How can so many brilliant people kick the ball so far wide of the goal?

It’s sealed by a handling of Asperger’s, through the character of Jacob Tremblay, and Tourette’s in a way that I found uncomfortable at best, pretty offensive at worst. If that doesn’t get you, though, panic not: piss-poor jokes about race, vaginas, blowjobs and your mother are queuing up to have a go. You need something brilliant to make those work without isolating large chunks of your audience. This film does not make those moments work. It’s not offence for skill, or story purposes. It feels like offence because, well, there’s nothing else in the tank.

The film does have the odd moment of promise, and in particular, there is one sequence that stands out. The film is set at Halloween, and this offers fodder for a fun spin on October 31st parties. It’s very brief, but I did get signs that there’s pulse to all of this in the midst of it. Some interesting ideas on the board that did manage to make it through the production process. Some decent performances too, and the fun of watching the Predators at work. There are slivers of what could have been.

Furthermore, I am very conscious of the fact that it’s easy to review a film as you wanted it to be. I, like many of you, loved the idea of Shane Black directing a Predator movie, bringing the energy, verve, fun and edge that’s embedded deep in his film work to date. That this film took a different turn though, fair enough.

But that it’s nasty (and not in a good way), that it pisses away the Predators as a threat (we get one just firing a standard gun at one point. A Predator, a lethal hunter, just left firing a gun), that it fails to explain plot points, and just resorts to blowjob and vagina jokes when it’s in trouble? Well, it’s the franchise disappointment of the year. It’s such a crushing letdown. When one character lamely tosses out “get to the chopper” at one point, it just doubles the pain.