Retro Review: PREDATOR 2

Predator 2 — I’m not a big fan. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad movie, however.

I decided to revisit Predator 2 in the wake of the child’s space adventure that was Predator: Badlands and pinpoint exactly why I’m hesitant to hop on the Predator 2 party train and crank up Informer with the rest of the Rastafarians…

What’s the heck? Snow is white? And not just regular white…but Canadian white?!

Get out of here, mon! My entire worldview has crumbled…

Predator 2

Predator 2 materialized out of nowhere November 21, 1990. I had absolutely no idea it was in the pipeline in that day and age. One day a trailer simply appeared on TV.

“He’s in town with a few days to kill…”

By 1990, I was fully on the Predator party train. I wasn’t sure what to make of the original when it appeared in 1987. I instantly knew one of the best designed monsters ever dropped, but the movie itself was a bit too outside-the-box for me.

That did not stop me from buying the VHS, though. Over time, Predator became my sick film. As in, I watched Predator whenever I got sick. I must have gotten sick a lot because Predator grew on me, big-time. I realized the truth of what Director McTiernan said about loving actors. Performances are the engine that drive Predator.

The movie is not an action film, nor a horror film, nor a sci-fi film. Predator is about men at the peak of their profession, who are suddenly confronted by an opponent who is not only better than them but completely outclasses them.

This underlying theme could be a carryover from real life. The actors who worked on Predator continually competed with each other. I imagine numerous participants reached the conclusion they weren’t the biggest and strongest, after all, and it was a bit of an ego blow to them, which came through in how they depicted their characters onscreen.

These things are best illustrated by a Richard Chaves line after the group throws all of their machismo into a jungle clearing by blowing it up. Dutch sends Poncho out to look for the blood-strewn bodies of the enemy they surely vanquished.

Poncho returns with a report built on a perfect delivery of frightened exasperation:

“We…hit…nothing.”

Throw in Bill Duke quietly stealing the film, McTiernan playing it mostly straight, and one realizes Predator floats on surprisingly deep performances from archetypes. If one was of the classical bent, they might even throw in some Beowulf comparisons.

Predator 2 misses these components, among other things…

Predator 2 Live Crew

While the core group of characters in Predator are a magic ring that gets broken, none of the main characters in Predator 2 feel like a group.

Danny Glover ditty-bops around in giant pants and doesn’t know where to land. He deals with angry superiors, feds, criminals, drug dealers and finally the Predator itself while being a father figure to underlings. The script makes him too busy, and the viewer is on rails as Glover ticks off a series of dead ends that the viewer already knows are dead ends.

Plus, I’m just going to say it…Danny Glover is not that cool. He’s just been fortunate to be attached to the Lethal Weapon franchise.

Meanwhile, Paxton, Blades, Alonso and Busey never feel established because they are not unified around the concept. Paxton does comedy and follows characters offscreen. Blades does not get enough time to be missed when he gets killed. Alonso never gets a haunting “demon who makes trophies of man” speech to make her useful. As for Busey, he, of course, Buseys all over the place, but his character not built to be Busey’ed.

A Sam Neil type would be better in that role. Actually, they probably could have gotten Sam Neil. Jurassic Park was three years away.

Calbin Lockhart is cool as King Willie, but he comes into the movie out of nowhere and leaves as fast as he takes his journey to “da uh-der side.”

One can’t blame Predator 2 for not being ambitious with all of these characters, but it also ends up unfocused. Meanwhile, the first film was extremely linear and never lost track of its goals.

Predator 2 The Extreme

The change from McTiernan to Hopkins in the director’s seat is also jarring. While McTiernan kept things grounded, Hopkins strives to push things over the top. Much of Predator 2 feels fueled by cocaine that the criminals indulge in during the opening scene. No neatly snorting lines through a dollar bill here. Just grab a handful of powder and throw it in your face.

This makes Predator 2 is mostly devoid of suspense and mystery. Again, it is hard to blame the film for this because the original used up all of the suspense and mystery.

Predator essentially had the most perfect monster reveal process ever delivered in film. First, you see what the creature did, then you hear it, then you see through its POV, then you see it camouflaged, then without camouflage, then its technology and finally, you see the complete whole at the climax of the film.

This kind of masterful process can never be duplicated in follow-ups.

Attempting to put Predator 2 in the “future” of 1997 is another mistake. Another amazing aspect of Predator is its timeless quality. The settings, costumes, hairstyles and equipment are all fairly nondescript. For a movie that is nearly 40 years old, very little of Predator looks dated.

Meanwhile, Predator 2 looks extremely dated. Looking at the attachments put on weapons to make them appear high tech genuinely hurts something in my brain. The wardrobes also stand out as more 1980s than 1997.

Marilyn Vance did the costume design of Predator 2, so we can blame her for the pants that Glover wears. Seriously, those things have an 18-inch fly. Nevertheless, Vance is a bit of a legend, so one must assume she had a method to her madness. Plus, she did the original Predator and Die Hard. That creates a lot of goodwill.

Predator 2: Die Harder

So far, I’ve beat Predator 2 up pretty badly, but that is because I speak as a Predator purist. I need no more from the concept that sweaty, frightened soldiers facing the unknown in the jungle with machineguns. The original movie then delivered juuuuuuust enough details to keep everything interesting.

Predator’s ending is also near perfect in that regard. Dutch asking, “what the hell are you?” and the Predator repeating the question back with guttural clicking before laughing maniacally is nuts in a good way. It shows the creature operates at a different level of processing, but it is still intelligent enough to have a twisted sense of humor about it all.

Meanwhile, the tone of Predator 2 is, simply put, odd. The film has a weird satirical bent to it that is miles away from the straight-ahead tone of the original. Predator 2 is more akin to something like Robocop or Starship Troopers.

Yes, one could argue Predator is a deconstruction of action movies because it turns the superhuman hero vulnerable, but the satire in Predator 2 is still a bridge to far. Throw in yet another distraction with the casting of Morton Downey Jr. as himself to make this component further unbalanced, and the film ends up a weird amalgamation of serious and goofy.

Predator 2 also suffers from resorting to too many callbacks and using the same score. These continually remind us of a better movie. Plus, the callbacks are awkwardly shoed in at times. For example, did the Predator really need to activate its suicide bomb while hanging on the side of the building? Seems like it got back to its ship just fine immediately after that.

2 Predator 2 Furious

All that being said, Predator 2 does do somethings right. I don’t see a better direction to take the concept in a sequel than the one original writers Jim and John Thomas took.

Setting the story in LA instead of the jungle gives everything a fresh coat of paint. Likewise, the expansion of the Predator character is excellent and does not detract from the original. The monster gets new weapons, and the small glimpses into its culture are much appreciated.

Ultimately, placing an Alien skull in the creature’s trophy room proved to be a mistake, but it was awesome at the time. The idea is fun in a King Kong vs. Godzilla kind of way, but it led to making the Predator too human in the end.

Any company producing an Aliens vs. Predator story is bound to throw humans into it to give audiences a POV. Inevitable, humans and Predators are going to team up in such a film because they are both friend-shaped. From there it is just a hop, skip and a jump to the Disneyfication of the character shown in Predator: Badlands.

Beyond that, Predator 2 does display more amazing creature design. The Predator itself looks great, with a more copper color scheme to its weapons and armor and a rattlesnake pattern on its skin. Its armor was also molded as separate components this time.

The rest of the special effects and look of the film hold up, as well, especially the scenes in the slaughterhouse with the harsh blue lighting. The alley scene where the cloaked Predator walks through water puddles is also nice done. It is jarring to watch that scene and then switch to Predator: Badlands. It makes one quickly realize they are watching a cartoon and not a movie.

In Closing…

Predator 2…I can leave it, but I don’t mind if someone else takes it. It has its charms. It also has a degree of sentimental value. Predator 2 was the first movie I went to by myself.

Every time I drive down a certain section of I-90, I am instantly transported back to that time. There was something magical about driving home that night. The sun just went down, and the world looked blue. I crested a hill that led to a long downward curve. The lights of oncoming cars looked like silver fireflies in bomber formations. The radio probably blasted something like 18 And Life by Skid Row.

It was magic…

“&$%#*$ voodoo magic, man…”

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