My Favourite Movies: Predator 2

Inevitably Predator cried out for a sequel. So what did they do with the storyline? Move it into the ‘future’ – 1997 to be precise – and move it into an urban setting, LA in this case suffering under a sustained heat wave possibly caused by Global Warming (though I’m not sure if such a thing was even thought about back in 1990 when this was made). Possibly Arnie wasn’t available – making Total Recall and Kindergarten Cop that year – so Danny Glover was dropped into the middle of the action playing cop Mike Harrigan which turned out to be not unlike cop Roger Murtaugh of Lethal Weapon fame. Though in this instance his back-up crew consisted of Ruben Blades, Maria Conchita Alonso and, for his comedy potential, Bill Paxton.
We’re straight into the action as the cops are involved in a shoot-out with a major drug gang and they’re only just holding their ground. Enter Glover/Harrigan who improvises a semi-armoured vehicle to rescue some downed cops only to be told to ‘back off’ and let the Feds deal with it. Not being a big follower of authority his team enter the building against orders and find lots of dead bodies waiting for them – including one hanging from the rafters. As they say – there’s a new player in town and guess who and what he is? Yup – another predator on safari. Enter the mysterious Federal boys led by B-movie actor Gary Busey as Peter Keyes who seems to know a lot more about what’s going on than he’s telling anyone else.

Inevitably there are lots of parallels between both movies – and not just the score/soundtrack. The plots are broadly similar and P2 references the original movie at several points – including a recap (oddly and rather pointlessly I thought near the end) of what happened to Arnie and his team in the first film. Glover is no Arnie (I mean who is) but manages well enough to carry the action forward ably helped by his support team. Busey is simply Busey as always as he is in every movie I’ve seen in him. Thankfully he wasn’t cast in the Glover role! The star of the movie, for me at least, is the Predator itself played by Kevin Peter Hall who played the creature in both movies. Despite the fact that it barely spoke – and only to repeat things it had recorded earlier – Hall managed in both films to portray a depth and an intriguing possible background for his species that glued me to the screen looking for clues and attempting to confirm the flimsiest of hypotheses. Although I certainly wouldn’t want to meet one of them up close and personal – and definitely not with any kind of weapon in my hand – I definitely want to know more about their culture. That either says lots about me or about how a rather raw action flick can still make people (OK, maybe just people like me) think deep thoughts about alien social ‘anthropology’. Two other things, as the movie moved into its final scenes intrigued me greatly at the time – the fact that an Alien head appeared in their trophy cabinet (future AvP I wondered with glee) and the flint lock gun given to Glover at the end. Did this mean that the Predators had been around since the early 18th Century or could they time travel? Wouldn’t it be interesting to see one of them captured and forced to fight in the Roman gladiatorial contests? Now that would be a hell of a cross-over movie! But that’s just the way my mind works…..

Inevitably there are a few things I didn’t like about the movie, in particular the comedy scene in the apartment with the injured Predator in the bathroom and the old lady waiting outside with the broom. OK, the resulting joke was funny but there was no need to lighten the moment. The other thing that really bothered me was the attempted use of the nuke (as in the first film) which would have destroyed a significant part of LA. If the creature was a true hunter he wouldn’t have wanted to destroy a significant part of his hunting territory. But apart from a few minor niggles it pushed most of my buttons at the time and still manages to entertain decades later. It’s not exactly a work of high art (or just art) but it’s entertaining enough if taken for what it is.