Review #1,428: 'The Predator' (2018)

Despite its unwavering popularity through the decades, the Predator franchise has failed to find its feet ever since it took off in 1987 with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers battling an alien foe in the jungles of South America. It's sequel, Predator 2, was an overblown mess, and it took twenty years for the threequel, Predators, to arrive and instantly be forgotten. The thirty years that have passed ever since John McTiernan's original seemed to have been one constant effort to steer the series back on course, so it must have seemed like a no-brainer to hire Shane Black, who played one of Arnie's unit first time around, to reignite some interest in the rasta-haired intergalactic travellers. After all, directors with their own sense of style and vision are rarely hired for big-budget blockbusters, and perhaps Black could inject the same level of wit and zip as he did with the likes of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and The Nice Guys.

It pains me to say this, but how tragically wrong they were. This effort to reboot a dying franchise fails on almost every level, from the recycled plot and cast of stock characters, to the forced humour that never so much as raises a giggle, despite the actors' attempts to convince you that they're all having a good time. From the get-go, Black hits us with gun-toting action and CGI blood-spraying, and does so at an alarming rate. One can only wonder if Black had hoped we would be too distracted by the carnage and endless exposition to realise how stupid the film actually is, but it's hard not to notice when the main character begins the film by mailing alien tech back to his family from Mexico under the government's nose. Former army sniper turned mercenary Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holdbrook) is busy on a retrieval mission when he witnesses an alien craft crash to Earth. His crew are wiped out, but Quinn manages to flee with an alien helmet which he sends to his estranged wife Emily (Yvonne Strahovski) and autistic son Rory (Jacob Tremblay). While Quinn is interrogated by the government, the Predator is taken to the lab for experimentation. Yes, you've already guessed what happens next.

As the Predator wreaks havoc and more arrive for the fight, Quinn is thrown in with a bunch of military prisoners, who all are crazy in their own way. They consist of Trevante Rhodes, Augusto Aguilera, Thomas Jane, Keegan-Michael Key and Alfie Allen, and provide most of the film's 'humour'. They are supposed to be lovable but really aren't, but Quinn evidently trusts them enough to leave them alone with an unconscious Olivia Munn. Had they been given a personality, or some actual funny lines of dialogue, the gang may have helped cover up many of The Predator's flaws, but the film has the same uncomfortably conflicted feel of Black's Iron Man 3, which struggled to juggle the director's independent sensibilities with the restrictions of a franchise. It's flashy, colourful and rarely pauses for breath, but doesn't have a style of its own. People are thrown into huge objects to get up like nothing has happened, there's military tough-guy speak, and somebody at one point even yells "get to the chopper!". It's a bunch of thrown-together Easter eggs and action beats you've seen a million times before. I doubt this is the last we've seen of the extraterrestrial trophy-hunter, but it's certainly time to lay him down to rest for a while


Directed by: Shane Black
Starring: Boyd Holbrook, Trevante Rhodes, Jacob Tremblay, Olivia Munn, Sterling K. Brown, Keegan-Michael Key, Thomas Jane, Augusto Aguilera
Country: USA/Canada

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,004: 'Room' (2015)

There has perhaps never been a more obvious metaphor in cinema for the loss of childhood innocence and the sudden arrival of the big, scary, grown-up world out there, but Irish director Lenny Abrahamson, who helmed 2014's magnificent Frank, translates Emma Donoghue's internal monologue-heavy novel of the same name with tenderness and care, successfully avoiding sensationalising the horror at its disturbing core. Room is one of the year's most complex and awe-inspiring films.

Five year-old Jack (Jacob Tremblay) has never left the place he knows as Room. To him, the tiny shed he has lived his entire life is the whole world, with the pictures on the television screen beamed in from some distant galaxy. He and his devoted mother Joy (Brie Larson) spend every day in a set routine, with Joy using every waking moment to tend to her son and shield him from the terrible situation they're actually in. We come to learn that Joy has been locked in Room for seven years, taken a long time ago by a man she only knows as Old Nick (Deadwood's Sean Bridgers), who routinely re-ups their supplies and rapes Joy while Jack peeks through the cracks of his wardrobe.

Larson won an Oscar for her performance here and rightly so. The relationship between Joy and Jack is more than simple mother-and-son, as it comes quickly to light that the boy is the only thing keeping her alive. Still, she struggles with his energy and growing curiosity of things he cannot comprehend, until one day she decides to tell him the truth and plans their escape. Her depression is becoming overwhelming, to the point where she may commit suicide, and then what then for her son? If you're unaware of the plot then don't read any further, for it is the moment Jack finally breaks free, followed shortly after by his mother, when the film moves into different territory altogether - Jack coping with this mind-blowing revelation. There now exists things he has never seen before, such as other people, other places, and the sky.

Tremblay is equally as good as Jack with arguably a more complex character. It's appalling that his name was missing from the Academy's line-up, as this is the finest male performance of the year (as lovely as it was to see Leonardo DiCaprio receive his long-overdue award). His experience of this new, massive planet is amplified by some intelligent camerawork from cinematographer Danny Cohen, who films in sparse wide-shots to heighten the scale, and employs intense close-ups during the early scenes in Room to almost offend your sense of space. Yet its the two leads and their natural chemistry that really assist Room in delivering its intended emotional wallop. Whenever they're apart, you feel the tear and their need for each other. This is powerful, intelligent film-making, with a real hint of the greatness that could come from Abrahamson in the future.


Directed by: Lenny Abrahamson
Starring: Brie Larson, Jacob Tremblay, Sean Bridgers, Joan Allen, William H. Macy
Country: Ireland/Canada

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie