Movies

‘The Predator’ Unleashes Its Best Trailer Yet

Everything potentially cool about the movie crammed into two minutes and fourteen seconds.
Final Predator Trailer
20th Century Fox
By  · Published on August 31st, 2018

If at first you fail to excite, try, try again. I have been on such a seesaw of emotion concerning The Predator. I fell hard for that first teaser, but the subsequent peeks at the film were lackluster rehashes of the same set-pieces. What are they hiding? There has to be more.

Well, with a little more than two weeks before its release, 20th Century Fox has thrown the curtain back on their latest entry in the Predator franchise. You want more? You got more. This new red bandĀ trailer seemingly jams the entire film into its two minute runtime.

Be warned. If you’re already sold, don’t press play. However, if you need a little more encouragement, this final trailer might do the trick. Or it might not.

Does Shane Black still have any surprises left up his sleeve? I sure hope so, but I’m afraid that the Super-Predator and Predator dogs are it. There have to be a few more alien gadgets to reveal themselves, right?

Let’s not get depressed by how much movie is here. Let’s focus on the positive. Imagine we weren’t the sick little obsessives who have to consume every little bit of content before walking into the theater. Imagine we just plopped down and the film played, and we were actually surprised by the appearance of the Super-Predator and his hounds of hell. I’d probably jump right the hell out of my seat screaming. Can I get myself back to that place knowing what I now know?

The best aspect of this new trailer is the team. We’ve seen them before, but finally, the personality of these mental misfits is starting to show. Of course, I’m sold on Keegan-Michael Key. He comes armed with biting wit and savage takedown humor. I dig how Boyd Holbrook doesn’t bother to hide his close encounter with these degenerates, seemingly knowing that the extraterrestrial game hunter is about to explode their prison convoy. Thomas Jane’s line-reading of welp, “Alien” earns its chuckle. At the very least, it should be fun to hang with these maniacs.

For the first time, we are gifted plenty of infrared shots. From the logo to the Super-Predator staring down the tiny OG version. The marketers know what we want from this franchise, and I’m a sucker for it. Cue “One Shot One Kill” by Jon Connor feat. Snoop Dogg and the trailer has an exhilarating energy to it that none of the previous efforts could pull off.

Sterling K. Brown continues his act as the Predator hypeman. As he guides Olivia Munn around the lab, highlighting the beast’s superior capabilities, I fall for that twinkle in his eye. Heck, we share the same adulation of the space monster, and it’s a delight to see a fanboy meet the object of his affection. “Fuckin’ you up is theirĀ idea of tourism.” How do you not clap your hands to a line like that?

Shane Black rarely disappoints. Seeing him return to one of his most successful franchises adds an extra layer of intense anticipation. The fact that we’ve now seen so much from this movie gives me pause, but I’m still going in optimistic. Maybe there won’t be any surprises, but all they need to do is pull off the long form version of the trailer.

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Brad Gullickson is a Weekly Columnist for Film School Rejects and Senior Curator for One Perfect Shot. When not rambling about movies here, he's rambling about comics as the co-host of Comic Book Couples Counseling. Hunt him down on Twitter: @MouthDork. (He/Him)