It's amazing how some movies become popular. In the case of Predator 2, it all came down to a brief glimpse of the title creature's trophy room. In it, sci-fi fans will see the skull of the "Alien" creature hoisted up as a prize. This single brief scene started off a comic, multiple video games, and a soon-to-be-released feature film. Hopefully this new film can resurrect the Predator franchise from the hole it dug itself into with this film.
Predator 2 picks up in 1997 Los Angeles during a brutal gang war. Jamaican drug lords have overrun the city and the police are hopeless. In the center of the action is Mike Harrigan (Danny Glover) who tries to dig deeper into the investigation when one of his partners is slaughtered ruthlessly. Instead, the government takes over the proceedings but a resilient Harrigan pushes on to discover that the gangs are not the only killers in town.
Predator 2 is littered with problems. First up is the simply awful acting from nearly everyone on the cast. Bill Paxton is especially disappointing and Danny Glover not only puts on a poor performance, but the aging star is difficult to swallow as a fast paced action star. As if things aren't bad enough, Morton Downey Jr. gets a role and anyone who remembers him will certainly know why he doesn't fit in.
There is very little explanation for the Predator's existence. It simply seems to be. A brief segment explains what it can accomplish, but this minor moment is a disappointment. The creature design by Stan Winston is admirable as are most of the special effects (for their age), but the cheap looking dreadlocks on the creature seem to be included only so they can wrap around the creature's face when he quickly turns around (which happens a lot).
However, almost all of the disappointment comes from the potential this film had. Seeing the bounty hunting alien reek havoc in downtown L.A. is, in theory, a creature-feature fan's dream. The movie keeps the monster hidden for most of the film, a stupid move for a sequel when the vast majority of the audience knows what it looks like. The only real saving graces are some nice (if sometimes illogical) gore effects and a great sequence on a subway train. (** out of *****)
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Article comments
1 - Chris Kent
Nice work Matt and I entirely agree with you about the quality level of Predator 2. I think this film sucked for about 100 different reasons.
I loved the first Predator for multiple reasons. It was well directed, had a great cast and the jungle atmosphere worked perfectly for this type of film. To re-locate the action to LA was a terrible choice, and was only done for budget reasons - the producers were lazy. I also found the violence of this film unusually sadistic, most notably when a man is hung up naked and has his heart cut out. This film ruined what could have been an interesting franchise, though an Alien vs. Predator flick I believe is being released this summer.
If this film was going to truly have a good sequel, Arnie should have returned at the very least. As for the rest of the terrific cast from the first film, well hell, they were all killed. I think we saw from Alien and Aliens the proper way to make a good sequel to a film which probably did not need a sequel.
Predator 2 is just a ripoff of a surprisingly good action/sci-fi hybrid that boosted Arnie's career....
2 - Phillip Winn
I hadn't seen the first Predator movie by the time I saw the second one, and I liked it quite a bit. Having now seen both, I think I know why you disliked P2, but it all worked for me at the time!