Predator

Predator (1987)

Runtime: 107 minutes

Directed by: John McTiernan

Starring: Arnold, Carl Weathers, Elpidia Carrilo, Bill Duke, Sonny Landham

From: 20th Century Fox

Believe it or not, despite having reviewed Predator 2 and Predators before, this is the first time I have reviewed this action/horror classic, despite having seen this many times before. This wasn't my first choice for a review but things happened and I ended up checking this out on an Encore HD channel. The rest of the review is from Letterboxd, along with a plot description (also from there) and expanded upon a bit. I'll return Saturday afternoon.

The plot: "Dutch and his group of commandos are hired by the CIA to rescue downed airmen from guerillas in a Central American jungle. The mission goes well but as they return they find that something is hunting them. Nearly invisible, it blends in with the forest, taking trophies from the bodies of it's victims as it goes along. Occasionally seeing through it's eyes, the audience sees it is an intelligent alien hunter, hunting them for sport, killing them off one at a time."

Awesome as both an action and a horror film, this strong candidate for "manliest motion picture ever filmed" has a bitchin' cast being awesome and kicking ass as a small but elite group of soldiers who lay waste and destroying some rebel guerillas before themselves being hunted down and slaughtered by a large alien creature that goes across the galaxy to different planets to hunt for sport. Simple yet very effective.

Awesome and colorful characters (thankfully there aren't too many characters to worry about; you don't need many people when the cast includes Arnold, Carl Weathers, Jesse Ventura, Bill Duke, and everyone else; even R.G. Armstrong in a bit part is cool as R.G. Armstrong is cool), an engaging story that takes its time and doesn't blow its load and show the title character right away, a plethora of classic lines and moments (who can forget "I ain't got time to bleed" or people getting their bodies skinned?), memorable action scenes, an 80's-riffic score that fit what you saw on screen... and it's well-filmed too. For example, the ending that's set at night with all the fog and the lighting they used... it just looked so good. That and such things as the tracking shots, and John McTiernan and the rest of the crew did such a superb job with filming the movie.

I could go on and on talking about how great this is, but other people have done it before and likely better than I could. I just wanted to give some props for something I give the highest possible rating to, which is 5 stars.