PREDATOR 2

Very undervalued sequel suffering because of the first films success.

Los Angeles is imploding with mayhem as gang wars fill the streets, an under pressure police force try to restore order, but both parties have another foe to worry about, a Predator is in town, and he's about to up the ante.

Gone is Arnold Schwarzenegger, gone is John McTiernan, and gone is the jungle setting, so following in the foot steps of the ultimate beefcake movie that was Preadtor 1987 was an unenviable task it seems. Yet I personally feel that Predator 2 stands up to scrutiny as a fine entry into the sci-fi/action genre. Locating it among the urban decay of L.A. works real well, and pitting the Predator against a tough grizzled (but hardly giganticus beefcakeus) cop (Danny Glover) gives us a smart brains against brawn story. Also cutely is that director Stephen Hopkins and writers Jim & John Thomas have actually got the Predator cleaning up the streets of L.A., in fact another two hours of Predator hunt and kill tactics and crime in L.A. would have been completely eradicated! There is plenty of bloody snotty gore to appease fans of that persuasion, and it's nice to report that the characters on show do actually impact as part of the story.

Voodoo magic man!

It has a fine cast that reads like a who's who of action films, Danny Glover (Lethal Weapon), Bill Paxton (Aliens), Robert Davi (Die Hard), Gary Busey (Under Siege), Rubén Blades (Once Upon a Time in Mexico) & Maria Conchita Alonso (The Running Man), whilst Kevin Peter Hall dons the Predator suit and suitably kicks arse again. It's not genius, it's not even ground breaking, but Predator 2 is a fine and entertaining genre piece that sadly seems to forever be undervalued on internet forums.

Who's Next? 8/10

When I was younger I always hated Predator 2. Rewatching it as an adult, I don't think it was fair how bad I thought it was. It's not that Predator 2 is crap, it's just that it's so much worse than the original (one of the 5 best movies ever made), that it comes across as such a massive disappointment. With fresh, or I guess more accurately, with more experienced eyes, I don't mind Predator 2 at all, there's actually a lot of stuff I like about it. It's still not a great movie to me, but I don't skip it when I'm doing a marathon like I would have once upon a time. It expands upon the Predator lore in some pretty cool ways, and the Jamaican Voodoo Posse inspired my Escher Necromunda gang, so I've wound up pretty 50/50 on the whole thing.

Final rating:★★½ - Had a lot that appealed to me, didn’t quite work as a whole.

So for the sequel, we swap an actual jungle for an urban one, and Arnie is replaced by Danny Glover. At least the baddie is the same - only this time, we immediately know what's going on and what to expect. Therein lies the problem: there is no suspense. A seriously B-list group of talent - Gary Busey ("Keyes") and Adam Baldwin ("Garber") amongst them, really help this descend quickly into a pit of mediocre special effects tinged with Glover's rather typical way of playing cop. It doesn't hang around, to be fair - there are plenty of combat scenes; and Sylvia Saunders ("Ruth") looks like she could be lethal with a broom, but by the end, I was fairly sure I was in the visitor's camp because this just isn't very good.