This article originally appeared on Laser Time, August 20, 2015. This is my original, unaltered version.
8 Reasons Predator 2 is the Best Predator
Legendary director Ingmar Bergman once
said of cinema: “No art passes our conscience in the way film does,
and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of
our souls.” In the film Predator 2, Danny Glover's character, Det.
Mike Harrigan, said: “Okay Pussyface, it's your move.”
And that is Predator 2 in a nutshell:
harsh, intense, blunt, and above all, aggressive. Predator 2 is a
nasty piece of work, and I mean that in the best way possible. Full
of awesome action, brutal violence, and more f-bombs than you can
shake a smart disc at, Predator 2 has always been a personal favorite
of mine, and I've long felt that it has been unjustly maligned ever
since its release back in 1990.
That's right. 1990. Which means 2015
marks the sci-fi sequel's 25th anniversary. What better
time to countdown the many reasons why Predator 2 is the best
Predator of them all.
1 - Twentieth Century Fox spared no
expense...
“Here we see the
production of Predator 2 recreate a typical Los Angeles rush hour”
Though the budget for Predator 2 is
listed at $35 million, it looks like it cost twice that amount, and
director Stephen Hopkins is owed much of that credit. His vision of
a near future Los Angeles is shot through an impressive array of
camera techniques, from ultra-smooth stedi-cam work, to long,
elaborate dolly shots. Combine that with great cinematography and
razor sharp editing, the movie is a visual stunner, which brings us
to the amazing production itself: Elaborate sets, large scale
location shots in the heart of Los Angeles, amazing practical and
optical visual effects, and a tremendously large cast full of great
talent: Danny Glover, Ruben Blades, Maria Conchita Alonso, Gary
Busey, Bill Paxton, Robert Davi, Morten Downey jr., Kevin Peter Hall
as the Predator, and a pre-Firefly Adam Baldwin.
To top it all off, Predator 2 was given
the Thanksgiving holiday for its opening weekend, one of the top four
premier weekends for the entire year (Memorial Day, The 4th
of July, and Christmas being the other three). Regardless of the
Monday morning quarterbacking that came afterwards, Fox was all-in on
Predator 2.
2 – No Arnold? No Problem
“I'm too old for this
shit? No, YOU'RE too old for this shit!”
Much of the blame for Predator 2's lack
of box office success was place on Arnold Schwarzenegger not
returning. I never understood this argument. The movie is about the
Predator, not Arnold's Special Ops unit. It only made sense for
there to be a new group of characters to follow, and a new
environment as well. Anything else would be a simple rehash of the
first movie. **cough-Predators-cough**
Danny Glover may not have been the
iconic action hero that Arnold was, but he sure gave it his best shot
– and gave us one of sci-fi's most memorable characters in return.
Glover's Mike Harrigan is one serious mother fucker. He is a tightly
wound coil of pure testosterone and aggression. He isn't just a
loose cannon, he's a loose artillery battalion. Get in his way and
he will knock you the fuck out and not give a shit. He is the action
movie version of the Honey Badger.
3 – We join our story, already in
progress...
One of the great things about both
Predator movies is that they would still be compelling stories, even
if the Predator wasn't there killing everybody. Set ten years after
the events of the first movie, Predator 2 takes place in the “future”
world of 1997, but they don't go overboard on the futuristic setting.
The only indication that the movie is set in the future is that all
the guns have laser sights and the police drive around in Pontiac
Transport vans.
“In the future, all
guns will have laser sites.”
However, the near-future setting is
important, because the movie depicts Los Angeles as a war zone, with
rival gangs of Colombian and Jamaican drug cartels fighting for
control of the city. The police are out numbered, outgunned, and
barely keeping their heads above water. The city is on the verge of
Marshal Law, and that is before the Predator shows up. Much like the
Spec-Ops mission of the first movie, the LA war zone is a fantastic
setup for a great action movie. The alien hunter from space who rips
out spines and keeps them for trophies is just icing on the cake.
4 – The Predator is Bigger, Better,
and more Bad Ass
In the first movie, the Predator simply
had his cloaking device, wrist blades, and a shoulder cannon (As well
as the handy self destruct weapon). Showing that much like human
hunters who stalk animals, the Predator shows up to the hunt with the
odds in his favor to take on prey that has no idea he is there with
ridiculously overpowered weaponry and call it “sport.” But I
digress.
“The Predator shows
off his Fatality from the new Mortal Kombat game.”
Our hunter in Predator 2 comes with
those standard weapons, but packs a whole new bag of goodies: a net
launcher, a retractable spear, a spear gun, and the smart disc – a
heat seeking, bladed Frisbee of death. His new mask also has more
“Predator Vision” modes that he can see in. There have been
countless iterations of the Predator in comic books, video games, and
a few movies, but his arsenal of gadgets has remained largely
unchanged since Predator 2, because it just doesn't get much better.
5 – It is Alan Silvestri's finest
hour
Music composer Alan Silvestri is
arguably best known for his scores to Back to the Future, Forrest
Gump, and, well, Predator. For good reason: Alan Silvestri is an
outstanding music composer whose list of film scores is riddled with
excellence. And Predator 2 might just be the best of them all.
Silvestri takes the themes established
in the first movie and cranks them up well beyond eleven. With an
ever-so intensified tempo, the percussion hits a little harder, the
strings stab a little sharper, and the horns hit you in the chest
like a sledgehammer. Added to the mix are a fresh set of tribal
drums and a creepy, low end vocal chorus. The results are audio
gold.
I you need any convincing, just listen
to the End Titles suite – an eight minute tour de force that starts
off slowly and softly before weaving upwards of six or seven
distinctly different motifs that builds and builds to a monumental
climax. It is equal parts mysterious and sinister, epicly sweeping
and intensely action packed. If you get to the end of that track and
don't feel goosebumps, you better go see a doctor, because you are
probably dead.
“If you like what you
hear, be sure and get the album through Laser Time's Amazon.com
link.”
6 – Bill Paxton completes the
movie-monster trifecta
Spoiler Alert: Lots of people die in
this movie. Most of them very violently. In fact, Predator 2 is
reportedly the first movie to earn an NC-17 rating purely for
violence – it was edited several times to get an R rating (Even
Stephen Hopkins himself seemed shocked by the violence in his own
movie when he recorded his director's commentary for the DVD).
Bill Paxton is among the vast body count, making him the first, and
only, actor to die onscreen at the hands of a Predator, and Alien,
and a Terminator. But he doesn't go down without a fight. Paxton's
death in Predator 2 is much more heroic and dignified than the latter
two movies.
“Dying on-screen is
my specialty!”
And before anyone says “But Lance
Henrickson in The Terminator, Aliens, and AvP...” - Remember,
Bishop survived his encounter with the Queen in Aliens; it was the
escape pod's crash in Alien 3 that was his ultimate undoing.
7 – The massive, 30 minute climax
“So... remember what
Harrigan said about the Predator's face earlier?”
The final showdown between Dutch and
the Predator in the first movie was a classic mano-a-mano movie beat
down, but much of that climax played out like a stealth mission in a
game of Splinter Cell. By contrast, the finale of Predator 2 is more
like a kinetic, non-stop epic game of deathmatch in Titanfall, and it
lasts nearly one-third of the movie's running time.
It starts with an intense shootout in a
high speed subway before spilling out into the LA streets, through a
meet-packing plant, across rooftops, through brick walls, down
elevator shafts, and finally ending up somewhere we've never been
before – inside the Predator's ship itself, which leads to...
8 – The trophy case
“Little known fact:
The Predator ship also doubles as a laser tag arena.”
The lore and back story of the Predator
was only hinted at in the first movie. Predator 2 opened up a whole
universe of mythology the moment Harrigan discovers the Predator's
trophy case on board the ship. Not only does it contain a few human
skulls, but a wide range of all matter of creature skulls from many
other alien worlds, including the jaw-dropper: an Alien Xenomorph
skull.
Never before had one sci-fi movie made
such a direct connection to another of that magnitude. Predator 2
may not have been seen by a lot of people when it hit theaters, but
everyone remembered that scene. It was the mother of all
Easter eggs that helped spawn the vast Aliens vs Predator franchise
that includes comic books, video games, expanded universe novels, and
even two movies. For better or worse, our pop culture gained a lot
from what was intended to be a small, inside joke.
Honorable Mention – Because of
“Fucking Voodoo Magic!”
There might be no sequence more bonkers
than the one that results of the quote above: About twenty minutes
into the movie, the camera enters the apartment of the Colombian drug
lord El Scorpio. He is so busy having insanely crazy sex with his
girlfriend that it takes him several moments to notice a band of
Jamaican gang members have broken into his home.
The Jamaicans are there to prove their
superiority over the Colombians by capturing their leader and cutting
out his heart (which they do). But then the Predator shows up, kills
the Jamaicans in a massive firefight, and shows them whose
boss by hanging them up and skinning them. It is an insane series of
events that you will likely never see in a movie again.
“It says: 'Welcome to
Jamaica, Mon. Have a nice day!'”
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