Movie Review--Predator

"When I was little, we found a man.  He looked like... like butchered.  The old women in the village crossed themselves and whispered crazy things, said strange things.  El Diablo, cazador de hombres.  Only in the hottest years, this happens.  And this year, it grows hot.  We begin finding our men.  We found them sometimes without their skin, and sometimes much, much worse."

--Anna Gonsalves, Predator

Predator sparked a series of wildly inconsistent quality and still wound up being one of the best two entries in the franchise prior to 2022.  A slasher movie of sorts given a Cold War Central American context and an alien antagonist, Predator is rather well-crafted for the geographically and plot limitations and does at least some things to give itself more weight--it periodically comments on the tendency for soldiers to be used by higher ranking leaders as "expendable assets," for instance, and the first of the main characters to die is not either of the two black soldiers.  The trope of the final girl is also subverted when Anrold Schwarzenegger's Dutch is the last combatant standing.  This title also happens to provide the foundation of some very promising lore that deserved to be better explored in subsequent films, yet it leans more into mystery and slow burn drama than either horror or an abundance of violence.  Yes, there is actually a lot of restraint in the execution of this story despite the premise being quite violent!

Production Values

When it comes to the specifics of the aesthetic style, though the jungle environment is utilized well in the story and in grounding the camerawork, but the special effects for the Predator's cloaked outline and the symbols in its thermal vision are awful, so blurry that they look like ancient video game graphics mixed in with live action.  It is a blessing that so much of the film does not need to depict these things!  Unlike some of the more recent Predator movies, the original nonetheless does not particularly rely on digital effects.  Its small cast led by Arnold Schwarzenegger only a few years after Terminator and Carl Weathers long before his role in The Mandalorian is the core.  There are some other actors who do fine in their roles, such as Shane Black, who went on to direct Iron Man 3 and the later Predator sequel titled The Predator, which tried to use the approach to humor of the more recent MCU to horrendous effect, and still other limited but talented cast members like Sonny Landham and Elpidia Carrill--but Schwarzenegger and Weathers are given the strongest characters.  The two of them are genuinely at home in this movie and deliver great performances (this is among Schwarzenegger's best).  Even so, Bill Duke is given a very personal moment where he speaks as if a deceased friend is still with him, granting him a scene of characterization that rises above what could have been handed to him.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

A talented American soldier nicknamed Dutch and his companions are summoned to hear that a cabinet minister has been stranded in a Guatemala and needs rescue.  Kidnapped by guerillas, the official turns out to not exactly be who Dutch expects.  It seems the guerillas have skinned a separate team of American units never mentioned in the mission briefing, and then Dutch sees a Russian execute a hostage.  The operation was deceptively described in order to convince him to participate.  As the team tries to leave the country, they are stalked by an unseen force that they come to realize does not appear to be terrestrial.

Intellectual Content

Predator comes closer than some might think to directly emphasizing some deeper themes than mere desperation for survival.  Subtle elements like the close friendship between a black and white soldier that is given attention later in the film benefit from the historical context, with the story set during the Cold War in 1987 after the extreme racial tensions of the 1900s.  While things like this are not the foundation of the movie, Predator thematically and artistically benefits from them immensely, just as it benefits from its repeated acknowledgement of how the soldiers are full people as opposed to just tools to be used by others are there and do lend greater depth to at least their respective moments.  They are not what Predator focuses on, but they do offer flashes of more significant depth to a movie that mostly relies on a simple but well-executed plot.  It is the Alien movies that the  Predator series crosses over with that more explicitly address the philosophical dimensions of alien life and what those ramifications for things like morality, theology, and business are.

Conclusion

Out of the following three franchise films, only Predators holistically replicates the primary aspects of Predator.  The original is a fairly simple movie with moments that acknowledge deeper themes or defy broad cinematic trends, but simplicity is not always a negative trait in art.  There is a directness in Predator that marks it for the entire film and helps keep it focused.  As a science fiction slasher with mild political elements, this is quite an effective movie that accomplishes what it tries to and never fails to be presented seriously, without the parody or generous reliance on comedy that certain other slashers leap into.  Especially today, the special effects for some of the Predator's technology look horrid, but these scenes are relatively few and far between when compared to the full runtime, a runtime that story-wise is used very efficiently, with little to no wasted scenes that do not advance the plot or build an atmosphere.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  The violent images can be quite graphic, but much more of the film is dedicated to other things than the actual corpses or fights.  A trio of skinned human bodies are shown directly, though.  Later, a man's arm is blown off, and another scene shows a spine get ripped out of a dead body.

 2.  Profanity:  "Fuck," "shit," "damn," "bitch," and "bastards" all get used.