Predator 2When they say "it's a jungle out there", they aren't kidding! There are even aliens trying to rip out your spine. No, it's not a new "Mortal Kombat" video game, although I'm sure Predator 2 (and its predecessor) inspired the notoriously ultraviolent button masher. Predator 2 is the sequel to Predator (if the numeric designation wasn't a giveaway), now placing the alien with a penchant for invisibility cloaks in Los Angeles, circa 1997. Apparently this is the "near future" (the movie was made in 1990), and gang violence has reached a fevered pitch. Now, the LAPD find that hoods with Uzis are no longer the biggest threat on the streets.
|
|
Even though Predator 2 is set in a near future, this detail doesn't matter, except that it makes for a convenient excuse to play up over-the-top gang shootouts in the City of Angels and other trivialities. Ultimately, these details are superficial, a word in and of itself that feels suited to describe this meaningless sequel. The premise is good, mind you, but the execution does nothing to fight the idea that movie sequels are nothing more than subpar cash grabs. Invariably, audiences will compare the actions of this movie's Predator (played again by Kevin Peter Hall) to the prior movie's antagonist, and notice several inconsistencies. First off, it becomes clear that despite both movies being sci-fi/action flicks, Predator 2 feels a lot more like a slasher movie--even more than the first one. This Predator seems unconcerned with remaining completely invisible and leaving no trace--the skinned bodies of his foes remain a staple, however. This one seems to relish being seen and intimidating his enemies into paralysis. That would be all well and good, except this comes with strange decisions that the beast makes, like deliberately shorting out his camo so the audience gets the benefit of seeing those cool electrical sparks all around; it just happens a lot more often than it really should. (Nevermind that this Predator is totally cool with leaving behind little trinkets and spearheads which are composed of an unknown molecular structure for any cop with an eye to find. Perhaps he's that kind of crappy hunter who leaves junk behind instead of "no trace".) Predator 2 seems more concerned with flashiness over depth, style over substance. Unfortunately, even what passes for "style" in Predator 2 is so absurd as to be self-parody. This movie consistently looks like it was filmed on a lot, the outfits worn by extras looks deliberately nonsensical, and even the guns the cops run around with are absurdly huge for the sake of just looking cool. This movie is a walking cop movie cliché, and that extends to the casting. Danny Glover plays Lieutenant Mike Harrigan, a grizzled-yet-hard working cop who gets flack from his boss just for doing his job. (I'll bet he's two days from retirement, as well.) Glover gave a standout performance in the delightful Lethal Weapon series, but here he just looks tired all time, and not just because his character is consistently bedraggled. There really isn't anything about Harrigan that makes him anything more than a foil to the eponymous Predator...except that he has a fear of heights, which means nothing come the big showdown with the cloaked baddie. Additional Lethal Weapon alumni includes Gary Busey as DEA Special Agent Peter Keyes, who takes over the drug war on the streets, which immediately makes him rub Mike the wrong way because egos. Even though Keyes hides crucial information about his real reason to set up shop in Los Angeles, by the time the big reveal comes, you can't help but wonder whether he'd actually have been the more interesting protagonist, far more than poor Mike. Ouch.
Predator 2 shallowly plagiarizes from better sci-fi/action movies that preceded it in many more ways. For example, the absurdity of ubiquitous news crews delivering ever-more salacious editorials for a ravenous TV audience--heck, even María Conchita Alonso's casting as the ball-busting Detective Leona Cantrell--is an overt reference to (ironically, another Schwarzenegger film) The Running Man. And Bill Paxton playing the cocky new guy on the team, Detective Jerry Lambert, feels barely a step removed from his performance as a cocky space marine in Aliens. (And let's not forget the ridiculousness of Mike telling his new detective to fall in line after he just got angry at Keyes for telling him the same thing in the scene right before it.) Setting the Predator's hunt in L.A. amidst a drug war featuring Jamaicans as one of the gangs left me hopeful that the iconic "dreadlocks" which the Predators sport on their masks might lead to some kind of cultural connection. Nope. It's just an excuse to do some hammy voodoo stuff in a couple of scenes, and it sadly doesn't have any bearing on anything else. (I suppose I was hoping for too much from Predator 2.) Heck, the movie isn't even consistent with aspects of the Predator that seem really important. Take a surprise subway shootout--where, of course, every passenger is armed--and the Predator leaps into the moving train to run amok, because why wouldn't he? Everyone and their brother is shooting at it, especially Lambert who fires repeatedly at it again and again (and can somehow see the invisible shape). Nothing, no wounds, no scratches. Bulletproof, it would seem. But when Mike Harrigan unloads his big pistol into it, well...that's a different story, because he's the hero. When the Predator busts out a bladed discus, Mike claims it for himself, and deactivates the Predator's "spoil sport" arm nuke by severing the hand at the last moment. Never mind that it seems unlikely that the acrophobic Harrigan is hanging from a ledge at the time, but that his laser-quick insight to stop the countdown (which still doesn't look like a countdown) requires suspending your belief as hard as how that Predator was suspended from the ledge. And despite Harrigan's gun working on the Predator, it nevertheless builds up to a hand to hand fight with Harrigan somehow actually deflecting slashes from the Predator with this tea saucer-sized blade again and again! Implausible to a fault. I think that it's ironic that the Predator movies found a home as a popular comic book series. It feels better suited to that medium if this two-dimensional yarn with its shallow story and unrealistic presentation is any indication.
Recommended for: Fans of an overly derivative sequel that by trying to rip off better genre films, reveals itself to be a shallow attempt to leech off of the success of its far superior predecessor. Predator 2 shouldn't be a reflection of the excellent quality of the first film, nor of its woefully underutilized cast in this inept relic of just how bad Nineties movies could be at times.
Predator 2 shallowly plagiarizes from better sci-fi/action movies that preceded it in many more ways. For example, the absurdity of ubiquitous news crews delivering ever-more salacious editorials for a ravenous TV audience--heck, even María Conchita Alonso's casting as the ball-busting Detective Leona Cantrell--is an overt reference to (ironically, another Schwarzenegger film) The Running Man. And Bill Paxton playing the cocky new guy on the team, Detective Jerry Lambert, feels barely a step removed from his performance as a cocky space marine in Aliens. (And let's not forget the ridiculousness of Mike telling his new detective to fall in line after he just got angry at Keyes for telling him the same thing in the scene right before it.) Setting the Predator's hunt in L.A. amidst a drug war featuring Jamaicans as one of the gangs left me hopeful that the iconic "dreadlocks" which the Predators sport on their masks might lead to some kind of cultural connection. Nope. It's just an excuse to do some hammy voodoo stuff in a couple of scenes, and it sadly doesn't have any bearing on anything else. (I suppose I was hoping for too much from Predator 2.) Heck, the movie isn't even consistent with aspects of the Predator that seem really important. Take a surprise subway shootout--where, of course, every passenger is armed--and the Predator leaps into the moving train to run amok, because why wouldn't he? Everyone and their brother is shooting at it, especially Lambert who fires repeatedly at it again and again (and can somehow see the invisible shape). Nothing, no wounds, no scratches. Bulletproof, it would seem. But when Mike Harrigan unloads his big pistol into it, well...that's a different story, because he's the hero. When the Predator busts out a bladed discus, Mike claims it for himself, and deactivates the Predator's "spoil sport" arm nuke by severing the hand at the last moment. Never mind that it seems unlikely that the acrophobic Harrigan is hanging from a ledge at the time, but that his laser-quick insight to stop the countdown (which still doesn't look like a countdown) requires suspending your belief as hard as how that Predator was suspended from the ledge. And despite Harrigan's gun working on the Predator, it nevertheless builds up to a hand to hand fight with Harrigan somehow actually deflecting slashes from the Predator with this tea saucer-sized blade again and again! Implausible to a fault. I think that it's ironic that the Predator movies found a home as a popular comic book series. It feels better suited to that medium if this two-dimensional yarn with its shallow story and unrealistic presentation is any indication.
Recommended for: Fans of an overly derivative sequel that by trying to rip off better genre films, reveals itself to be a shallow attempt to leech off of the success of its far superior predecessor. Predator 2 shouldn't be a reflection of the excellent quality of the first film, nor of its woefully underutilized cast in this inept relic of just how bad Nineties movies could be at times.