Predator
Published January 21, 2017
Film info
- Title Predator
- Director John McTiernan
- Year 1987
- Run time 1hr 47m
- Genres Science-Fiction, Action, Adventure, Thriller
- Tagline Soon the hunt will begin
Major Dutch Schaefer is the leader of a military rescue unit looking for allies captured by guerrillas in the Latin American jungle. At first it seems like any other mission: Schaefer and his team of seasoned combat veterans spot a guerilla camp, destroy it, and find the men they were sent to rescue executed. But when Schaefer attempts to lead his unit out, with a captured guerrilla in tow, something horrifying and inexplicable begins to happen: One by one the men are killed by a mysterious adversary - a Predator from another world.
Live blog
| Time | Comment |
|---|---|
| 2:35 | Very helicopter heavy start to proceedings. |
| 3:27 | This music is incredibly dramatic, but we don’t yet know why. |
| 6:22 | Are they calling him Dutch because they think he is Dutch? |
| 14:10 | You can’t bring in the experts and then lie to them, they’ll find you out, they’re experts. |
| 16:46 | Oh that’s so gross. |
| 22:00 | They’re good at slithering down slopes head first, I would fall down so much. |
| 24:58 | Wow, strongman Arnie takes zero prisoners! |
| 27:28 | “Stick around.” Yay! Arnie’s one-liners are back. |
| 33:04 | The guy is telling terrible jokes but should realise his glasses are the funniest thing! |
| 42:35 | It’s invisible! NOOO. |
| 48:30 | Right so there’s the reason there’s no freaking rainforest left. |
| 49:21 | Textbook definition of shoot first, ask questions later. |
| 56:24 | “There’s something out there waiting for us, and it ain’t no man.” |
| 1:05:29 | I quite like ‘cheese’ as a nickname. |
| 1:15:35 | He’s got confused, meant to use the knife on the enemy. |
| 1:24:15 | This is a bit like the jungle version of Home Alone. |
| 1:31:58 | Careful Arnie, you might need to re-mud yourself. |
| 1:39:20 | Dude, didn’t you see the Terminator? Nothing ever dies first time. |
Thoughts
Somehow, I’ve never actually seen this before so I wasn’t really sure what I was in for. It’s quite eighties, but because it’s set in the jungle, it’s not really that dated. I thought it was excellent - incredibly tense and actually really scary! Some of it was a bit gross but overall it was more about what you didn’t see than what you did - particularly with an invisible enemy.
Arnie was good too, not too many crazy quips, and some good stern acting. I liked his team, too, but you sort of knew straight away not to get too attached to them, poor chaps. Mr C wasn’t too keen on some of the CGI but I didn’t mind it too much, it certainly wasn’t as bad as the Terminator’s dodgy stop-motion situation.
My only complaint is the music. I was excited when I saw it was Alan Silvestri, but that soon drained away when I realised the soundtrack was exactly like Back to the Future. To the point where it was pretty distracting, I was busy thinking about what Marty McFly was up to instead of worrying about the predator.
Rating: 4 / 5