From a screenplay by Patrick Aison, Dan Trachtenberg directs his third in iconic franchise, and the first live-action entry to be rated 12A (PG-13 in America).
To promote shit, an official one-shot Marvel comic prequel of same name will be released on 12 November.
Yeah, five days after feature presentation hit cinemas.
Ellie Fanning - Thia and Tessa
Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi - Dek
Mike Homik - Kwei
Reuben De Jong - Njohrr
Alison Wright - MU/TH/UR 062578
Summary
Yautja are prey to none.
Friend to none.
Predator to all.
- Yautja Codex
0422/25
Not that it matters, but Codex in animated anthology Killer of Killers was 0522/74.
On Yautja Prime, a young predator called Dek duels with his brother Kwei and loses.
To prove himself, Dek decides to visit Genna and destroy the unkillable Kalisk.
After Kwei is killed by his father Njohrr for refusing to kill Dek, 'runt' arrives on death planet, where everything takes offence to Dek's presence.
He meets Weyland-Yutani synth Thia, who was earlier ripped in half by the Kalisk.
She agrees to take him to big bad's den, on the condition he takes her with him.
Strapping torso to back is presumably a nod to Star Wars, as Chewie carries C-3PO in the same way.
Along the way, a cute ape thing dubbed 'Bud' by Thia also tags along.
Meanwhile, Thia's pseudo sister Tessa is sent by the company to acquire Specimen XX0522, or she'll be 'decommissioned'.
The weak must be culled
While I appreciated hearing Yautja language clearly for the first time (compiled by linguist Britton Watkins), controversial shift in tone is a gamble that didn't pay off and as they did with Alien, Disney have fucked up again.
In the criminally underrated Predator 2, King Willie famously said:
"There's no stopping what can't be stopped. No killing what can't be killed."
Now one of its kind (whose head strategically shaven, looks like a right 'dek' I might add), tries to be funny.
He offers Thia some food, but declines because she doesn't eat, saying gesture was "very sweet". A confused Dek responds: "Flesh is not sweet."
(Sigh).
CG heavy action (including gimmicky slo-mo) is straight out of a video game, which is exactly what this should've been.
When Dek and Bud infiltrate Yutani base to rescue Thia, they send her legs in as a decoy, which to be fair, was pretty quirky.
Aliens is given lots of love, as synth army use derivatives of pulse rifles and Tessa stomps around in a weaponised power loader.
Near invincible monster is basically a giant, spiny dog, with the ability to regenerate body parts, even head.
Bastard is eventually up with freeze grenades.
After dynamic trio return to Yautya Prime and a larger Bud (Kalisk's offspring) literally bites Njohrr's head off, Dek's mother (unseen) arrives in a spaceship.
Who knows if there'll be a direct sequel, but discussions are still ongoing about Arnie reprising his role as Dutch in a future instalment.
Can't see it happening personally.
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