Arnold Schwarzenegger is everyone’s favorite action icon. It must be the cool yet cheesy one-liners in his thick Austrian accent, him firing M16s from the hip, or inspiring millions of men to pump iron. Even though I wasn’t alive to appreciate Arnie’s peak, my family owned VHS copies of Jingle All the Way and Terminator 2 the latter gave me nightmares as a child, so I grew to like his movies. I admire the fact that he grew up on an Austrian farm, came to the U.S knowing no English, became a prolific bodybuilder, transitioned into being an action film star, dived into politics, etc.
When I ask someone what their favorite movie is, I’d often hear “Citizen Kane,” “Titanic,” some Tarantino film, or a Jordan Peele film. Ask me for my top 5 movies of all time, Predator would be somewhere in that list. 1987’s Predator directed by John McTiernan is a bad-ass amalgamation of 80’s action, sci-fi, and horror, pitting a hardened soldier against an unknown alien foe. This film has an all-star cast of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Jesse Ventura, Bill Duke, etc.
What is the plot, Headley?
A group of soldiers led by Dutch played by Arnold Schwarzenegger I’ll refer to them as “Dutch, and the Crew” go into the South American jungle to rescue U.S hostages from a rebel camp. Dutch and the Crew come across dead U.S soldiers near a helicopter crash site, and their remains were skinned and mutilated; they could only be identified by their dog tags. Dutch and the Crew came across the guerrilla militia camp, where they see captives being executed.
So Dutch and the Crew run in guns blazing and kill everyone with guns, explosives, knives, and one-liners, all with ease. There are no surviving POW’s. However, they come across a woman named Anna. Dutch figures out that Dillon, played by Carl Weathers, set the squad up to do the government’s dirty work.
So Dutch and the Crew take Anna as prisoner and head to the rendezvous point to escape by CHOPPA. The crew notices something lurking in the trees. This invisible force starts killing the squad members with futuristic weapons. After shooting at it, the Dutch realize that they wounded the creature. Therefore, it’s not invincible. After strategically setting up traps to kill the unseen foe, the remainder of the squad put up a great fight…but they all were gruesomely killed except Anna and Dutch. Dutch tells Anna to…
Dutch survived because he fell into the mud. The creature walked right past him, Dutch is quick to realize that the Predator has a thermal vision, and the mud covers his body temperature. He sets a bunch of traps and fights the thing head-on. Eventually, Dutch gets the best of the foe, and as it lays dying, it activates a self-destruction device on its suit. Dutch runs away as the thing laughs, them KABOOM! Dutch is saved by the CHOPPA, and he lived happily ever after…No he’s going to need therapy and to find Jesus or something-if I had to fistfight an alien that killed my friends, I’d need some shots of whiskey after.
What worked?
-I’m not going to go into an in-depth analysis of the characters because I think they’re not fleshed out, in my opinion. The soldiers’ camaraderie is believable, I like the scene when they’re in the helicopter going into the forest. The way they were chopping it up and talking about random stuff reminds me of when I speak with my guys about stuff. The dialogue displayed their character.
-I enjoyed the genre-bending of this film, we see a spaceship and the POV of the Predator in the beginning. We don’t see the Predator again until the middle of the film, apart from intervals of Predator POV shots. The first act is just action, the second act is the Predator stalking the soldiers, killing them one by one and the third act is Dutch using his cunning to fight the Predator. Mindless action, horror, and sci-fi are combined intelligently and doesn’t impede on the pacing.
-The shock value of the skinned bodies and ripping out skulls as trophies, really earned the Predator respect, respect as in being a credible threat feared by the characters and audience.
-Dutch is the only character that has an arc, it’s not an internal arc, it’s more like a physical power dynamic having an arc. In the first act, the soldiers defeat an entire army with ease. In the second act, the soldiers are picked off one by one by an invisible alien with super strength and advance weapons. The third act, Dutch, evens the playing field by becoming invisible with mud. He has an equal advantage and defeats the Predator. Dutch started off with using muscle and weapons and failed, but he relied on his cunning to defeat the Predator at the end.
-The effects of the Predator aged well, I love the practical effects of the costume. I prefer that style because it’s tangible, unlike the cough CGI Predators cough. Fun fact, the late Kevin Peter Hall played the Predator in this movie and the sequel. He also played the helicopter pilot. He was 7’2″! John McTiernan gave Hall a speaking role as the pilot as a reward for spending long days in the hot jungle in the heavy Predator costumes.
What didn’t work?
-The director and screenwriter screwed up in the beginning shots of the film. They showed an alien ship going to earth. If that scene was scraped, the movie would have been better because the Lovecraft fear of the unknown would enhance the mood of dread. After all, we have no idea what this thing in the trees is. It’s hard to pretend to be scared when I clearly know the Predator is an alien of some kind. My point is to kept the threat unknown until the time is right to let the audience’s imagination run wild in the meantime.
In conclusion.
Predator is a landmark sci-fi action franchise that spawned sequels, spin-offs, comics, and video games. I admire the OG Predator because I’m an Arnold fan. The pacing was perfect, the characters were well connected, the costumes were well crafted. However, the glaring problem I found was the aforementioned spaceship. I don’t usually say that movies are perfect, but this one was damn close. I recommend this movie to anyone who loves retro action and sci-fi movies minus the PC aspects *PC culture is a topic for another day. I’d give it 9/10, I’m biased, but I don’t care.
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