RED BAND TRAILER WARNING
The second trailer for The Predator is a marked improvement over the jokey tone of the first look we had at the film (click here). While the Predator is an extremely cool creature, none of the the “classic” films are actually, what’s the word, good. It has a great design and a great concept, but neither of the first two solo Predator films or the Aliens vs. Predator films actually was the kind of great science fiction/horror film the character deserves. The second trailer definitely has more of a horror vibe than the first. Shane Black has made films I really love (Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang) and films I really did not love (Iron Man 3), so we’ll have to see how the film is received in three months. The Predator will star Sterling K. Brown, Jacob Tremblay and Olivia Munn. The Predator will open in theaters September 14, 2018.
Now, that’s more like it! 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
The most dangerous game of all… man.
Shane Black has never done a film in this genre before. It’s true that he hasn’t directed many movies overall, and maybe he hasn’t found his directing-niche yet. Maybe this turns out to be the niche. Everyone has to start somewhere. But this trailer hasn’t motivated me to go out and see the movie, which is already in a genre I tend to avoid.
It’s not that the movie looks bad, it actually looks much better than it has any right to look. I’m not sure, but think I can detect some actual scariness and stylishness. But as you pointed out, these alien beings have never been given a proper starring vehicle before. The filmmakers should have gone back to the beginning, and just told a survival story, with superior imagination and style.
As it stands, this new movie looks cluttered up with too many characters and too much plot, and it looks like it explains the Predators way too much. (Maybe they’e been explained to death at this point… I missed all the sequels to the first one. If the creatures HAVE been explained to death, all the more reason to go back to the franchise roots.)
Also, never forget: as he was making the movie, Shane Black talked to the press and said that his movie was going to be “funny.” The movie implied in this trailer is probably not the film we are getting. They included a bunch of serious parts in this trailer, but we know, from the previous trailer, and Black’s own words, that the tone of the film will be different.
LikeLike