In honor of “The Predator” coming to theater soon, here is my review of the original film from 1987.
The original “Predator” from 1987 is more effective in its acting, action, and special effects than a profound story. It starts off convoluting and finishes as a fun Sci-Fi thriller, featuring an iconic creature. In my opinion, its a combination of a war movie, and a Sci-Fi thriller, and you can pretty much tell once you get the hang of the movie.
Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as Dutch, a Special Forces Major, whose rescue team is sent to a Central American jungle to pull off a rescue mission. His team consists of Mac (Bill Duke), Poncho (Richard Chieves), Blaine (Jesse Ventura), Billy (Sonny Landham), and Rick (Shane Black); and joining them is Dutch’s old friend-a CIA operative named Dillon (Carl Weathers). Dutch says his team works better alone, but his superiors say otherwise.
The movie starts off slow and convoluting, as the team battles guerrillas, and Dutch finds out Dillion set the whole thing up in order to grab information. They don’t explain much, and use some one-liners; but they do pick up a female guerrilla named Anna (Elpidia Carrillo), who tries and fails to escape.
Then, the movie picks up the pace, when their men are attacked, one-by-one, by something unknown to them. To us, the audience, we call it the Predator (the late Kevin Peter Hall), which uses thermal imaging to track its prey, and camouflages itself, making it appear invisible to them. Out of all the secondary soldiers to be slaughtered, only Anna is spared, basically because she’s unarmed.
Directed by John McTiernan (“Die Hard,” “The Hunt for Red October”), “Predator” offers a lot of fine acting, dazzling special effects, and non-stop thrills. Schwarzenegger, Weathers, Duke, and Carrillo are the real stars of the show, because they possess real emotions, strong ambitions, and some fresh quotes. And I especially like Schwarzenegger covering himself in mud in order to hide from the monster, and prepares to fight it.
My favorite use of special effects regards the thermal imaging tracking, which shows us the colors on the humans, based on their movements and body temperatures, and when the creature has to camouflage itself. And it bleeds green slime, which glows in the dark. All these things look cool, and the Predator is given great costumes and make-up.
Again, the story isn’t interesting nor its first act, because of how boring and confusing it can be, but the movie finishes off impressively with all the amazing features the movie contains.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
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