I had never actually seen Predator from start to finish. I've seen it many times on TV with commercials and edits. As is just about always the case, there is no substitute for the real thing. The plot of Predator is actually quite ingenious. How can the writers get a cast of two ex governors and Carl Weathers into the jungle with an amazing amount of weaponry? The answer: fake military insertion into hostile guerrilla jungle. (Nice job, writers.) The plot is meaningless. The setting is what is stellar. It is slightly sad to see so much rainforest destroyed for the sake of a movie, but in 2010; sunk costs are sunk costs.
In terms of actually describing and understanding the "predator" as movie creation the best I can say "pretty good". The predator, when seen, is on par with the best good monster movies have to offer and has an intriguing yet unanswered background. But, I want to focus on director John McTiernan's decisions to go with far more cinematic, gutsy, and above all scary approach of not showing the monster until the end. The idea of the invisible enemy, the camera shots of trees, the in and out focus on nothing, the predator's signature cackle, all create the suspense that all the subsequent feature predator movies lack. Without the John McTiernan this movie would have been a colossal failure. Thus does Predator stand as a mediocre example of classic tension building and audience investment. It is a stellar action movie of the 80's, but one should place it outside of the category "80's monster-fest" and into a relm of " 80's monster fest standard-setter".
Ratings
Aliens: See it
Jesse "The Body": You were in it
Jesse "The Mind": Skip it, "you might not like what you were.....
Political aspirants: See it
Dates: Skip it
On a scale of Zoolander to Zulu, I give Predator 3.5 out of 5 stars.
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