Piousbox

Warning: spoilers. Please watch the movie before reading!

As I often do, I bought a DVD of this film without reading reviews, and watched it. A lot of movies that I watch this way turn out to be bad, or very bad. This one however, got me by surprize, in how good the movie was, at least for me. And while it isn't my favorite movie ever (not complicated enough, not "best" enough), it ranks very highly for me. I should also mention that I liked Prey, another Predator movie. So I generally approve of the franchise - it has good fighting, and they have made really good movies in the franchise.

And while I enjoyed the movie, I will openly critique it and discuss its shortcomings.

Predator has good cinematography, and good choreography. When they fight, it's pretty entertaining. It's cool to have an immortal opponent, or a one that cannot be killed. Although they do manage to kill it - with existing technology, so this point is moot.

The producers were very careful with racism in this one. I guess in 2025, the world is still reeling from DEI and all that. So, the main characters is an alien who black people can associate with (say he is black), and white people would also associate with (say he is white). So which race is the protagonist? Neither, as he is the alien. Additionally, the producers seem to have been very careful with this one, making him presentable to be a member of any race. A mutt.

It's curious that every character is a woman. Oops that's an exageration of course - but the producers didn't let our hero even keep a male dog. The main antagonist is a woman, the 'tool' girl is a woman, the pet is a woman, and the pet's mother is also a woman - there is not a single male character who is alive at the end of the movie, apart from our hero.

We find out that the most ferocious, undefeatable creature is... a woman. Even the sequel, as weakly as it is presented, is allegedly driven by a woman.

The other men in the movie all die. The robots, we don't count for men, they are robots. The hero's brother dies, the hero's father also dies, and these were the only males in the movie. Everyone else is a female. Which brings us to the point that this movie's plot is very traditionally constructed. I believe it was a Greek plot device that every boy wanted to kill his own father and marry his own mother - see the myth of Oedipus.

As for the plot, as all the other Predator movies and a majority, I dare say, of other movies, this movie follows the structure of the Monomyth - our hero embarks into the unknown and into danger, to bring back a trophy to his... household, homebase, or his clan, as in this case. So the movie is first and foremost heroic.

Of course, in our modern world somehow the producers decided there won't be sex or sexual context - the attractive female is missing half her body and also genitalia, and there is no sensual context in the film at all. This is a negative about the film.

The fighting is good, the mixture of bio-based weapons and tech-based weapons is good. The final battle is good, and all battles are pretty excellent in this one. The CGI is high-quality top shelf stuff.

So, overall a great flick to watch in a home theater or with friends. I recommend it to anyone.