THE PREDATOR
After an eight-year absence, the Predator is back. Is Shane Black the tonic it needs?
Read this if you’re in town with a few hours to kill.
THE PREDATORS’ HUNTING grounds have ranged from the Central American jungle to (the then) future LA. But few things can have prepared them for the most challenging terrain of all: the suburbs.
Having been on an extended hiatus since Robert Rodriguez’ Predators, one of the mandibled monsters returns in
The Predator to stalk the commuter belt: home of ten-year-old Rory Mckenna (Jacob Tremblay), who inadvertently draws the creatures’ ire after stumbling across an alien artefact. If the Predator’s latest quarry seems a little leftfield, it’s exactly what we’ve come to expect from director Shane Black. Working from a script co-written with Fred Dekker, Black saw the film as an opportunity to take a welcome trip down memory lane.
“I wanted to make a movie me and Fred might have stood in line for when we were kids,” Black tells us. “To take ’80s nostalgia and pack it into one place.”
With an advanced Predator that has harvested its prey’s DNA to perfect itself, a rag-tag squad of ex-military misfits, plus whip-smart dialogue, The Predator is far more than just another big game hunt.
“There’s more a sense of espionage thriller to this one,” he explains. “The Predators have attracted attention now, and the global intelligence community is involved.” Spy thrills and shady conspiracies, then, plus an extra-terrestrial hunter out to take your skin — this is
Predator, Shane Black style.