The PredatorDirector: Shane BlackStarring: Boyd Holbrook, Trevante Rhodes, Jacob Tremblay, Keegan-Michael Key, Olivia Munn, Thomas Jane, Alfie Allen,Sterling K BrownRating: ★★½

By JAMES WF ROBERTS

The most feared hunters in the galaxy are back, but this time they are not so scary.

When an autistic boy accidentally discovers alien technology he triggers a menacing alien hellbent on killing everything that stands between the boy and his lost technology.

Is humanity’s only a hope the boy’s father and a ragtag crew of ex-soldiers and PTSD victims? Or will an evolutionary biologist come-commando be the saviour of mankind.

Written and directed by Shane Black and Fred Dekker, The Predator is a fast-paced gore-fest, full of homophobic jokes, over-blown sexism, stereotypical Tourette syndrome gags and racially offensive clichés.

The Predator is a species of hunter from another planet that stalks and kills its prey – humans.

They use advanced weaponry and technology to camouflage themselves, hunt their prey, skin them and wear their scalps and spinal columns as trophies while hunting.

Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook) is a sniper who has a run in with a Predator in New Mexico where McKenna and the Predator are captured by a secret government agency.

McKenna also finds himself on a bus with a team of military rejects who call themselves the “Loonies”.

The Loonies give the film a disjointed feeling with as a large amount of the film focuses on their characters which are under-developed and poorly written.

By the end of the first act, you really start wondering if this film is trying to be a deliberate parody of the sci-fi action genre.

The character of Quinn’s son Rory (Jacob Tremblay) is written with every autism cliché there is – a savant who can master any computer even alien technology, excels at chess, is overly sensitive to noise and the list goes on.

The character of Dr Casey (Olivia Munn) is also completely lacking logic.

The evolutionary biologist goes from zero to hero in such a short span of time that leaves you feeling sizeable chunks of the narrative were left out.

The Predator series has been going since 1987 and, as is the case with many movie franchises, its narrative quality is in decline with each instalment becoming more ridiculous than the last.

The introduction of new characters is overdone and makes the entire movie feel disjointed and completely out of sync with everything that went on in early scenes of the film.

This latest film is big on blood, explosions and gore, but very little of anything else.