Last episode of the franchise Predator shot in 2021 in absolute discretion, the new component of the most iconic Rasta alien of cinema arrives on the Hulu platform in the United States and on Disney+ in France. What to question about this once inescapable saga of dark rooms, today relegated as a simple Friday evening streaming program...
If he can bleed, we can kill him... over and over
Planned to be a simple mixture between Rambo and Alien (two huge successes at that time), the first Predator quickly became a seminal masterpiece under the leadership of producer Joel Silver (Fatal weapon, Commando, Crystal Trap), his star Arnold Schwarzenegger, director John McTiernan and Stan Winston, a special effects genius who took over the design of the creature following the inconclusive trials of the first version (incarnate in his time by a certain Jean-Claude Van Damme before being fired manu militari by Joel Silver, tired of the constant complaints of the actor). We're not going to put a piece back in the machine but confront Schwarzy (until then hero indestructible) with a giant of space in an epic battle, returning to the primary sources of David's fight against Goliath in a film mixing the most spectacular warring action, the most innovative science fiction and the most terrible horror, had everything from an alignment of the most unlikely planets.
And yet, the film was a success when it was released (in 1987 before the video medium made it cult), so that studio 20th Century Fox decided to put the cover back three years later for a sequence « Bigger and welder », moving action in the caniculous urban jungle of Los Angeles in the midst of gang war. Pure suite comic book by Stephen Hopkins, comic strip athete for Marvel UK and talented director of good peloches (Dangerous Game and Freddy – Chapter 5: Child of the nightmare), Predator 2 Sends wood all along: monstrous gunfight on the opening stage where Danny Glover (in a role planned at the base for Patrick Swayze and even Steven Seagal, Schwarzenegger having left on another mousse suite: Terminator 2) shows that it is not too old for this bullshit, charclage in rule of rastas cocainées to the dreadlocks by the Yautja magnified by the insane photo of Peter Levy (Freddy 5 but also Pirates Island or Broken Arrow), massacre in a métro crowded with armed quidams (and therefore perfect targets for the hunter) up to a mano mano in the beast's window. Not to mention a casting of mouths like we don't do more: Gary Busey (Fatal weapon, Break item), Bill Paxton (the only actor to have been stomped by a Terminator, an Alien and a Predator!), Maria Conchita Alonso (Running Man, Extreme harm), or Robert Davi (Crystal Trap, The Goonies, Permit to Kill), and the monumental percussion martial by composer Alan Silvestri. Despite the sum of the talents committed, Predator 2 is a disappointment at the box office (the public finds the film more disgusting and violent than the original) and it will take fourteen years before seeing the space hunter again...
So it was in 2004 that the Predator returned, but this time accompanied by another beast from space: the no less famous xenomorph for a crossover: Alien vs. Predator. Directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, capable of the best (Horizon Event) as worst (The Three Musketeers and its flying boats), the film does not bring anything to the Fox's respective sagas, if this is some playful action scenes, a cinematic frame (in this case a pyramid buried under the ice) and a formidable job by Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr., responsible for the magnificent creatures of the film (including a beautiful Alien queen). The film made enough entries to see three years later a sequel soberly entitled Alien vs. Predator: Requiem, a series Z abyssale of a nameless morony that annihilates everything that made the qualities of previous films. Filmed in close-up, at night and in a beating rain, the Predator got only a short and magnificent shot of a few seconds where he was seen on his native planet. The hour and a half that remains is only grazed and extremely embarrassing situations with his casting of damaged oysters and his mouldy experiments (the Predalian). The end evoked a follow-up which, fortunately, will never be done.
It is still three years later that the Predator returns, or rather the Predators. Produced by Robert Rodriguez, recycling one of his previously rejected scripts, the film sees several individuals of sad reputation (i.e. killers of all horizons) landing on the planet-reserves rastas to serve as prey to several alien hunters including a Berserker, monstrously dangerous Predator. By-product and cheap as possible (the planet-reserve of the Predators resembles any forest at the bottom of the Creuse), the basic story had to see Arnold Schwarzenegger come back, accompanied by Bruce Willis and... Jean-Claude Van Damme. Las, this film gratifies us instead of an Adrien Brody, having certainly spent time in the gym, but too little impressive and a Topher Grace in serial killer loose. Only Alice Braga comes out with honours, recalling the innocence of Elpida Carrillo from the first film and the combativeness of Maria Conchita Alonso from the second. Despite the obvious motivation of the promising director Nimrod Antal (Motel, Shielded), the film struggles to rise to a respectable level of frankness.
The Fox studio will then play its all-out: go get Shane Black, 80s star writer (Fatal weapon, The Last Samaritan) became a recognized director (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, The Nice Guys, Iron Man 3), to start a new Predator. In addition, Black knew the creature well, having played the role of Hawkins in the first (and incidentally responsible for the most salty dialogues in the film), he was therefore well suited to raise the frankness of his torpor. Again it's a disappointment,The Predator Preferring the valve to the detriment of the scenario that tries to hang up the branches to the mythology of origin (Gary Busey's son plays the role of the son of the character of... Gary Busey in Predator 2). His troupe of nickel-plated feet, although sympathetic, did not convince and seemed almost anachronistic, as if they had been taken out of a comedy and put there by chance. Maybe that's what I want, but in the state, mayonnaise doesn't take it.
When the prey becomes predatory
The box office doesn't take either, sending the Predator back into Fox's closets. However, in parallel with Shane Black's film, Dan Trachtenberg (director of 10 Cloverfield Lane) is working on a scenario titled Skulls. Emma Watts, then president of Fox, accelerated the development of the film just before his resignation and the acquisition of the studio by Disney. Patrick Aison (writer on some TV series like Wayward Pines or Jack Ryan) fine tunes history and changes title for Prey. Despite a well-kept secret, the leaks soon fell: the Predator will be in the game!
Although the firm with big ears did not have any plan on the saga, preferring to bet on Star Wars and Marvel Cinematic Universe, the shooting is started and will end in September 2021. In November of the same year, at Disney+ Day, the film was officially announced for a direct release on Hulu platforms in the states and Disney+ the rest of the world. So, fake event about killing in the egg a relic of the past or real summer surprise?
« In the sky, I saw a sign: the bird storm! »
Since the follow-up did not give full satisfaction to the public, Trachtenberg decided to place the action in 1719, in a territory where young Naru trained to become a hunter. Traditions are what they are and its tribe prevents them. But a visitor coming elsewhere will force the warrior to become to prove that she is not just a carer, which her comrades seem to believe.
Out of the eight closed oppressing with the continuation of Cloverfield, Dan Trachtenberg regains the great air of forest landscapes and gratifies our Predator of a film of the most beautiful setting. If Prey does not have the viscerality of a Apocalypto, whose film is undeniably inspired, the director nevertheless cares for his executives and offers an experience that we have not seen since... McTiernan's first film. A scene on a tree evokes The Hobbit Peter Jackson, another high grass race plan recalls Steven Spielberg's Lost World. Trachtenberg knows its classics and transposes them with brilliance and application. Music composed by Sarah Schachner (video games) Assassins Creed Origins and Valhalla), very different from Silvestri's score in the first two opus, proves to be epic enough to hold attention.
Although known to all, the film will spare its suspense for the appearance of the alien hunter... iconic in hell under a pool of blood, and although the budget limit is felt on certain special effects, the generosity of its scenes takes over. As for the young Naru, Comanche in the midst of forced initiation who will pass from prey to predator, her interpreter Amber Midhunter practically flies the star at Yautja, being present on almost every plane with a force and tenacity rarely seen on the screen.
If Prey is not free from defects (the appearance of trappers breaks the rhythm and the final scene is finally only a copy-paste of the climax of the first film, just like some dialogues and easter-egs not frankly useful), it is spectacular enough, taking and without humor to take the song away. A piece that we hope to renew in a suite « Bigger and welder »... To Predator 2Who knows?
[...] do not make in lace), the alien saga to dreadlocks (already the 5th opus for Stan Winston's creature) takes a large calabass of fresh blood. [...]