Movie review: ‘Predator’

FloridaGator80

A neat premise to a film can mask some of its shortcomings and I cannot come up with a better example than “Predator.” It is a really watchable sci-fi effort from Arnold Schwarzenegger that has a creative premise and pretty much delivers everything you can expect from an action-adventure film from him. Yes, it has shortcomings, but you can and should easily ignore them. Since it is the story of a small commando group going into the jungle, the cast is limited – there are only 15 listed cast members by IMDb.com including five actors who worked but were not given credit on screen – but each member manages to deliver his or her (OK, there’s only one significant female role here) talent to the best of their ability. The rest is just a paper-thin plot to showcase the first-rate action and the Oscar-nominated special effects.

‘Predator’
(1987; 107 minutes; rated R; directed by John McTiernan and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Bill Duke and Jesse Ventura)

THE HUNTERS BECOME THE HUNTED

(NOTE: I expanded this review with additional opinion and trivia and the updating of links on March 26, 2020.)

I always check out the supporting cast in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s movies because, with Arnie, you know what you’re going to get: tight action with his stoic brand of acting. However, you usually find excellent supporting work (say Sharon Stone in “Total Recall” or especially Richard Dawson in “The Running Man” – click here for my review). So, I had to check out the other players when “Predator” came out the same year of the “The Running Man.”

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“Predator” a great sci-fi story and is superior in most respects. Dawson’s supporting turn in “The Running Man” is much better than any acting you’ll find in “Predator” and I knew what I could expect from Arnie, but I was looking for more. While not at a great level, I found it. Carl Weathers and Bill Duke give the best supporting performances with the next being the over-the-top characters here: Sonny Landham and Jesse Ventura. While none of the supporting cast can be singled out for not holding up their end of the log and the lone female character is certainly equal in her effort to all the men, Landham and Ventura stand out from the group.

What is really nice beyond the acting is the storyline.

“Predator” opens with an alien spacecraft sending a small vessel to Earth (it heads toward Central America). After an unknown amount of time the film because the current day and you get Schwarzenegger as “Maj. Alan ‘Dutch’ Schafer.” He is the head of a commando team that comes into the region on a rescue mission. However, from the beginning it offers intrigue with a former colleague of Arnie’s who is now with the CIA and involved in the mission.

The team goes in but soon finds itself in a troubling situation: they find a downed helicopter (the rescue part of the mission) but also some disturbingly skinned humans. The team tracks survivors to a rebel encampment, where a shoot-out ensues with the bad guys. They take a lone guerilla hostage and head with her out to be extracted by helicopter. Unknown to them, they’ve been tracked all the way by an unseen presence (the “Predator”) in the jungle. It is invisible and sees through what appears to be heat-recognition vision.

When they realize they won’t be taken out by conventional means and must make their own way out, they become the prey of the alien. One-by-one they’re picked off (with one nice shooting scene where Ventura levels part of the jungle with his mini-Gatling gun and another where Landham, who has sensed the alien on several occasions, has a losing face-to-face encounter with it). It finally comes down to a showdown between Schwarzenegger and the alien.

Schwarzenegger wins but not before the alien activates a self-destruct weapon that’s nuclear in nature. Wow! Now this is the definition of a great sci-fi/action flick.

Here’s a rundown of the main players:

  • A Golden Globe winner and nominee (not for this one), Schwarzenegger does his usual thing here being himself and is just as smooth, tough and ethical as ever. If he had ever changed his style in these kinds of flicks it would be a disappointment. Schwarzenegger has starred in many action movies (try the little-remembered “Commando” – click here for my review – if you want to see him kill a tremendous amount of people) as well as doing solid work in comedies (try “Twins” with Danny DeVito – click here for my review) and certainly he is best remember for that iconic classic “The Terminator” and its franchise. Arnie even did a great Christmas movie (“Jingle All the Way” – click here for my review) and his absolute best film is the espionage-action drama “True Lies” with Jamie Lee Curtis – click here for my review. He won his Globe for “Stay Hungry” from 1976 and was nominated for “Junior” in which the plays a pregnant male scientist.
  • Weathers plays “George Dillon” and is the spy in the bunch, but easily holds his own with the tough guys in the commando unit. Weathers elevates what could have been a wooden character and therefore gets special praise for making sure he stands out. Weathers is most famous as “Apollo Creed” in the “Rocky” franchise as well as being “Chubbs” in the golf comedy classic “Happy Gilmore” (click here for my review). He had a great small scene with Burt Reynolds in “Semi-Tough” (click here for my review) and also was in the simply awful World War II sequel “Force 10 from Navarone.”
  • Ventura plays “Blain Cooper” and is the team’s heavy weapons guy and wields a multiple-barrel mini-Gatling gun to great effect (both a visual for the audience and with great effect on the enemy … except the Predator). Ventura doesn’t have to act much to show how tough he is and he’s a pure and complete natural in front of the camera. Ventura is also a veteran of “The Running Man” and was one of the “cryo cons” in the great sci-fi/action flick “Demolition Man” with Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes – click here for my review.
  • Duke is “Malcom ‘Mac’ Eliot” and the quietly toughest member of the team. He and Ventura are best friends and Duke gets in gear in a doomed attempt to avenge what happens to Ventura. Duke is good here and was just as good in “No Man’s Land” (click here for my review) as well as “Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit.” Duke was also in “Commando,” but, in that one, he was a bad guy who meets a violent end at Schwarzenegger’s hands.
  • The lone female in the cast is Elpidia Carrillo and she plays captured rebel “Anna.” Carrillo is the first to witness the alien in action and is one of the only two survivors at the end (guess who for the other …). She does a good job since she’s about the only actor who must show a range of emotions and she does it well. Carrillo was also in “Nine Lives” and “Solaris.”
  • Landham plays “Billy Sole” and is the point man for the group in the jungle and has a sixth sense that picks up the alien’s vibes. Landham, as I’ve written about others here, is smooth in conveying “Billy” to the audience. He was also in “The Warriors” (click here for my review) and played another “Billy,” “Billy Bear” that is, in “48 Hrs.” with Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy. Landham died at 76 in 2017 of congestive heart failure.
  • Richard Chaves and Shane Black play the last two members of the team. Chaves is “Jorge ‘Poncho’ Ramirez” and Black is “Rick Hawkins.” Both actors do solid, but not remarkable work. Such efforts are what supporting characters should do and they never detract from the film. Chaves was in “Witness” while Black was in “Lethal Weapon 2.”

“Predator’s” director John McTiernan does a good job of showing just enough of the alien (which is the first extraterrestrial with dreadlocks) before it is shown in its full ugliness. McTiernan obviously put together a great film with this one.

Still, McTiernan would manage to take a step up with his next film: “Die Hard” and the franchise-to-be with Bruce Willis (click here for my review). He would also do “The Hunt for Red October” (click here for my review) before coming back with “Die Hard with a Vengeance” only to move forward with the remake of “The Thomas Crown Affair” (click here for my review) and yet be the unfortunate soul to direct the remake of “Rollerball” that can only be called a piece of crap (click here for my review).

Sadly, this once-great director wound up in federal prison after being convicted of lying to FBI agents in their investigation into allegations in the Anthony Pellicano case in Hollywood in which McTiernan allegedly paid the private eye to wiretap his co-producer of “Rollerball.” He spent nearly a year behind bars from April 2013 to February 2014 and filed for bankruptcy. He is only now getting back into filmmaking, as he’s the writer-director of an sci-fi/action flick called “Tau Ceti Four” that’s still being listed in 2023 as being in “pre-production” and is supposed to star Uma Thurman. I wonder if all’s forgiven for him in Tinseltown …

Back to the review … “Predator” was nominated for an Oscar for special and visual effects and the alien is really well-thought out and creatively done (it looks like the world’s maddest crab grew dreadlocks and has a body-builder’s physique).

Oh, click here to see a cast comparison between the release of the film and how the actors appeared in 2013.

“Predator,” like many of Arnie’s action films, was a hit with audiences as it was the 12th ranked film of 1987 with $59.7 million, according to Box Office Mojo. Worldwide, “Predator” made $89.3 million on a budget of approximately $18 million, according to Wiki. The No. 1 film of the year was “3 Men and a Baby” with $167.6 million. Other films from that year that I reviewed are:

Assorted cast notes (via IMDb.com):

  • Schwarzenegger lost 25 pounds to help his muscular frame look like a soldier’s lean physique.
  • Directly from IMDb.com: “The Predator’s blood – a goopy substance with the color of Mountain Dew – was made on-set using a mixture of the liquid from inside glow sticks and KY Jelly.”
  • Another action star, Jean-Claude Van Damme, was the original “Predator” but was canned after he continually complained about the costume and that you couldn’t see his real face.
  • Kevin Peter Hall came in to play the “Predator” after Van Damme was fired, but also is one of the unnamed helicopter pilots (in an uncredited role).
  • Directly from IMDb.com: “Jesse Ventura was delighted to find out from the wardrobe department that his arms were 1″ bigger than Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s. He suggested to Schwarzenegger that they measure arms, with the winner getting a bottle of champagne. Ventura lost because Schwarzenegger had told the wardrobe department to tell Ventura that his arms were bigger.”
  • Click here for IMDb.com’s extensive trivia page about “Predator.”

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