Whilst in Mexico on an operation, US sniper Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook) witnesses a Predator ship crash. Stealing some of its equipment he posts it back to himself via the mail before being taken in for questioning. What follows is an incredibly complex plot containing a rogue predator versus a hunter predator, a biologist (seemingly combat trained), two different human groups working towards different goals, a mother and her son and some predator dogs.

Overall it’s a huge mess.

When The Predator was announced with Shane Black as writer/director I had high hopes. Black played Hawkins in the original film and is behind the likes of Lethal Weapon as a writer and The Last Boy Scout, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Iron Man 3 as writer/director. Unfortunately none of his clever sense of humour seems to come across here. What he seems to be going for is a throwback to an 80’s action film. It is very violent, features very crude humour and seems to pride itself on being very politically incorrect. Unfortunately the clash between light hearted humour and violence doesn’t sit at all well when none of the jokes land.

It also tries hard to be a true sequel. There are references to Predator, Predator 2 and Predators here. It tries hard to introduce new ideas as to why these aliens would keep visiting but nothing seems convincing. And the occasional literal call back to lines from other films will either be cheesy or brilliant depending on your viewpoint.

The action scenes don’t fare much better. Choppily edited, dark lighting and hard to follow. There was one scene where I knew one of our lead characters had died but for the life of me could not work out how or from which antagonist the final blow had come.

Hugely disappointing.