It's competently executed, focusing mostly on action, self-sacrifice and heroics, but I couldn't help but notice that there are three main characters: two non-white male characters and one white female granny. And the white female granny survives, where other white male characters didn't. They portray her as the ultimate bad-arse. Also, in one of the other stories we had one white male character sacrifice himself in order to save the non-white male character.
Racial coding and skin color is important according to the DEI ideologues. In fact, it may be the most important thing in the whole world according to DEI ideologues. Therefore, while definitely entertaining, this is still a racialized anti-white product of DEI fascists and should be thrown on the bonfire. :')
Almost nothing about the movie was competent, though.
I'm not going to go through all the details of everything wrong with it, but the middle-aged granny being this super bad-arse was one of the most off-putting things straight away. She's taking down hordes of men on her own, which instantly took me out of the film.
The Predator they fought with the emitter was taking out everybody with one hit, but somehow couldn't land a direct hit on the granny. She also somehow was able to tank a direct blast from that emitter with only one of her shields breaking even though the thing was leveling entire buildings.
Worse yet, is that since this was the middle ages they used iron anchors back then, which typically weighed hundreds of kilograms. Granny was able to lift it and toss it at the Predator who got wrapped up and was stuck underwater. Somehow the Predator couldn't lift the anchor but granny could?!?! Absolutely ridiculous.
The second story was probably the most decent. The third one was absolute Loony Toons horse shyte. Torres making jokes during the dogfight was dumb, plus somehow the Predator had no clue how his hook-shot worked, smacking his own ship with the engine. The writers also had no clue that flooded engines are flammable, not explosive. Engine should have shattered on the ship's hull, and the Predator should have gone about his business.
Lastly, Torres figuring out the Predator tech by just closing his eyes for a few seconds was outright asinine. He understood Predator tech better than the Predators.
Absolutely atrocious film heavily pushing DEI + feminist nonsense.
You're right. There are a lot of shortcomings. The granny should have died from hypothermia after falling into a frozen lake. Not once, but twice. Her role was obviously written for a forty-year-old Viking leader and instead they turned her into fifty-something granny.
The Japanese story had one guy slicing up dozens of samurai, just so that he could scratch his brother's cheek in return after 30+ years.
And the WWII one had the white senior commander turn an active combat situation into a 'teachable moment', while he already had lost his entire squad.
Yeah, even the Japanese story with the two brothers had me rolling my eyes multiple times and that was the best of the tales, which kind of says a lot about the film. It would have been better had they lowered the bodycount WAY lower for the ninja brother and focused more on his stealth and evasiveness until he encounters his brother. Would have also made more sense if the Predator lost some of his gear fighting the other soldiers to make it more believable when the two brothers face him on their own, and maybe he's at a disadvantage.
You're also right the first story was obviously made for middle-aged badasrse Viking male. Had he fought with his group and maybe died underwater with the Predator by having one of the wrecks collapse on them, it could have been a decent tale.
The third one was just ridiculous -- if anyone should have survived it should have been Michael Biehn's character, and it should have been a skin-of-his-teeth encounter where he ends up ejecting and losing the plane, and NOT defeating the Predator, he just survives the encounter even as an ace veteran. Would have helped save face for the Predator but also showcase how even the best warriors at the time couldn't beat Predators.