Predator 2 (1990) 20th Century Fox/Sci-Fi-Action RT: 108 minutes Rated R (language, strong violence, brief sexual content, drugs) Director: Stephen Hopkins Screenplay: John Thomas and Jim Thomas Music: Alan Silvestri Cinematography: Peter Levy Release date: November 21, 1990 (US) Cast: Danny Glover, Gary Busey, Ruben Blades, Maria Conchita Alonso, Bill Paxton, Robert Davi, Adam Baldwin, Kent McCord, Morton Downey Jr., Kevin Peter Hall, Calvin Lockhart, Steve Kahan. Box Office: $28.3M (US)/$57.1M (World)
Rating: ***
As far as sequels go, Predator 2 is pretty good. Although it doesn’t have the same awesome factor as the 1987 original (how could it without Schwarzenegger and the gang?), it’s still a solid matinee picture with lots of action and lots of violence. It’s not a perfect movie by any means, but it holds the viewer’s interest for the most part. You can’t ask for much more from an action movie.
In Predator 2, the titular alien moves from a Central American to the urban jungle of Los Angeles. Set in then-future 1997, a war between Jamaican and Columbian drug cartels rages in the crowded streets during a stifling heat wave. Maverick cop Lt. Mike Harrigan (Glover, the Lethal Weapon movies) arrives on the scene and drives the Columbians back into their hideout to save the lives of two police officers lying wounded on the street. While the Columbians gear up for another attack, a Predator (Kevin Peter Hall) crashes down through the skylight and kills them all. Against orders, Harrigan team bust in to find the slaughtered gang members hanging from the ceiling. They assume the bloody mess is the work of the Jamaicans.
For his efforts, Harrigan gets a whole raft of crap from a meat-headed police official (Davi, Die Hard) for disobeying orders to stand down. He then learns a federal task force headed by “DEA agent” Peter Keyes (Busey, Lethal Weapon) will be taking over the investigation into the local drug gangs. Naturally, he’s pissed off.
Next, the Predator kills several members of the Jamaican cartel and hangs their skinned bodies from the rafters of the Colombian drug lord’s penthouse apartment. Harrigan realizes he’s not being told everything and decides to do some after-hours investigating way from the prying eyes of the feds. When his partner Archuleta (Blades, Fatal Beauty) returns to the scene to collect a key piece of evidence, the Predator gets him. Now it’s personal. Harrigan warns Keyes to stay out of his way because he intends to bring down the killer himself no matter what.
Director Stephen Hopkins (Blown Away) sticks fairly close to the first movie’s formula by starting out as an action movie before dropping the drug scenario and shifting its attention to the pursuit of the chameleon-like alien. I’m not really a fan of Hopkins. I find he’s not that strong in the narrative department. He makes slick-looking movies but they almost always fall under the “style over substance” category. There’s no denying Predator 2 is slick, but it would have benefited from a tighter script. It starts to run out of gas near the end. There’s also some faulty editing, particularly in the scene where two of Harrigan’s detectives, Cantrell (Alonso, The Running Man) and new guy Lambert (Paxton, Aliens), face off against the Predator on a crowded subway full of armed passengers. It should have been a great sequence, especially with the sly reference to Bernhard Goetz (aka “The Subway Vigilante”), but it becomes a confused mess.
On the upside, the exciting opening sequence represents bravura action filmmaking at its best. The cops and gang members shoot up the streets as innocent people run for cover and journalists attempt to report the story without getting hit by stray bullets. One female reporter exclaims, “Oh f*** this! Get me out of here!” when she damn near buys the farm. It’s nice to see Hopkins add a dash of social satire into the mix, something that’s always amusing in the context of movies set in the near future. With this in mind, I find Morton Downey Jr.’s role as an obnoxious loudmouthed reporter one of the best and funniest performances ever given by a journalist. For those who don’t know, he’s one of the original trash TV talk show hosts. He paved the way for the likes of Jerry Springer and Maury Povich.
Predator 2 has an impressive cast, although nowhere near as cool as its predecessor which co-stars greats like Carl Weathers, Jesse Ventura, Sonny Landham, Bill Duke and R.G. Armstrong. Glover does a pretty good job in the leading role although it’s kind of strange seeing him play against type as a reckless cop who plays by his own rules. He’s best known for playing the straight man to Mel Gibson’s unhinged character in the Lethal Weapon series. Predator 2 allows him the opportunity to try the role on for size. It’s not a perfect fit, but it’ll do. If nothing else, he makes a pretty formidable hero and a worthy nemesis for the Predator.
The cast, which also includes Adam Baldwin (My Bodyguard) as Keyes’s right-hand man, Kent McCord (Adam-12) as Harrigan’s and Calvin Lockhart (Coming to America) as Jamaican drug lord and voodoo practitioner King Willie, does a good job. Lockhart gets off the movie’s goofiest line when he says, “You can’t see the eyes of a demon until him come callin’.” It sounds like he accidentally wandered off the set of Marked for Death, the one where Steven Seagal goes up against a Jamaican drug lord named Screwface. However, this is a true accomplishment, having the goofiest line of dialogue in a movie that co-stars Gary Busey who gets a priceless gem of his own when describing the nature of the alien beast to Harrigan: “”He’s on safari. Lions, the tigers, the bears. Oh my. You’re the lion, this is his jungle.”
Overall, Predator 2 is more than serviceable sci-fi-actioner. It has great creature effects and a tongue-in-cheek spirit that works in its favor. It has tough characters that talk tough. I wish we got to see more of Alonso’s tough, no-nonsense chick and Paxton’s cocky braggart going at each other. It has a lot of action and bloody violence which is always a good thing. It’s a fun movie. Nobody seems to taking any of it seriously so why should we? Just sit back and enjoy the ride.
