Predator
Published January 21, 2017
Film info
- Title Predator
- Director John McTiernan
- Year 1987
- Run time 1hr 47m
- Genres Science-Fiction, Action, Adventure, Thriller
- Tagline Soon the hunt will begin
Major Dutch Schaefer (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is the leader of a military rescue unit looking for allies captured by guerrillas in the Latin American jungle. At first it seems like any other mission: Schaefer and his team of seasoned combat veterans spot a guerilla camp, destroy it, and find the men they were sent to rescue executed. But when Schaefer attempts to lead his unit out, with a captured guerrilla in tow, something horrifying and inexplicable begins to happen: One by one the men are killed by a mysterious adversary - a Predator from another world.
Live blog
| Time | Comment |
|---|---|
| 2:35 – Very helicopter heavy start to proceedings. | |
| 3:27 – This music is incredibly dramatic, but we don’t yet know why. | |
| 6:22 – Are they calling him Dutch because they think he is Dutch? | |
| 14:10 – You can’t bring in the experts and then lie to them, they’ll find you out, they’re experts. | |
| 16:46 – Oh that’s so gross. | |
| 22:00 – They’re good at slithering down slopes head first, I would fall down so much. | |
| 24:58 – Wow, strongman Arnie takes zero prisoners! | |
| 27:28 – “Stick around.” Yay! Arnie’s one-liners are back. | |
| 33:04 – The guy is telling terrible jokes but should realise his glasses are the funniest thing! | |
| 42:35 – It’s invisible! NOOO. | |
| 48:30 – Right so there’s the reason there’s no freaking rainforest left. | |
| 49:21 – Textbook definition of shoot first, ask questions later. | |
| 56:24 – “There’s something out there waiting for us, and it ain’t no man.” | |
| 1:05:29 – I quite like ‘cheese’ as a nickname. | |
| 1:15:35 – He’s got confused, meant to use the knife on the enemy. | |
| 1:24:15 – This is a bit like the jungle version of Home Alone. | |
| 1:31:58 – Careful Arnie, you might need to re-mud yourself. | |
| 1:39:20 – Dude, didn’t you see the Terminator? Nothing ever dies first time. |
Conclusions
Somehow, I’ve never actually seen this before so I wasn’t really sure what I was in for. It’s quite eighties, but because it’s set in the jungle, it’s not really that dated. I thought it was excellent - incredibly tense and actually really scary! Some of it was a bit gross but overall it was more about what you didn’t see than what you did - particularly with an invisible enemy.
Arnie was good too, not too many crazy quips, and some good stern acting. I liked his team, too, but you sort of knew straight away not to get too attached to them, poor chaps. Mr C wasn’t too keen on some of the CGI but I didn’t mind it too much, it certainly wasn’t as bad as the Terminator’s dodgy stop-motion situation.
My only complaint is the music. I was excited when I saw it was Alan Silvestri, but that soon drained away when I realised the soundtrack was exactly like Back to the Future. To the point where it was pretty distracting, I was busy thinking about what Marty McFly was up to instead of worrying about the predator.
Rating: 4/5
Rating: 4 / 5