kind of want to see more of that. And the other part is like, oh. [00:27:03] Speaker C: I'm done with you. Get out of here. [00:27:06] Speaker A: Wait, I'm changing that a little bit. I want to see it in a video game. Like I want to control that suit and hunt predators. I don't want that in a movie. [00:27:13] Speaker C: I want that to be a Gundam suit. I don't want it to be a part of the Predator. Like I yeah, sure looks cool. It's all sci fi and stuff. But that just is one thing that just didn't belong in this franchise. It was so weird to me. There, there could have been a million things that could have popped out of that like anthrop, that like that bipedal shaped pod which looked like it should have been like a human or a creature or anything. Like they could have put so many things coming out of that pod and instead it's this weird honky bracelet that in cases that nerdy scientist guy with all this super duper special effects suit and then the guy's gotta land that stupid line. Hope it comes in a 46 tall or whatever. I was like, are you kidding me? This is trash. It was Such trash that will say. [00:28:10] Speaker A: Maybe it's more that I want the action figure than anything else. I don't know. Steven actually makes a pretty decent point here in the chat. I'm gonna bring this out. The package was intended for humans. It makes sense that they would make it designed so humans could understand it. [00:28:20] Speaker B: Yeah, it also makes sense why the predator would just decades just delete human after human instead of being like, oh, I'm here to help you guys. [00:28:29] Speaker A: Yeah, it all makes sense. I'm just saying. That was a good point from Steven. That's all I'm saying. [00:28:32] Speaker C: Did you guys see? Okay, when the predator's escaping the room, one of these guys goes up to the door code, and he's like. He's like, Jonas326. Jonas, three, two, six. And the door opens up, and then you hear the predator recreating that guy's voice so he can get through the door. It was kind of subtle. It was kind of quick. [00:28:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I missed that entirely. [00:28:50] Speaker C: Why didn't the better just come down and be like, hey, I got a gift for you guys. It's over in my ship. If you let me up. [00:28:59] Speaker B: We gotta go vital. [00:29:01] Speaker C: He's got a slot for everybody. Like, I'll give you advanced technology. You need to let me up. [00:29:09] Speaker B: Also, may I add, I don't think. [00:29:11] Speaker A: One, sorry, one second they can recreate. Other than him saying, in Predator 2, have we ever heard them speak English? Or can they just, like, record what we say and play it back for us? Like, can we communicate with them? [00:29:24] Speaker C: Well, I mean. [00:29:25] Speaker B: Well, I mean, he typed his messages into that ship and sure, but he. [00:29:29] Speaker A: Had his ship translated, right, like this. [00:29:31] Speaker B: I mean, if they can't have an earworm in them to just translate everything for them, then obviously their tech isn't that good. [00:29:38] Speaker A: That's fair. I think if I wake up naked on an alien planet in what looks like a, you know, autopsy room, probably my first instinct is go swinging and not, you know, hey, hey, hey, I'm friendly. [00:29:51] Speaker C: That's a good point. I. One thing with the communication, both the subtitles with the predators talking to each other, the. The. The predator shouting really loudly, and having the communication box that the humans made translating it for us. All these different things of communication were just so poorly thought out, and it just. It felt lazy. And it was like, good writing would show you what's going on with subtlety and devices that are built into it without having to do subtitles, without having to have that cheesy reader board box that translates it like that. Was just so lazy and lame and just took me out of it. I wanted good writing where I felt smart for figuring things out. Instead, every step of the way, they were over explaining everything to me. And it just. I. That drives me nuts in a movie. [00:30:46] Speaker A: Yeah. How did you feel about Jake Busey playing Gary Busey's son in the movie? [00:30:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I saw that, too. It was his. It was his son as well, because their name is Keys as well. [00:30:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:00] Speaker B: I thought that was a fun throw in. [00:31:02] Speaker A: I thought that was a nice way of giving Predator 2 something, because they talk about Predator 1 a lot in these movies. Like, they're definitely realizing that as canon. But Predator 2 in a lot of ways, gets glossed over. They did mention, like, oh, it came in 87 and then again in 97, but that's kind of been it. And this is super subtle. Like, I mean, if you. I mean, obviously, if you know who Gary Busey is, he's got a very familiar face, and Jake's got most of that face as well. So, like, maybe it's not that subtle, but, like, they don't play it off like, hey, my dad was killed by one of these things. Like, they kind of, like, he just exists. And you're. [00:31:31] Speaker C: Yeah, I think that was. [00:31:33] Speaker B: That was a case of good filmmaking where you put in this character's son from the previous movie without being like, hey, guess what? I'm his son. Look over here, everybody. I'm in this movie. Whereas all the other things, they went so over the top. And being like this. This is what we're doing because of this, that, and the other. [00:31:55] Speaker A: It would be so easy and cheap for them to put in, like, oh, he's wearing a bracelet. Oh, what's the bracelet for? Oh, this is remembrance of my dad. [00:32:01] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:32:04] Speaker A: Anything. Any acknowledgment at all would have cheapened it, But I kind of like that they just left it completely alone. He was just there. I was like, okay, fair enough. [00:32:10] Speaker C: I'll take probably one of the only times they use subtlety in the entire 100. [00:32:14] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:32:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:16] Speaker B: Now, we didn't mention this, but Shane Black played Hawkins in the original Predator. He's the director of this movie, and I think. Writer. Right. [00:32:27] Speaker A: One of the writers. [00:32:28] Speaker B: One of the writers. [00:32:28] Speaker A: It took three people to make this mess. [00:32:30] Speaker B: Yeah. So, like, the nerdy guy from the original Predator movie. [00:32:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:34] Speaker B: Is the director of this movie. And I was like, this is kind of cool that this guy is, like, still wanting to be a part of the Predator franchise and wants to put his all into this. How did it go so wrong? [00:32:47] Speaker A: Much to Brian's chagrin, this guy wants to be there and Brian's like, get the out. Get away from my Predator movies. [00:32:51] Speaker C: I'm wondering, was he the guy that got, like, shut out of the script and didn't get what he wanted, or was he the guy that added too much to the script and screwed it all up? I want to know where on that spectrum he is, you know, because I'm sure everybody wants certain things to be in the plot and they don't or they add too much and whatever. I'd like to know, like, what, you know, with three people having their hands on this, what was really his portion of the contribution? I'm curious. [00:33:21] Speaker A: Also made movies such as Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which I really enjoy, and Iron Man 3, which I enjoy significantly less. So he's got kind of a random pattern. I haven't quite figured out where he lands as a director entirely. His franchise work is not as good as his non franchise work work. I don't hate Iron Man 3. I didn't hate this movie. But neither one of them really felt like they hit the mark that they were aiming for. [00:33:48] Speaker C: That's fair. [00:33:50] Speaker A: That's a good point. Thank you for bringing that up, because I did want to mention that, and I don't have that in my notes. So I will say this movie, and I think every Predator movie, except for possibly two, did really well at the box office. Like, like, not like billions of dollars or anything, but, like, all of them have done well at making their money back. Like, this is not a failing franchise. Whereas, like, we did Highlander last, and like, every single one of those movies lost money and somehow they made another one. This one makes sense. Like, every single one of these movies made a profit. Like, they've all done pretty well. This one failed play, which we can't. We don't know what it made because it went straight to streaming, unfortunately. Sorry, this one felt cheap to you. [00:34:26] Speaker C: This. This one felt cheap to me. Speaking of cheap, let's talk about the special effects and the gratuitous use of, you know, special effects over practical effects. We barely have any practical effects in this movie at all, except for the OG Predator, who we don't get to see a lot and kind of gets deleted right off the bat. And then everything else is special effects in here. The sets look really cheap to me. They look really, really bad. And I didn't like the look of this. Even the special effects of the big Predator, the blood didn't look like it used to look like when. When they used the blood on. [00:35:09] Speaker B: It's not real. Yeah, it's not real. [00:35:11] Speaker C: Yeah, it didn't. It didn't look right. There was just so many things and. And all the time, like when the one guy with the. With the bullet head wound swaggers up to the dog to shoot him and it didn't like, it didn't look synced upright. Like there were just so many flaws of the visuals on this movie. It really took me out of it. What'd you guys think of the look of this film? [00:35:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't disagree. I mean, big advocate here of practical effects. I pretty much say it every time we record. [00:35:40] Speaker C: We all kind of are, right? [00:35:42] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, there's just something irreplaceable still to me in my mind, when I see practical effects that are aided by CGI compared to straight cgi. There's. [00:35:58] Speaker C: It just. [00:35:58] Speaker B: It just still does not compare. I still will not enjoy full, full CGI over practical effects any day of the week. Yeah, that said, I. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention. I was too busy crying with laughter to notice how bad the CGI was. But yes, it was obvious that the. The big bad Predator was a CGI fest. I kind of like some of the. [00:36:25] Speaker C: Fun toys he used. [00:36:26] Speaker B: Like, he had like the big spike that shot out and then retracted, which was kind of fun. But overall, they didn't do anything for me. The CGI didn't like, stand out, good or bad. So it's like, meh. It was. Whatever. [00:36:40] Speaker A: I. I might be taking a fairly different stance on this one. I. Obviously, I would rather it be practical than cgi or practical with a little CGI to help. I'm starting right there. But I didn't run into. And again, maybe I wasn't paying as hard of attention. I wasn't on my phone for this one and I stayed awake the entire time. So yay, two wins. But I didn't run across any of these set pieces looking terrible. You know what I mean? Like, you mentioned the. The science lab and how well lit it was. You could really see the Predator. It would make perfect sense to me that a science lab would be perfectly well lit. I think the dual nudity. Docking base. Not docking base. What do you call it? The. Where you get super clean. Right. [00:37:26] Speaker C: The decontamination without her clothes on. I'm not gonna complain about that, man. Let's say, hey, let's take our battles. No, you're right. That was stupid. That was stupid. It was. It was a Ploy to get Olivia Munn naked. And I mean, whatever. [00:37:42] Speaker A: The second time where she's like, cowering and naked and you're just like, all right, a part of me is not hating this. And a much bigger part of me is like, this is totally unnecessary. But it, the whole scene, like the actual lab didn't, like, it looked like a futuristic lab. Like, that's kind of what I would. [00:37:56] Speaker C: I thought, I thought it kind of looked like a lunchroom at like a Google office or something. Like this open floor plan with like neon lighting every. Everywhere and stuff. I think a science lab should be well lit. Right? But this is like a government underground bunker base thing. I. I don't think it should be so futuristic and trendy. I wanted to. To look, I don't know, like, if you've ever watched the Boys, when, When there's ever like a lab scene in the Boys, it looks like kind of dungeonesque, you know, Even though they're well lit labs and stuff, but they, they seem real to me with real science equipment and stuff. This one, it seemed fake and, and unrealistic. It looked like they were just showing off stuff for the sake of showing it off. I, I just. I don't know. I wanted authenticity in this movie. They didn't try for that at all. [00:38:48] Speaker B: It also seems odd, like in this scientist's lab, that they have all of these old Predator masks and weapons mountains. [00:38:59] Speaker C: Did you see that they had this from avp? [00:39:02] Speaker B: Yes. I. I was talking to Dan about. I think I was talking to Dan about this or somebody that this makes AVP part of the more so part of the Predator franchise because they input that spear into this movie. But why is it all just on display? Yeah, it should all be like, plugged in. Trying to crack the code on this technology that the kid just does in three seconds. Yeah, it didn't make any sense for that to be like that in the lab, but whatever. [00:39:33] Speaker C: Yeah, so we lost authenticity there. And then I think, you know, I talked about the ending. The ending was just so horrific to me. But let's back up to the ending of the big Predator when they're like, fighting him. At one point, one of the characters, I forget the guy's name. He. He says, that's. That's a priceless alien artifact or something. And they like, toss it into the back of the pickup with the dog or whatever. And like later he gets that thing and I never really know what that thing is. And he puts it on the spear and shoots it at the guy and it Blows up, right? Like, blows his limbs off and stuff. And I was like. I didn't understand what it was that he shot on that spear at the big guy. Why it worked, what happened? How come that. And then. And then later, like, he walks up and. And he's like, they're. They're trying to do the line, right? You're one ugly mother. And he's like, shut the fuck up. And just shoots him in the face with his 9 millimeter pistol. And it just kills him. And I'm like, really? You've been shooting some really high caliber stuff at this guy and it's been bouncing off and suddenly you put him down with your sidearm. Like, it was just kind of weird. [00:40:46] Speaker B: Like, that's kind of been a problem throughout the franchise, though, right? [00:40:51] Speaker C: We had that sequence in. In Predators 2 when he's on the train and they're shooting him as he's walking through the train and nothing's hurting him. But then later, you've got them, you know, in the. In the meat packing plant blowing holes in him, and it never really makes sense. That was a huge one for me, that I was like, the big battle at the end, they're doing acrobats. She's tossing in weapons like it's a football, and he's catching it, and they're in perfect harmony even though they just met. It was just. It was a mess. [00:41:18] Speaker A: I really dislike that aspect that you bring up there. Like in the first Predator movie, they fire a ridiculous amount of weapons at him, but they give you plausible deniability. Like, he didn't get hit by any of it, right? Like, he just wasn't there anymore. When they're unloading on that, he's gone, right? Like, he gets, like, the scratch here or there and leaves some blood marks. But for the most part, he's. He's not immune to bullets. He's just not where you think he is. And then kind of starting with two, they kind of get away from that and get a little bit more. Like, no, he can take quite a beating, but, like, at least in two, he's bleeding. He has that respirator. Like, he's. He's hurt, right where, like, he loses a limb. Like, he's hanging off the building ready to end it all. Kind. He's like, yeah, I'm beat. This is it for me. And then you get into, like, predators and the Predator, and all of a sudden they're like tanks. Like, they are just taking. Like he's naked in the lab, taking shot after shot. After shot, and you don't see much of any blood or anything. Like, he's just eating it and just going like, ha. It was really weird. And I didn't like that at all. And then, even though it's a bigger predator, it's the super evolved version, it still felt like, why is. Why are bullets doing literally nothing? [00:42:24] Speaker C: Well, they over explain that bit of dialogue. Will, do you remember the. The part. Did you see that he just formed an exoskeleton under his skin? Like, yeah, yeah. We didn't need to say it out loud. We saw it. We saw his skin get all hardened. [00:42:39] Speaker B: You know, he's turned into the thing from Marvel Comics. Yeah, yeah. [00:42:45] Speaker C: It was like, I just don't know why they had to make this monster like I wanted. I came here for the predator, like in the title. Not. Not the Ultra Predator. Not. I didn't want to see the Predator go Super Saiyan, for crying out loud. It was just dumb. I just. It was so dumb to me. So dumb and unnecessary. [00:43:06] Speaker B: I also just feel like, sure, you're increasing their crazy DNA and like, what their bodies are capable of, but they're obviously, like, super technologically advanced as well, and that's what we've seen throughout these movies. And they kind of just like throw that away for this. Like, super. I'm just a big brawling badass. Like, I just take you all on it because I have exoskeleton whenever I want. And I just felt like it. It was a step back and not a step forward in their evolutionary predatorial success. [00:43:43] Speaker C: And Brian hit it on the head. [00:43:45] Speaker B: It just turns into a monster movie and not like a cool creature you want to know more about. It's like, oh, here's the monster. We have to kill it now. [00:43:54] Speaker A: Yeah, I. I'm not denying anything you're saying. And I realize there's a huge part of me that just loves the debate. So take this with a grain of salt. This is not me defending the movie. But again, like, humanity has drones, and yet people go hunting with bow and arrows. So it's not entirely out of the realm that, like, oh, you've got all this ridiculous technology, and yet you're going after people with spears and such. Right? Like, right. But sometimes it is. [00:44:17] Speaker B: This predator specifically isn't here to do hunting. They're here to catch this rogue predator and stop them from delivering technology that shouldn't be in the hands of humans. So it would happen. [00:44:31] Speaker A: I was thinking the last, like, the last 10 minutes, where he's like, I'll give you a seven. Yeah. [00:44:35] Speaker C: Okay. [00:44:35] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's them. [00:44:37] Speaker A: Like that's kind of more him just being sporty. Yeah. [00:44:39] Speaker B: I just feel also like that end part and I read somewhere that they had to reshoot the last third of the movie or something. Like the last act had to get re reshot because it didn't play well to test audiences or something. I'm not sure what it even was about. [00:44:55] Speaker A: Okay. [00:44:55] Speaker B: But it felt like the last part where it's like, okay, we're going to set up Typical hunt. Always happens in the Predator movies because that's what Predator is about. So it just felt so half ass lazy. And so this group of people there didn't have time to really figure out how to beat this thing. They just beat it by overwhelming it. It just, it, it all felt clunky from start to finish. Finish the whole last act of this movie. And that was the rewrite reshoot. So I can only imagine what the first thing was that was terribly received. [00:45:29] Speaker A: Well, I almost wonder. Okay, first off, I'm not gonna let you get away with that. The entire movie felt clunky and ridiculous. It was not just the last half, but also I wonder if there was a better vision for the last little bit. And then studio execs came and be like, what is this? I want to see the hunter or the predator hunt humans. What is, what is this end scene where I don't even know what could possibly have happened. But you know what I mean? Like, I wonder if that was meddling and that was the part where they're just like, no, now we're just gonna cram like that seventh movie into this to try and make it even less cohesive. I have no idea. I, I didn't know about that reshoot. I have no idea what the reshoots were about. But I'd be curious what Shane Black or whoever originally had planned because maybe it was something different than just another predator hunting another group of humans. Yeah, probably worse. No idea. But. [00:46:21] Speaker B: I don't know. We'll never know. And that's probably okay. [00:46:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm pretty okay with it. [00:46:28] Speaker B: Okay. I do want to say, you know what? I didn't mind Trager. Sterling K. Brown, he was like this hot headed military guy who's like, it's my way or the highway. I'm gonna just kill everybody. [00:46:42] Speaker C: Everybody Pretty much always. At least three pieces of nicotine gum. [00:46:46] Speaker B: Yeah, he's just popping the gum. The Chiclet. Steady. I like that actor because this is the kind of characters he always plays. And So I can appreciate that role for him. [00:46:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:46:57] Speaker B: So I didn't mind him. I just think he has a nice presence. Like he, he always commands the screen. Like totally overshadowed. The lead character in this movie. [00:47:08] Speaker A: Most of them did the lead. I'm looking at the list. The lead character is the only one that I really had an issue with. Like, he just didn't feel like he was in the same movie or was cast properly. Like Brian, you mentioned the kid. I didn't even mind the kid per se. I haven't spent as much time with people on the spectrum, so I couldn't tell you whether or not he was doing a good or a bad job of portraying that. I'm not going to get into that. I. He didn't take me out of the film. I feel like most people did an okay job. Sterling K. Brown, I really enjoy in other things in this one, he was a little too much the hard headed. Like, I can kind of get where he's coming from in the sense of like, no, we need to keep everything under wraps and that means no witnesses. [00:47:50] Speaker C: Right. [00:47:51] Speaker A: But also it feels like there's more important stuff right now than killing the other humans that are also trying to kill the Predator. Like, yeah, yeah. It just felt a little too short sighted. [00:48:00] Speaker B: Yeah. It was almost like an ego thing. Right. Between him and him. And the lead was like an ego trip. [00:48:05] Speaker A: Right. I'll give you that for sure. Even like, oh, when this is over, we're gonna dance. Oh, count on it. I'm like, oh, good God. Guys like to get it over, right? [00:48:13] Speaker C: No, I didn't mind Sterling K. Brown. I. I really like him from the show. This is us. I think he has the chops to do just about anything he wants to do. And I'll go check it out. I don't think that the direction and the script for this was wide enough for a character of his caliber. He. I think he did fine with what he, what he had. But I, I think a lot of these characters were undercooked or maybe overcooked. They're trying for, for too much in these characters. [00:48:41] Speaker B: Maybe there's just too many characters. [00:48:43] Speaker C: Yeah, that too. [00:48:44] Speaker B: I'm not sure what it was like. Again, it felt like they tried to take the original Predator formula where you have this group of kind of misfits or whatever and they all kind of have their quirky nature to them, but it just felt half baked. [00:49:01] Speaker C: Right. [00:49:01] Speaker B: It just didn't. It didn't follow through as well as previous iterations. Even the predators did it better. I felt than this. [00:49:09] Speaker A: At the end of the. At the end of the day, you need fodder, right? And you need the fodder to be named people that you recognize or like. And that's what these movies have always done relatively well, is give you either characters you enjoy or actors you enjoy to give you that, like, instant attachment to them. Right? Like, I'm going to attach to Olivia Munn. I'll pick somebody else. I mean, attached to Keegan Michael Key. [00:49:32] Speaker B: It's too late. [00:49:34] Speaker A: Attached to her, no complaints. I'm going to test, like, Keegan Michael Key, fashion, attached to somebody I've never seen before. So when he dies, it's going to mean more, right? Because, like, at the end, you've got Trager and his faceless goons, and they'll get wiped away pretty quickly, and you're kind of like, yeah, whatever. And then you see, like, Keegan die, you see Trager die, you see Nebraska die, and you're just like, oh, like that. That kind of sucks. Or, oh, yeah, that guy finally died. Like, it just means a little bit more. So you kind of need it to be a big cast. Like that said in 87 with. With Arnold, who's obviously the big star. If it had literally just been Arnold in the jungle with a predator for an hour and a half, you wouldn't necessarily think the Predator is all that terrifying because he never does anything. Whereas if you have, like nine people and he kills eight of them, you're like, oh, shit, this guy's a threat. [00:50:18] Speaker B: Yeah, 100. I just feel like you don't need big actors to do that. You just need good writing to create those characters. [00:50:28] Speaker A: And that's why I said you need one or the other. Right? [00:50:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:50:30] Speaker A: Be good at well written or already likable and. Right. The already likable route for me. [00:50:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. Unfortunately, it's not enough for me. [00:50:41] Speaker A: No, that's fair. Listen, guys, I'm talking higher than Brian is. I'm not saying this is going to get a great review. I'm just saying, like. [00:50:49] Speaker B: So with. [00:50:50] Speaker C: With those characters, the. The nut bus guys. [00:50:54] Speaker B: The loonies. [00:50:55] Speaker C: The loonies. I actually kind of like that. For me, those guys were the highlight of this film. Even though they didn't fit in this film, they were. The only thing I kind of enjoyed was their characters and their banter and watching these guys who most of those characters I recognize from other stuff. And. And like, like Dan says, I was attached to them almost immediately. I did not like the way any of them died. I was like, that didn't do this character justice. The only one that was cool enough was the two guys that were kind of had their own little bromance going on. And that was a joke in and of itself. And so it was kind of like, okay, it's more mocking, but at least they made something out of it. Like the. The. The one guy, I forget which character he was, but he was sniping from Up Top, and the Predator just walks up and stabs him, and he was gone. I was like, really? That was it. I mean, he didn't really have a lot of lines in the movie in the beginning, but whatever. But the way those characters died just kind of left me wanting a little bit more. We've seen other characters, like, put up a little bit of fight against the Predator and kind of stand their ground. Like Bill Paxton on the subway, like, he was doing everything he could against the Predator, and he lasted a few minutes. And, you know, he was a great character too, so. So his attempt was kind of cool. The other guy is just like. Like, some would happen real quick, they'd be dead. I was like, really? Like, really just like that. So that kind of bothered me, the way that they died real quick. The two. The two characters. Keen Key and. Yeah. [00:52:37] Speaker B: Baxley and Coil. Yeah. [00:52:39] Speaker C: Can you guys explain to me what there was. There was a little bit of an explain. Like they. They both did something and they were both waiting in court, and that's how they became friends. And he says, kind of romantic, isn't it? Like, I didn't catch that the second time around. I was. I was trying to understand, how did these guys become friends? Why? What happened to them? Did you guys catch that storyline? [00:52:58] Speaker A: I didn't catch exactly. Exactly what the specifics were on it. My impression was, yeah, they were. They'd been through something together, it drew them closer. And there was hints at a relationship, but I couldn't quite tell if it was a serious thing or it almost, as you mentioned before, almost felt like it was mocking it more so than it was a serious thing. So I couldn't tell if there was actually feelings there or they were just, like, close friends and people mocked them for being feelings there because I. I couldn't quite. I couldn't quite put my finger on that one. [00:53:27] Speaker C: Well, I could have swore that one of them, like, wiped out the other guy's unit or something. And they were started off as, like, mortal enemies, but because they had to keep going to court over it, they ended up becoming best buddies or something. I didn't get it. Yeah, there was something weird there. [00:53:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm not sure either. Like, they definitely set up the movie at the beginning. Like they hated each other. Right. And that's kind of went toe and toe for them to get off the bus and everything to set up that scene. And then slowly throughout the movie, you see that. Oh, no, they're actually friends. And then. And then they reveal that. Yeah. Something about them in court. Because the Coil character was a helicopter pilot. I can't remember if I heard again because who's really paying attention to this movie? Something about him. I can't even remember if, like he put down the chopper and killed the unit or something. But for some reason I thought that Baxley was part of that unit and maybe he was survived or maybe it's what you said and they were against each other. I don't know. [00:54:36] Speaker C: Yeah, no, I think he was. He was like the pilot or something and got the entire unit killed except for the other guy. And so they kind of like hated each other or something like that. I have no, at the end, like, they kind of like forgave each other by this whole encounter. It was. It was one more thing that was more than this movie could handle. Pulling off it was way outside the scope of what this movie could handle. And they tried adding it in and it was. I don't know. [00:55:02] Speaker A: You could have had that been pretty simple of like, oh, they were in the same squad. They were good friends. They're flying a helicopter. Something happened. They blame each other for the crash. They hate each other. And then through this, in this experience, they're kind of like, oh, you know, this is where why I liked you in the first place. And they grow that friendship back or something. I didn't get any of that from this movie. I made all of that up now. But I'm just saying, like, no, I. [00:55:24] Speaker C: Mean, they had a big screen TV that was laying out some dialogue for us because we're too stupid of viewers to understand that the Predator wanted to give him a seven minute head start. So, I mean, they didn't do anything right in this movie. They just went for the easy way out and they tried so many things that didn't even belong in this film. That's why I'm so offended by this. The one thing that we have liked throughout the first three movies was the idea of the Predator. The look of the Predator for the most part, you know, and how the Predator would hunt people. We really liked that slow progression of picking off the team members. That's what we liked in predators, that's what we liked. In Predator 1 they kind of rushed into it. In Predator 2 we didn't like that so much because it's kind of spoiled, that build up and everything. But that was the kind of thing that we liked. And in this one we didn't have any. Any of that. We didn't have any of that. It was this whole other plot thing going on, trying to explain a backstory of the predators that has never existed before and doesn't need to now. [00:56:26] Speaker A: I didn't really think about it until just now. Do we see any like, other than. I guess they use the. The Wolverine claws to shoot out, which we've never seen before. Does he have any new toys or gadgets or anything? Or is it just. He's bigger. He's bigger because, like, we don't really see the Frisbee. I don't remember seeing the spear. [00:56:43] Speaker B: There's a. There is like a circular. It's not a frisbee, but more like a throwing star. I thought wasn't there. [00:56:48] Speaker C: It was the throwing star from avp. It was the same one from avp and they brought it. So we. [00:56:53] Speaker B: So we should be watching that movie. [00:56:55] Speaker C: We're not watching avp. [00:56:56] Speaker B: We should be watching that movie. It's a Predator movie franchise. [00:56:59] Speaker C: But it was. It was straight from avp and they have. That's when he says. He says, you got to throw it. He's like. He's like, it's going to come back to you. You gotta. You gotta catch it on the wrist. Hand off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's from AVP and AVP Requiem. So. Yeah, no new toys. No new toys. Did you guys notice that the big predator didn't need to wear a mask to have all his thermal vision and stuff? It was like built right into his eye sockets, apparently. Oh, no shoulder cannon on the big predator either. He just had a big. [00:57:31] Speaker A: No, I missed that. [00:57:32] Speaker B: No, DNA. DNA takes care of all of that. [00:57:35] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, DNA. But thank God spinal cords. They can't think this stuff up on their own. [00:57:42] Speaker A: It. Yeah, it's disappointing. I'm thinking back, you mentioned the, the deaths a little while ago, and I've been trying to think about it. Like, the only death that stood out to me, I was like, oh, that's kind of cool. Was actually from Quinn when he's like point blank to another human and the guy's like, oh, what do you do? Kill me? The tricolor. He's like, you took my kid. Yeah. And he shoots him in the eye. With a triangle. I'm like, that was the coolest death in a Predator movie. That's kind of wrong. [00:58:07] Speaker C: The other guys, like, one guy gets his legs chopped off by this, by the force field. The other guy is like, let's commit suicide. [00:58:14] Speaker B: Yippee. [00:58:15] Speaker C: It just jumps into the engine. And yeah, they had some dialogue that showed he was suicidal, but he was a little too happy about that. Like, I don't know, it just seemed weird. [00:58:26] Speaker B: That was redemption, a little bit of his story heart. That wasn't suicide as much as sacrifice, right? [00:58:31] Speaker C: Like, yeah, it was a suicide sacrifice kind of thing like that. But, like, he was just, like, he was like, itching for an excuse to off himself. And it was. It was one. It was just one of those things. It was another complex attempt that they didn't pull off very well. And I was sad to see him go like that. I was sad to see that one weird guy get his legs cut off and just slip off the side of the ship out into the nowhere, you know, I mean, there were so many things that they just kind of got off real fast. And I was like, yeah. [00:58:58] Speaker B: I also have a little bit of worry about the Predator ships. If a bird flies into that and it just takes down the ship, it's a little strange. [00:59:08] Speaker A: Why does the shield not cover that? [00:59:10] Speaker B: Yeah, well, because you got to get the airflow, man. If you don't have airflow, what's going to happen? [00:59:16] Speaker C: Yeah, I really. I really like the ships in AVP because they were silent running. They seem so cool in avp. That was one of the only really good things about that, that maybe someday we'll cover that one. But these ships and their technology and the look of everything and just. I don't know, this whole movie just really disappointed me at every turn. [00:59:36] Speaker A: It never occurred. I just want to talk about the shield for one quick second. Just as a sci fi nerd, it never occurred to me that, like in Star Trek, Star wars, any of these movies where you've got a spaceship with shields, that the shield was going to be a physical, tangible thing that could potentially, like, eat things around it. Like, it wasn't necessarily done all that well in this movie, but it kind of raised that interesting concept, like, oh, how does that work? Like, what could we see that do in the future? I feel like in Star Trek specifically, the shields are way out from where the spaceship is. It's not like a foot like this one is like, they are like miles away from the spaceship. If you could just get close to a Romulan Ship and just be like, shields up. Crunch. See what happens. Probably Star Trek. There's a yelling at me right now. [01:00:24] Speaker C: I don't know. There's. I'm trying to find some fun things and stuff that I enjoyed about this movie, but honestly, I enjoyed it being over. [01:00:33] Speaker A: What about you? [01:00:34] Speaker B: Well, I'd say I. Yes, I agree. This is a parody of the Predator franchise. And if anybody wants to argue me on that fact, I refer you to the scene in the military van where the Predator takes a dead man's arm and reaches through to the driver after he asks, what's going. Are you guys okay back there? Dead arm. Thumbs up from the Predator. There you have it. Okay. [01:01:06] Speaker C: Yeah. Now, that's absolute parody. [01:01:09] Speaker B: That's what makes this movie enjoyable to me. But the problem is, either they didn't go far enough with that stupid humor, or they still try to do enough serious stuff. Like, there's no proper balance there. They should have gone all in one way or the other, and they just didn't. And so overall, to me, it made it for a fail, especially in this franchise. [01:01:36] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's. So I. I blocked that moment from my brain. Even as it happened. I was like, what are we doing? [01:01:42] Speaker C: When I saw that, I was like, will's laughing right now. I saw that. [01:01:47] Speaker B: Exactly. Right now. I was. I almost spit. [01:01:50] Speaker A: I was, like, eating lunch while I was watching. [01:01:52] Speaker B: I almost spit on my food. I was like, no, they didn't. [01:01:55] Speaker A: No, they didn't. [01:01:57] Speaker B: Amazing. Amazing. [01:01:59] Speaker A: Because of course, predators know human sign language, but whatever. [01:02:03] Speaker B: Of course. [01:02:04] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. Yeah, I. This movie is an absolute train wreck. It's a mess. It's. It's a parody. Like, there's not really any redeeming qualities. And in, like, a weird way, I didn't. I'm never gonna watch this movie again other than if I have to do it for a show, I'm just gonna say it right there. But the one time that I watched it, I was never bored. [01:02:31] Speaker B: Right. [01:02:31] Speaker A: You know what I mean? Like. Like, it keeps a good pace. It keeps going. The characters are there enough that you're not, like, hating every second of it. It's just one of those, like, I don't know. I don't know how to word it. It's. It's kept my attention, and it kept me guessing where it was going, because, quite frankly, it didn't know where it was going. So it would be really hard for me to guess what was going to happen next when it doesn't have a clue. Every, like, 10 minutes, the entire Plot of the movie changes for the worse. There was so much, to use Brian's word, there was so much potential in this movie. There were so many times we're like, oh, this could actually have been something interesting. And then it went the other direction. You're just like, oh, never mind. I. I don't know. It's really hard to score this one because, like, I didn't like it. I'm never gonna watch it again. It's probably my least favorite Predator, and yet I was watching the entire time. I didn't have my phone out once. I don't believe. I didn't, like, nod off at all. Like, I was, like, awake. I was in it. I was watching it. I was like, okay, I'm curious. What's heck gonna happen next? It makes it sound like I really enjoyed it. I. I didn't, but it was like, it. I've watched worse. Let's just put it that after watching Highlander, this wasn't that bad. It just wasn't good enough to be part of the Predator franchise. [01:03:50] Speaker B: All right, Dan, kick it off. What do you. You were probably the most positive person, so I can't wait to hear what your rating actually becomes. [01:03:58] Speaker A: I was. I was. All right. I was a little surprised at this one. So I break them down into five categories. Generally, the music slash sound effects in this one, I really didn't have a whole lot to go on. Nothing really stood out as being super, super good or super bad. You dead. You did get the Predator theme in here. That, like, kind of jungly beat. A little bit super subtle, but it was there. I liked that the guns, a lot of the guns sounded really underpowered, if that makes any sense. Like they would shoot and they just sounded tinny as opposed to, like, explosive cinematography. I. I disagree with Brian on this one. I actually thought this movie looked fairly good for how bad I was anticipating it being. It's not looking great. Don't get me wrong. It could have looked a lot better, but it didn't look terrible. It didn't take me out of the film at any point. Sorry, that's not true. There was a couple points that took me out, but for the most part, it kept me in. And like the rip in space that they flow through, I really just thought that was cool. I realized it's like a quarter of a second of a two hour movie, but both times that it happened, I was like, that's. That's a cool effect. I really do like that. As far as the acting goes, I've mentioned it A bunch. Quinn, Boyd, Holbrooke is the only one that I just felt was super out of place in this movie. All the other characters were fine in what we got of them. Like, I'm not expecting high drama from any of these characters. They all gave me enough. The plot was horrendous. It was 19 movies mashed into one. This feels like the very definition of studio notes. Like, it was. I'd be so curious to see what Shane Black's original script looked like, because I have a feeling he had an idea. And people came in, were like, no, no, this is a Predator movie. You gotta do this. We gotta do this. We gotta do this. Marvel's really big right now, and Marvel has quippy one liners. Throw some quippy one liners in there. Talk about how it's not really a Predator, it's a hunter. Like. Like all this nonsense maybe that was in there in the first place. Maybe they saved it from. And it was even worse than it was. I have no idea. But this felt like somebody tried to make a movie and other people were like, no, no, no, do this instead. It just felt really off and all over the place. But at the end of the day, my enjoyment. My fifth category. I didn't hate the hour and a half that I spent watching this. It felt longer than an hour and a half. I'll give it that. I didn't love it. I'm not going back to it ever, if I can help it. But I didn't hate it. I gave this one 64 out of 100. [01:06:11] Speaker C: Whoa. [01:06:13] Speaker A: Just the tiniest hair above Predator 2, which blew me away. I did not think that this would get better than any of the other Predator movies. I thought this would be the lowest one in the franchise. [01:06:22] Speaker B: This was above Predator 2 for you. [01:06:25] Speaker A: Barely, but barely. Wow. [01:06:29] Speaker B: Wow. [01:06:30] Speaker A: I know. Brian hates me. It's a good thing there's an entire, like, continent between us right now. [01:06:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:06:37] Speaker C: You guys overseas in Canadia. [01:06:39] Speaker B: Okay, go ahead, Brian. Go, Go. Ham on this guy. Show Dan. Tell Dan how bad he messed up this rating. [01:06:47] Speaker C: Yeah, he did. He failed miserably. So plot and direction both just a biz. The direction of this movie was probably the lowest, by far the lowest I've ever scored on anything. I don't know what they were thinking. They didn't. They tried everything. They didn't pull it off. Dan, you said it's the studio notes that. That rings true to me, that it feels like 17 people wanted to inject a bunch of different things in here, and no one was Allowed to say no to any of it. And it was all garbage. And no, there was no way that they could pull it off. The plot was all over the place. I don't like where they were trying to take this franchise. It didn't need to go there. There was so much unnecessary changes to the structure of it. And for as for acting mid at best there were known characters that I really felt were strong in this. There were characters that weren't given enough breadth or maybe had an over baked character that didn't need to be. But for the most part there wasn't anything remarkable. There were a few kind of pretty bad actors, but nothing, nothing terribly bad either. Other than the kid. I didn't like the kid, but that's me. Child actors are either hit or miss. The special effects bothered me. There were way too many special effects, way too much cgi. It was a CGI fest and that bothers me to my core. I don't want to go to a movie that is almost entirely CGI or even have large CGI sequences. I don't like that. It doesn't look cool to me. It looks bad. It takes me out of the film and it looks fake to me. I like it when they use special effects like that in conjunction with the practical effects to enhance them. And so the special effects really plummeted low in this as far as this franchise goes. Even they even screwed up the blood. Man, the blood used to look so good and it didn't look right in this movie. That bothered me as far as the sound effects and, and the music went again kind of mid for me. They had the original song in there, but they didn't overplay it. They mixed in with some other stuff. It didn't take me out or put me in or anything. It was just kind of there. It was okay. But I noticed the same thing as you. The gun special. The sound effects for the guns didn't really sound right. They sound like they were all firing stuff with silencers or something. It was kind of weird. I didn't really like that. Then. I have one thing I like to to do is is this movie gonna hold up? And for me, no, no, it's not gonna hold up very long. It's. It's stupid. It's just stupid. And it's not something anybody's ever going to take seriously. So why would, why would it hold up? You know, I thought Predator 2 felt like it would hold up better than this movie. And they had this unrealistic futuristic version of LA that didn't doesn't make any sense today at all, but I can get past that and just kind of go, okay, so they got big guns and lots of crime, and I'll just let that slide. But this one. This is just. It was dumb. Their. Their special forces team was just a bunch of morons with black body armor running around not understanding what's going on. The. The military guys, the actual military guys did not feel realistic in any way, shape, or form. I think when you take a realistic character that's from the military, it adds so much. I think genuine human beings who serve in our military tend to have a very complex personality, and I like seeing genuine representation of that on the screen. This one didn't even attempt it. The. Our main character was not a sniper. He was not in the. In the vicinity of it. And it was all very unrealistic to me. None of it just really. Just holds water for me. However, the first time I watched this movie, I hated it. I walked out of the theater pissed off. I was mad that I wasted my money. I was mad that they ruined my franchise. I was angry about it this time around, going, hey, I'm gonna. I'm gonna channel my inner will here, and I'm just gonna go into this like this is the spoof of the movie that it should be. And I. I found some things to enjoy. I got a little chuckle. I kind of liked some of the banter between some of the characters that did not belong in this movie, but it was okay. And. And that was kind of it. That was kind of the best thing I could say about it. For me, the overall score for this movie comes in at 39. [01:11:41] Speaker B: Oh, whoa. [01:11:44] Speaker C: A lot of that. A lot of that is from the plot and the direction. [01:11:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:11:49] Speaker C: And did it. Did it hold up? Was it fun? Those things came in real low for me. Real low. And, yeah. So 39. [01:11:59] Speaker A: I. Two things. Just super quick. I don't have the same emotional connection to this franchise as a whole that you do, but I will have to correct myself. This one actually did come in lower than Predator. I thought I gave Predator 263. I gave it 65. So it is technically the lowest of the bug. [01:12:15] Speaker C: Okay, okay, okay, whatever. [01:12:16] Speaker A: Neither here nor there. [01:12:17] Speaker C: Fair. [01:12:17] Speaker A: Fair. [01:12:18] Speaker B: All right. I parallel Brian's sentiments a lot. I feel direction and writing, we're lacking a lot in this. I actually gave the acting one of the higher scores through my rating in this just because I feel with what script they did have, the acting was fairly fine or the acting did okay. It provided the Purpose in which it was meant to. Aside from the lead, I felt the lead was kind of a wet noodle. I don't know, maybe another role would have been better. But yeah, aside from that, like, overall, like, this is supposed to be a sci fi action movie, I think it's. It felt hard leaning into the sci fi element and less into the action. Even though there was lots of different action, I just felt the action seemed not well executed or not well thought out. [01:13:15] Speaker C: I don't know. [01:13:16] Speaker B: I just didn't really love the action sequences as much as I should have, I feel, or as much as they should have given me. I don't know. So overall, I didn't hate the CGI as much as Brian, but it didn't do anything for me. Overall, I. I just laughed at this movie because it was almost on that, passing that line of so bad it's funny. Like multiple times it passed the line for me that it was so bad it was funny and I had a few outbursts throughout this movie because it was so bad. Overall, It's a straight 50 ranking for me. It's not a good movie. I had some laughs watching it. Will I watch it again? Maybe in, what, 10 years when I forgot, I watched it and I just come across it. I remember Thumbs up Predator. Perfect. [01:14:11] Speaker C: Yeah, A thumbs up for this terrible movie. [01:14:16] Speaker A: If I refer this as anything other than thumbs up Predator, from now on, you have the right to hit me. All right, so with that, our scores are 64, 39, and 50, giving this a total of 51 points on the board, making it the lowest Predator movie so far by a pretty significant margin. And I gotta say, I'm just gonna guess on this one. We'll leave it for next week. But based off what's coming next, I got to assume it's gonna be the lowest ranked movie, period, in this franchise. Because what's coming next is pretty darn good. [01:14:50] Speaker B: Don't spoil it. I haven't seen it yet. [01:14:52] Speaker A: All right, and that was our take on the Predator. What did you think? Do we score too high? Too low? Leave a comment down below. Tell us how we did. We recorded this live over Twitch TV themongoolie show. So if you want to come participate. It's recorded every Thursday night, 9:00pm Eastern Standard Time. Come on out, hang out with us. Get your questions in. We'll talk about it after the show. Other than that, hit the like button. If you made it this far in the video, you probably enjoyed it. If you're still here and hit subscribe so you see more great content like this going forward. Other than that, we'll catch you all next time. Have a great night, everybody.