Franchise Friday: PREDATOR (1987)
Let's get to the choppa with Arnold and one ugly mutha.
Is Predator remembered best as a good movie or a bad movie?
Film geeks of a certain age certainly hail it as one of the 80s’ most badass, intense actioners. It features an all-timer Arnold Schwarzenegger role and one of modern science fiction’s most iconic creatures. It boasts an 80% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. And there’s the mindset that any movie that spawned a franchise that continues 35 year later must be doing something right.
And yet, in many circles, Predator is a joke of macho overload, featuring dunder-headed dialogue like “stick around” and “get to the choppa!” It’s best remembered by some for its sweaty, bicep-worshiping handshake/arm-wrestling scene or for featuring two musclebound lunks who would both go on to be U.S. governors. The more respected review aggregator, Metacritic, rates it at only 45 (in fairness, only 15 reviews are logged there as opposed to RT’s 54 for the movie). I’ve talked to several who view John McTiernan’s film as a “so bad it’s good” movie, while I know equally as many who consider it an outright classic. So, who’s right?
After a recent rewatch, I’m more firmly on the side that Predator, while not a masterpiece, is a rightfully iconic 80s classic. But I don’t deny that those other elements are there as well; in fact, I think the testosterone-oozing machofest doesn’t just flirt with parody, it aims for it. And that’s part of what makes its monster movie elements work so damn well.
“I ain’t got time to bleed”
Schwarzenegger stars as Dutch, the leader of a U.S. military extraction team called into the Central American jungles to rescue some hostages who’ve been captured by guerilla soldiers. He’s been recommended for the mission by Dillon (Carl Weathers), an old cohort who hung up his machine gun for a desk job. It’s not long before Dutch and his men realize there’s more to their mission than a simple rescue operation; they’ve been brought in, instead, as expendable meat to help the CIA quell Russian forces.
None of this really matters much, from a plot perspective. It’s about 30 minutes in before it’s revealed the mission was a sham, the guerrillas are wiped out (saved for an insurgent who the squad takes hostage), and Dutch and his men men learn they need to trek through miles of jungle to get out. Instead, the movie reveals its true villain: a vicious alien who can read the men’s heat signatures, turn itself invisible, and likes to skin and gut its trophies.
In his review, Roger Ebert said that Predator “begins like Rambo and ends like Alien,” and I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the original, no-notes pitch. Predator opens in one genre, ends in another and the remarkable thing is that the shift feels completely organic.
It’s such a solid combination of ideas that the movie’s one false note may actually be its opening shot. The first thing we see is a spaceship descending to Earth; after that, it’s another 40 minutes before the alien begins stalking the men, and the movie turns into a mix of sci-fi and action. That twist would have been more effective had the movie opened without any hints of otherworldly conflict to come.
The film’s first half plays like a standard ‘80s actioner, the type of pun-laden, sweat-soaked machofest that Arnold and Sylvester Stallone were known for. Schwarzenegger bulges out of his shirt and constantly wields a smirk as he blows away bad guys. He’s joined by an ensemble of the toughest tough guys of that era, each eager to out-badass the other, be that Bill Duke threatening to bleed Weathers out if he compromises the team’s safety, Shane Black’s Hawkins compensating for his lack of muscles by telling dirty jokes, or Jesse Ventura bragging that his chewing tobacco will turn the men into a “sexual tyrannosaurus.”
The over-the-top masculinity is silly and groan-worthy, but that’s a feature, not a bug. A year before McTiernan would use Die Hard as a vessel to poke fun at rush-into-danger macho men, he’s doing much the same here, and the movie is self-aware of the characters’ bluster. The beloved handshake between Dutch and Dillon goes on too long for McTiernan and his actors not to be aware of how silly it looks to have two grown men arm-wrestling in the jungle, and few people remember that “I ain’t got time to bleed” is followed up by a look of incredulity from another soldier (I do believe Arnold’s “stick around” pun is meant to be appreciated as a great bon mot, however). And the shots of the men, spooked by their unseen assailant and endlessly firing their weapons into the jungle, paint them not as badasses but as tough guys suddenly scared stupid.
Predator was no-doubt inspired by Alien, 20th Century Fox’s other major sci-fi franchise (but we won’t be mentioning the eventual crossover in this series). Like Ridley Scott’s masterpiece, Predator is a genre mashup. Alien was a haunted house story told through a science fiction filter. Predator is a monster movie that mated with an oily ‘80s shoot-em-up. McTiernan and his very charismatic cast have a blast building up an army of badasses to the point of near-parody; by the time they’ve taken out the Russians, there’s no doubt these are the toughest of the tough, the best of the best. And then the movie twists and pits them against something that causes those tough-guy facades to drop away.
“If it bleeds we can kill it”
McTiernan is one of the best action directors the ‘80s produced, following Predator with Die Hard and The Hunt for Red October. He has a nearly unparalleled skill for his use of geography in set pieces, which is crucial for creating effective movie action. In Predator, the jungle feels foreboding, all-encompassing and ferocious, an adversary of its own, and it’s the perfect setting for pitting an extra-terrestrial sport hunter against an elite team of commandos. Several of the film’s best moments involve the Predator attacking from trees or under cover of the jungle, the men reacting in stark terror (or foolish overconfidence) to their new adversary.
But McTiernan is also one of the most patient of the decade’s action directors, and he’s willing to ramp up the tension so that, at just the right moment, he can unleash hell. One of the reasons the film’s spaceship opening sequence is so unnecessary is because McTiernan does such a solid job suggesting that there’s more facing Dutch’s men than a typical guerilla army, and that opening deflates the mystery. Still, there’s genuine terror when the men stumble upon the skinned bodies of fellow soldiers in the jungle or when they realize they’re facing a beast who can turn itself invisible instead of just normal men (some may quibble that the film’s cloaking sequences and thermal scans look dated, but I think the way they’ve aged only enhances their otherworldly quality).
And as much as the movie gets flak for its testosterone-drenched opening act, the film spends the rest of its runtime deflating the machismo and giving a bit more shading to the characters. Most notable is Bill Duke’s Mac, who is shaken and saddened by the loss of his war buddy, Ventura’s Blain. At a crucial point, Mac is on the point of insanity, attacking a wild boar that he thinks is the alien, and providing a deadly distraction for the real enemy to slip through. The other men are equally unmoored, and the way McTiernan shows these tough guys unraveling against an unthinkable enemy is quite effective.
It might be even more effective if McTiernan switched the tone along with the genre. While the switch to science fiction works well, Predator is still firmly an action movie at its core, and the Predator’s kills are mostly presented as action movie kills, delivered quickly and suddenly. It’s all entertaining, but I can’t help but think Predator would be a near-masterpiece if the pacing suddenly shifted into something more akin to Alien or a slasher movie, soaking in the dread and terror and turning these masculine warriors into quivering victims.
It might have also opened the door to create an actual character for Elpidia Carrillo’s Anna, the insurgent captured by Dutch and his men at the guerrilla compound. Anna has no character; she’s a victim used to dole out exposition at a crucial point, and then rushed out of the film when it’s time for the big mano-a-Predator showdown at the finale. It might have been accused of cribbing too much from Alien to have the commandos all wiped out and Anna left as the final girl left to take on the Predator with only her wits, but I feel like that’s the more effective ending to this story and a more clever way to deflate the uber-masculinity. It looks like the upcoming Prey might go more in this direction, focusing on a Native American’s battle against the beast, but I still think that would have been the most effective final run for this story.
“Get to the choppa!”
But then again, if the story took that approach, we’d be robbed of one of the great stretches of action cinema from the 1980s. Knowing that his guns are useless and his only hope of survival is to outthink the hunter, Dutch slathers himself in mud and assembles an arsenal of booby traps in the jungle, baiting his assailant into a one-on-one fight.
There’s so much to love about these final 20 minutes. For one, McTiernan goes all in on the atmosphere. I love the nighttime cinematography, and the way the jungle looks like an alien environment all of its own. I love the glimpses we get of the Predator, not as a simple killing machine but as a hunter who takes pride in its kills; the shot of it gutting a body and then ripping out the spine is chilling, and Stan Winston’s creature work is really great in the close up moments of the final battle as we sense the Predator’s frustration and anger at being outwitted.
It’s also one of the best stretches in Arnold’s career as an action icon. Dutch understands how smart his opponent is and he’s both scared and impressed; the showing of respect between the two, right down to the Predator removing its battle armor and taking on Dutch in a fist fight, might prompt some to roll their eyes, but I love the personality it gives to the antagonist.
This is the sequence where McTiernan as a master of action cinema comes into play; that final stretch as Dutch thinks he has the Predator firmly in his trap only for the hunter to figure out Dutch’s plan and walk around it, is a great twist. And the final moments, as Dutch feels a twinge of empathy for the beast as it’s bleeding out, are great, including the mean-spirited reveal that the Predator is going to set off a bomb to finish this one way or another (that laugh is so great). I initially quibbled with there being too much Predator-vision in the final throw-down, robbing us of a chance to see Arnold beat down the alien, a choice I ascribe to the limitations of the creature suit. But in hindsight, it’s an effective tactic, because it turns the tables; there’s the sense that the Predator is now the victim, helpless against Dutch’s onslaught.
So, a good start to this Franchise Friday miniseries. And I’m eager to see what’s next; I’ve actually never seen another Predator film, so I’m curious to see where things go from there (I understand Arnold doesn’t show up again; also a reminder, I’m skipping both Alien vs. Predator films, because life’s too short). This is one of those ‘80s flicks that lives up to and, dare I say exceeds, its reputation.