Here's m thoughts on this movie: it's "The Most Dangerous Game"... but with a masked alien instead of a creepy guy with a satanic goatee. And that basically sums up this gory, suspenseful sci-fi thriller. which starts off as your usual macho BOOMBOOMfest but quickly mutates into something far creepier once the soldiers realize that there's an alien stalking them.
Major Alan "Dutch" Schaefer (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and his team have been assigned to rescue a cabinet minister kidnapped by guerillas in Guatemala, which seems like a straightforward mission at first. And the guerillas seem to be an unusually brutal bunch -- while some of the pursuing soldiers have been captured, others have been brutally skilled and left to hang in the trees.
Dutch's team basically blows up the entire guerilla compound and everyone in it, except for one woman (Elpidia Carrillo) that they take prisoner. But on the way back, their numbers start dwindling -- one soldier is dragged away and gutted, and another is shot through the chest with an energy blast. Something far worse than the guerillas is stalking the team through the jungle, and the unknown Predator is determined to kill everyone worth hunting.
The first half of "Predator" is about a military operation with lots of gunfire and explosions, and the second half is a harrowing, blood-spattered chase with the men getting picked off one by one. Yeah, the plot isn't very complex, but it's handled in a very intense manner -- lots of sweat, dirt, grease, jungle foliage and sudden eruptions of blood and firepower.
There are some plot holes, though -- Jim and John Thomas brings up some suspenseful conspiracy stuff about evil CIA agents in league with the guerillas and Russian agents. Then it... just sort of gets forgotten.
Fortunately John McTiernan adds huge bucketfuls of suspense and gory horror along the way. Since the alien is invisible, there's the constant feeling that something horrendous and brutal is lurking in the underbrush, and there are some powerful moment like Billy's final defiant stand or Mac saying farewell to his friend. And the final leg of the movie is a hallucinatory nightmare of waterfalls, fire and one warrior facing off against another.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is... well, "Ahnuld" -- kind of wooden, very muscular, and fairly capable of the whole tough soldier thing. The other characters are sparingly but well-sketched out, such as Dutch's old buddy Carl Weathers, Bill Duke, Shane Black, Sonny Landham, Carillo and Richard Chaves. Jesse Ventura is completely two-dimensional, though -- and I wished Landham's character had shown a bit more dimension beyond "stoic Indian tracker."
"Predator" has some holes and a rather simple plot, but the superb direction and cinematography are pretty darn brilliant. And it might leave you desperately hoping to never have to hike through the jungle, ever.
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