For some reason I woke up in the middle of the night at the weekend and had a big rant at myself in my head about how much I hate this movie. I think I'd rather watch AVP:R than this (even though I wouldn't be able to see anything).
Just as a movie it's bad. With dialogue that would even make Kevin Smith blush, a forced in kid character that and some pretty questionable CGI.
But as a Predator movie it's an absolute slap in the face to the franchise thus far (on the upside it made me appreciate Predators much more). Now I say this as a Predator film fan, I don't get into the Extended Universe stuff, but in terms of the character/mythos presented by the previous movies, The Predator is just insulting. Aside from the random giant predator, the stupid DNA BS, the horrible introduction and use of the 'camouflage ball', the random predator dog things that could have just as easily matched the design as Predators for some continuity and the sad misuse and underuse of Jake Busey's character the two biggest problems with it are the ending and the use of a CGI predator.
For me, once you get to a point that the Predator can't be played by someone in a suit you are getting away from the spirit of the movies. I'm not against the idea of a bigger predator, perhaps using forced perspective etc (seeing as humans come in all shapes and sizes) but not this 3 times the size CGI monstrosity.
As for that ending. It's like something a 10 year old scribbled on some paper after watching 1 too many episodes of GI Joe.
Does it have any redeeming qualities? I guess the actual physically done predator looks decent enough but that is actually about it.
Hopefully going forward if new movies do indeed get made, they just ignore the existence of The Predator
...andddd exhale... I feel much better now