Arnold Schwarzennegger and his traveling band of elite commandoes take on a bloodthirsty alien from outer space in this classic arnie-action flick. The future Governor of “Killafornia” joins forces with fellow future Governor Jesse Ventura,Carl Weathers and others to fight an invisible evil in the heart of the South American Jungle.
Arnold, playing the role of Dutch, the group’s leader, is the last man standing to face the supernatural killing machine after his team is systematically hunted for sport by the Predator. The antagonist, who we do not get to see until well after the movie is half over, wears a shield of invisibility and uses his “futuristic” heat vision to track down it’s relatively helpless prey. He’s got a laser cannon on his shoulder, bleeds fluorescent green, and skins his prey before he displays them as trophies. All this amounts to one bad mutha’ that only an 80’s action hero like Arnold could possibly subdue.
As with most action movies from the 80’s, my memory served up a much better version than did the DVD I watched last week. It could be the fact that we live in the post 9/11 era that brutally excessive battle scenes and gratuitous explosions
just don’t make me feel all that good inside. The scene where Dutch’s elite commandoes take on the guerilla army goes on for at least 5 minutes too long, and toward the end, I had to fast forward through it. We know that Arnie’s team is gonna win, do we really need to see 50 people explode into the air? 5 or 6 exploding bad guys is plenty enough carnage for one battle scene, especially at the beginning of the film. I didn’t have a problem with the Predators violent ways, because he was quick, to the point, and his kills moved the story along. The more kills he notched, the better the story got. But I certainly could’ve done without the 15 minute stunt-festival.
While we’re focusing on the negative, let’s talk about Arnold and testosterone injected cheesy action lines. The two go together like Star Jones and a Big Mac. Certain catch phrases like “Hang in there" after nailing a guy to a wall. Or Jesse Ventura’s “I ain’t got time to bleed” had my girlfriend up from the couch and onto her instant messenger. Arnold even managed to squeeze in an “I’ll be back”. Watching this, I found myself wondering how we made this man a multi-millionaire and a prominent member of society. But we did, and he is. Gotta love America.
I do have to say that this movie was not without it’s bright spots. The fact that you can’t see the Predator until late in the movie certainly adds to it’s mystique and I credit the writers for keeping the veil on him for as long as they did. At the time of the release, the styling and weaponry of the creature were cutting edge ...
