Plot

When a young boy accidentally triggers the universe's most lethal hunters' return to Earth, only a ragtag crew of ex-soldiers and a disgruntled scientist can prevent the end of the human race.

From the outer reaches of space to the small-town streets of suburbia, the hunt comes home. Now, the universe's most lethal hunters are stronger, smarter and deadlier than ever before, having genetically upgraded themselves with DNA from other species. When a young boy accidentally triggers their return to Earth, only a ragtag crew of ex-soldiers and a disgruntled science teacher can prevent the end of the human race.—Twentieth Century Fox

After a predator kills his entire platoon, a soldier sends evidence of the alien home, as proof of what really happened to his men. But after a genetically enhanced predator arrives on earth in search of what was stolen, the soldier teams up with a unit of "looney" soldiers and a geneticist, in a race to save his son that he unknowingly made into the predator's next target.—Eric S. Crane

Scarred for life after a near-death experience and a close encounter with a mighty Predator, former U.S. Army Ranger sniper Quinn McKenna unwittingly makes his home a battlefield. As a result, his precocious son Rory has become a target. Now, relentless government agent Will Traeger and his heavily armed men will stop at nothing to retrieve rock-solid proof of the aliens' existence. Since the first encounter with the ultimate interstellar hunters in Predator (1987), the brutal space warriors have visited our world many times. However, this time, something entirely different--more powerful, more ferocious, and more evolved--is hunting us down one by one. Under those dire circumstances, can Quinn's crew of military misfits save the Earth?—Nick Riganas

A Predator ship crash-lands on Earth. Army Ranger sniper Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook) and his team are attacked by the Predator on a hostage retrieval mission. McKenna incapacitates the Predator and has its armor mailed off. At the behest of government agent Will Traeger (Sterling K. Brown) (Director of the "Stargazer Project" who jails Quinn), he is captured and held for examination. Traeger also takes the Predator to a lab for experimentation and observation, recruiting evolutionary biologist Casey Bracket (Olivia Munn) to study it. Casey suggests that the Predator DNA is exactly like human DNA. Traeger wants to know if the human DNA is derived from the Predator DNA. They also determine that the Predator's ship was am escape pod, so they wonder where the mother ship is. Casey also wants to speak to Quinn, who made first contact with the Predator.

The Predator awakes, breaks out of its bonds, kills lab workers, but spares Bracket (not sure but maybe because she got naked) before leaving. Meanwhile the armor that Quinn mailed, has reached Quinn's autistic son Rory, who has activated the guidance systems and messes with the mother ship controls as it enters the Earth's atmosphere. Rory deactivates their cloak and now the alien mother ship is pursued by Air Force jets. The Predator uses a different helmet at the facility to activate his own helmet's camera to figure out Rory has it.

The mother ship lands and the Predator inside releases a pair of Predator dogs to track the missing equipment, which is with Rory.

McKenna is put into a bus with a group of other government captives, including ex-Marine Gaylord "Nebraska" Williams (Trevante Rhodes), military veterans Coyle (Keegan-Michael Key) and Baxley (Thomas Jane), helicopter pilot Nettles (Augusto Aguilera), and Lynch (Alfie Allen), another ex-Marine. Seeing the Predator escape from the lab firsthand, they take over the bus. Casey tells Mckenna that she saw the Predator escape and that he is looking for his missing armor and weapons. Taking Bracket with them, they head over to McKenna's estranged wife, Emily (Yvonne Strahovski), where he expects to find the Predator armor he mailed off. However, McKenna's autistic son Rory (Jacob Tremblay) has gone trick-or-treating while wearing this armor in hopes of avoiding detection from bullies.

McKenna and the others find his son just in time to stop a pair of Predator Dogs from ambushing the boy. The Predator chases them into a nearby school. They start to give the Predator's armor back when another, larger (& mean looking) Predator (Brian A. Prince) arrives and kills the first. They flee, and the second Predator sets out to retrieve the lost technology.

Bracket concludes that the Predators are attempting to improve themselves with the DNA of humans and, presumably, other planets' inhabitants. The team flees to an abandoned barn, but Traeger finds them, captures them, and shares his theory that the Predators anticipate that climate change will end their ability to retrieve human DNA for further hybridization, so they are scrambling to retrieve the best human DNA before it is too late, so that they can adapt to Human DNA and move in when the humans are gone. Traeger also tells Casey that the dead Predator was a rogue and maybe he was bringing some technology to Earth to try and stop the other Predators. Seeing Rory drawing a map to the rogue spaceship, Traeger takes the boy away to go to the ship. The team escapes and goes after him with the help of a brain-damaged Predator Dog.

When all are at the crashed Predator ship, the second Predator arrives, kills Lynch, and explains through translation software that it will blow up the ship to keep it out of their hands and then give them all a head start before it hunts them down. The Predator quickly kills off most of the team. Traeger tries to use a Predator weapon on the alien but accidentally kills himself in the process.

The Predator takes Rory, presumably because his autism reflects an advancement in human evolution and is therefore worthwhile in the Predator hybridization, and flies away in his ship. McKenna, Nebraska, and Nettles land on the ship's exterior, but the Predator activates a force field. This slices Nettles' legs off, and he falls off of the ship to his death. Nebraska sacrifices himself and slides into the ship's turbine, causing it to crash. McKenna sneaks into the ship as it crashes and attacks the Predator. After the crash, Bracket arrives, and the three overpower and kill it. They pay their respects to their fallen comrades with trinkets representing each one before heading off.

After these events, McKenna and Rory are seen in a science lab watching the opening of cargo found on the Predator's ship. A piece of technology floats out and attaches itself to a lab worker, working to transform him into a "Predator killer" suit before deactivating.