Jaymi Turra – Google

Better than 2018s The Predator, but that wouldn't be hard. Worth more than 2 stars but not worth 3. It spends a lot of time beating you over the head about the Mary Sue status of the main character, which is annoying but something I've come to expect of films lately. The Predator itself behaves weirdly. It wastes time hunting animals, I guess because they're "predators". Probably the only one I could see a Predator challenging would be the bear due to being the apex (and therefore most attractive trophy), which it engages and defeats in unarmed combat and then fairly effortlessly shoulder presses it (and holds it aloft for some time) for good measure. It also seemed to pose no threat to the tribe until the main character essentially dragged her people in front of it. It had not hunted any members of the tribe until AFTER she provoked it. It was too busy playing with woodland critters and presumably the French pelters. I say presumably because this is never actually shown but the pelters know enough about it to be actively trying to hunt it themselves. Eventually we get to the final showdown and suddenly our girl can outrun and outmanoeuvre the Predator despite having previously been shown to be majorly outmatched in those regards. She also, briefly, physically matches him in strength in order to save herself from decapitation. I was looking forward to this movie and interested to see how they would have someone so physically outclassed in every regard (even more so than previous Predator killers) triumph over the Predator. We see some of this in the form of a couple of traps but ultimately the answer was to give her some superhuman capabilities.

It was okay, I guess. Despite the visual spectacle, it didn't really feel like anything of import was happening at any given time. The pacing made it so that you didn't really have time to care about what was going on a lot of the time, and when it did slow down it went too far and I found myself just waiting for certain parts to stop dragging on. I wanted to like it more than I did, but when I was starting to wonder how much runtime was left at about the halfway point, I realised I probably should have waited until the film was released on home media/streaming services. Not a terrible film, but not one I recommend seeing in cinemas to anyone other than hardcore SW fans or people who want a film that's mostly just visual spectacle "filler".

Interesting concept. Nowhere near as smart as it thinks it is; I put the pieces of the ending together within the first 30 minutes, so the payoff of "the twist" had far less impact than it could have. No particularly likable or relatable characters makes the stakes of the plot lower than they should have been and makes the experience less suspenseful since it's difficult to care about what happens to the characters. 5 outta 10, could have been great but wallows in mediocrity. At least Goodman turns out a characteristically good performance with the material he is given.