By Geno McGahee
There are many great Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, but one of the flicks that top the list as one of his best is the 1987 alien film: PREDATOR. Arnold plays Dutch, the leader of a military group that is just full of bad asses. He has Blain (Jesse Ventura), Mac (Bill Duke), Billy (Sonny Landham) and Poncho (Richard Chavez). Collectively, they are called in to kick ass and they have an assignment waiting for them.
Dutch shows up to get his orders and meets an old friend in Dillon (Carl Weathers), and they do the customary handshake turned arm wrestle. When Dutch wins, he notes: “What’s the matter, CIA got you pushing too many pencils?” I got a feeling that Dillon wanted to say: “I’ve got a pencil you can push!” What a choice Carl Weathers was for this role. First, he’s Apollo Creed, but secondly, he’s Action Jackson. You are putting a certified tough guy to join this amazing group.
The group is sent into Central America to save some of the boys, but when they get there, they find that some American soldiers have been skinned and are hanging upside down. Dutch confronts Dillon, but Dillon gives him that “Hey, I was Action Jackson” look, and he backs off, but you can tell that he knows something.
They then find a camp where they have no choice but to attack and they end up killing a lot of bad guys. Arnold has some great lines too. He throws a knife through a guy and then says “stick around,” and kicks in a door and says “knock knock.” Jesse Ventura also has his winning line in this when he is told that he is bleeding. He replies: “I ain’t got time to bleed.” Only a bad ass would reply like that. The typical guy would reply: “Oh fucking shit, I’m bleeding, and I have time for it!”
This film starts off with a lot of action, but then it changes direction and we have a monster movie on our hands. The group is being hunted by an alien. This alien is even tougher than the one that Dolph Lundgren had to battle in I COME IN PEACE. Predator would fuck that one right up. The Predator alien turns invisible and is enormous. He has great weapons and accuracy. It will take a lot of Arnold to beat him.
You have to have respect for the alien. He has a tall order. He has a whole group of action stars to deal with, including Sonny Landham. He may not seem like an action star, but if you have seen BEST OF THE BEST 2, you will know that he is only one of the three men that know how to beat Bracus. Bracus may not be as tough as the Predator, but he would give any human a run for their money.
The group discovers that the alien is hunting them and begin preparing to take him down, but they aren’t doing well. The advance technology is just far too good to overcome and when Arnold’s entire crew is wiped out, he figures out the key. The Predator cannot see him if he’s covered in mud. So, he covers himself head to toe in mud and then make weapons out of the elements, staying away from the regular machine guns and whatnot. This gives him the opportunity to take on the monster one on one.
The fight at the end is very fun and Arnold proves that it’s mind over matter as he tricks the alien and kills him. The Predator attempted to have the last laugh by blowing himself up and laughing maniacally. That really pissed me off. Not only does the alien have zero compassion for the human race, but he’s a bad loser too. There is no way that a human hunter would do that. If a hunter was killed by a dear that covered themselves in mud and set up traps, the hunter would just take the loss, nod at the near in respect and die quietly. That wasn’t the case with the Predator.
An interesting note about PREDATOR is that Jean Claude Van Damme was originally cast as the alien but had a disagreement with the director and a bigger guy was brought it. It was a better idea and worked out in the end. The alien being enormous made it that much cooler.
PREDATOR is a great monster movie. It just sucks that he hasn’t been respected. The follow ups and sequels were just garbage. They keep on trying to get it right, but they just can’t do it. So, I pretend that there is only one movie in the series…this one. I highly recommend it.
Rating: 8.5/10
