thecanadian-23317

This movie is so.... odd. It has some really good small pieces, and to be honest, there's the makings of a great movie here somewhere. But unfortunately it just doesn't coalesce. It feels like there were either major rewrites, or something seriously went down in the editing room.

At the end of the day, its biggest issue is that there's simply too many side plots going on. We have: Ella's career (which incorporates a couple of plot lines), her marriage, her brother, her father, her bodyguard... the list goes on. The brother could have been cut entirely (which is funny, given that what I think is the movie's best scene is with the brother), and the father plot line didn't add much either.

I think if the movie had cut a lot of the family side plots, refocused the movie to be about Ella wanting to get stuff done as a politician but being unable to (which is in the movie, but gets lost among the numerous plot threads) in addition to focusing on her marriage and the scandal, it would have been a far better movie.

It's not completely without merit, I think anyone giving it a 1 is exaggerating. As mentioned at the beginning, there's some really great individual scenes sprinkled in the movie. But overall it has very very deep flaws that really drag it down.

The movie is still really entertaining, don't get me wrong. Jorma Tommila is just as phenomenal as he was in the first movie, and brings his A game. He's able to convey so much emotion without saying a word.

Where the movie lost me a little though is how absurd some parts were. The first movie had absurdity too, but it still felt at least somewhat grounded. In this movie, it felt like they were trying to harness some Mission Impossible with some of the set pieces. I found that less compelling. I also felt like the main character was dumbed down a little bit. In the first movie he's incredibly intelligent and cunning, and while he makes mistakes he feels like this unstoppable force of nature. Here, he makes a lot of really questionable decisions, and doesn't really feel as "scary" as he did in the first movie.

I seem to be in the minority though, and even with those complaints, the movie was still really entertaining. There's some really fun action scenes, and it's a tight 90 minutes that doesn't drag. I think it's at least worth a watch!

This is definitely an action movie, full stop. It does not follow the typical suspense/thriller pattern of Predator and Prey, so if that's what you're looking for you probably won't enjoy this.

If you're open to it though, I really had a blast with it. The story is pretty formulaic, but I thought the characters had a lot of charm, and the movie has phenomenal visuals. The emotions you can read on the faces of the Predators is astounding.

In any case, I think we can all agree that this is a massive improvement over 2018's The Predator. I had a lot of fun watching it!