A number of critics seem to have been expecting something much sharper and witty from the pens of Shane Black and Fred Dekker, but The Predator is Black's self-proclaimed return to the films of his youth, and indeed what we get here is a lively (and sometimes very chaotic) big dumb action movie. Like The Alien, there is little more that can actually be done with The Predator as a creature (although the Predators can actually use and translate language) that is essentially a killing machine, so here we have some new ideas thrown into the very standard mix (a boy with Asperger's, a kick-ass female scientist, an essentially unstable A-Team of sectioned war veterans, Predator dogs and a genetically-enhanced super-Predator). Boyd Holbrook makes for a passable anti-hero who throws himself into the action wholeheartedly, and Olivia Munn holds her own in this uber-macho scenario. Idiot Plot does make an appearance quite early on and hangs around for the rest of the movie, Henry Jackman's score is solid but contains some oddly ill-fitting superhero-type cues, and overall there is the occasional feel of a little snipping here and there to get a PG-13 rating. This feels more like a Predator movie than the worthy but dour Predators; as long as you are looking for nothing more than a fun explosive action romp you will be satisfied.
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