Predator 1987 Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger
A Group of Special Forces Soldiers are Hunted by an Hostile Alien
Sep 28, 2009 Christopher Sharman
Whilst on a rescue mission in the South American jungle an eight man team of Special Forces soldiers are hunted down and picked off one by one. The hunter is an alien life form with an arsenal of sophisticated weapons at its disposal and a device that allow it to become almost invisible.
Predator's Plot and Characters
Major Alan "Dutch" Schaefer (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and his Special Forces team is ordered to rescue a presidential cabinet minister who has been kidnapped by guerrilla forces in Val Verde. Joining the team is Dutch’s old army buddy and now CIA officer, George Dillon (Carl Weathers).
Once in the jungle the team find the skinned remains of another group of US soldiers. The soldiers have no business being in the country, but it is their grisly fate that unnerves Dutch’s group. Moving on they find a guerrilla camp and quickly destroy it, killing everyone there. It is only then that Dutch discovers that Dillon concocted the story about the cabinet minister in order to get Dutch’s team into the area so they could destroy the camp.
Later as the team head to the extraction point an unknown force, using thermal imaging, is following them. Without warning the creature starts to attack them, picking each member off one by one, with the survivors powerless to stop it.
Beginning of a Legend
Predator is a film made during a time when aliens were starting to become hostile. Aliens had been made the previous year and the nice alien of ET was just a memory. Predator introduced a vicious alien that hunted human beings, and kept their skulls as a trophy. The predator itself is a physically imposing creature towering over Schwarzenegger (who is not exactly unimposing) with the actor in the suit (Kevin Peter Hall) standing at over 7 foot 2.
In the days before the Aliens and Predators had both suffered at the hands of poor crossover films both the Alien and Predator films were classics. The Predator in this film is shrouded in mystery. It hunts the soldiers because it views them as being worthy prey, and it will not attack someone that cannot defend themselves.
The members of Dutch’s team are all muscular and are obviously tough. However, as the Predator picks them off one after another they begin to crack. They fire over 200 rounds from a mini-gun into the jungle after spotting the Predator and yet moments later they realise that they hit nothing.
The realisation that they are being hunted by an alien is slow and director John McTiernan keeps the tension at breaking point by only giving the audience brief glimpses of the Predator. Films in which the monster is revealed are never as frightening as the films in which the monster is only glimpsed. The Predator is a great creation and is more than a match for the Special Forces soldiers that it has discovered in the jungle.
The Alien Vs Predator films robbed the Predators of a lot of their menace and suggested that the Predators were only dangerous when they have their weapons. In this film the Predator is obviously very tough and engages Dutch in a fist fight. It is also smart enough to not get lured into traps and can see trip wires. This is the best of the Predator franchise, simply because Schwarzenegger is seen to bleed and struggles to escape from an opponent far stronger than himself.
All in all, Predator is a film that took the idea of hostile aliens to new territory and has since spawned a thousand cheap imitations. However, this is the first film of its kind and showed the Predators before they were stuck in poor crossover films with the Aliens.
5/5
Outstanding example of sci-fi horror with an original story and vicious alien.
Predator
|
What do you think about this article?
More in Film & TV
Latest Articles