Predator

"If it bleeds, we can kill it." 

Looking back on the original Predator, it really feels like the ultimate 80's action movie. Filled with burly, macho guys spouting the most ridiculous, equally macho one-liners, such as Jesse Ventura's infamous, "I ain't got time to bleed." Filled with heavy artillery and a distinctly memorable villain, this film became an instant action movie classic. 

Dutch (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) and his team of mercenaries arrive in the Central American jungle to rescue a captured prisoner from an insurgent camp. His team consists of a group of equally burly men such as Mac (played by Bill Duke), Blain (played by Jesse Ventura), Billy (played by Sonny Landham), Poncho (played by Richard Chavez) and Hawkins (played by Shane Black of all people). They meet CIA agent Dillon (played by Carl Weathers), who gives them the info on the location of the camp and joins them as they set out into the jungle. Along the way, they find a wrecked helicopter along with three bodies strung up in the trees by their feet and skinned from head to toe. Thinking it's the work of the insurgents, they continue on to the camp. When the assault on the camp goes sideways and all the occupants are killed, Dutch realizes Dillon set them up to retrieve intelligence at the camp rather than any prisoner. Taking the lone survivor of the camp, a woman named Anna (played by Elpida Carrillo). As they leave the camp to make their way to the rendezvous point with a helicopter to get out of there ("Get to da choppa!"), it quickly becomes apparent that they are not alone in the jungle. They are in fact being hunted by a lethal, high tech alien with camouflaging armor that makes it invisible ("Not totally, he has a tell-tale shimmer!" -Sterling Archer). Seeing the mercenaries as worthy adversaries, he begins hunting them through the jungle. 

The origins of Predator came from an off-hand joke upon the release of Rocky IV that the only thing left for Rocky to fight was an alien. Taking inspiration from that, Jim and John Thomas wrote a script for the film. The script was quickly sold to Joel Silver to produce, looking to make it his next big budget action flick. He recruited John McTiernan to direct the film. Employing some groundbreaking effects to portray the camouflaging armor of the Predator and a lean narrative, McTiernan crafts a thrilling action adventure film that barely lets up from beginning all the way to the end. The creature design by Stan Winston is unique and memorable. I also like how the villain is written, clever and cunning. He isn't just some mindless animal, but has certain rules and principals that he abides by. For example, he never harms Anna because she is unarmed and, as Dutch observes, "That's not sporting." I also found it interesting that The Predator kept it a fair fight, all through to the climactic showdown with Dutch at the end of the film. It's the little touches like this that make the Predator such a memorable villain. Still, the film is a violent one, with the Predator taking trophies of his victims, usually their skulls. as we see vividly depicted in the film at one point. On the scoring side of things, Alan Silvestri turns in a memorable score that keeps the film propelling forward like freight train. 

On the casting front, the team managed to assemble some of the burliest, most many dudes they could find to stand toe to toe with Schwarzenegger, including Apollo Creed himself Carl Weathers, Jesse Ventura, Bill Duke and Sonny Landham cutting an imposing presence. Over on the what the hell are you doing in this movie side is Shane Black as Hawkins, the dorkiest of the mercenaries. First introduced reading a comic book and trying to make Landham laugh with very dirty jokes that definitely wouldn't fly today (they are all centered around a certain part of the female anatomy). Still, he comes off and the geeky kid brother of all the other guys and is certainly the odd duck out. It is amusing though, because Shane Black went on to have a far more lucrative career as a screenwriter and director of such films as Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and The Nice Guys. What is even funnier though is that he is the writer and director of the latest installment of the series, The Predator, which I will be tackling in a few days. 

Predator unwittingly kicked off a franchise of films that has survived over the past 31 years, including two movies where the Predator faced off with the Xenomorphs of the Alien franchise, with decidedly mixed results (in other words, they sucked). Still, the original film ranks the best of the bunch (granted I haven't seen the fourth one and I am a Shane Black fanboy, so I may be singing a different tune in a few days). Despite that, I do feel the follow-ups are worth a watch as well and will be revisiting them as well in the coming days.