“If it bleeds, we can kill it.” Such is the motto of the Predator franchise, a rallying cry against seemingly insurmountable odds, said by heroes and antiheroes alike, who would easily kick ass in nearly every action franchise not to mention a good portion of the horror world, too. But that is the power of the Predator as a movie monster: it is a hunter that seeks out the toughest and the best of us and, through a little bit of cheating and a whole lot of terror, tears us apart for fun. It is the big game hunter of the galaxy, and, like its human counterparts, is a bit of a dick.
Predator is a movie that is so perfect that the rest of the franchise couldn’t just copy it wholesale like so many horror and action franchises have done before and since. Billed as an Arnie movie )though the titular monster has stolen top billing over time), director John McTiernan took a team of very 80s buff types (immortalised by that handshake between Arnie and Carl Weathers), sent them into the jungle to destroy a small militia group with at least one quip per bloodied corpse, then plunges them into a slasher movie in which they are the unfortunate victims. McTiernan brought a similar mindset to Predator as he did to Die Hard; the goal of both is to humanise the one-man army hero by making him use his head. Arnie’s Dutch, after watching his whole team get pulverised by the Predator, has to use his brain over his brawn to win, in a move that would ultimately come to define the franchise.
Predator 2, Prey, and Predator: Killer of Killers took this theme and run with it. Predator 2, an undeniably insane film, pits Danny Glover’s everyman police officer against a Predator that has come to Earth even more tooled up and overpowered than before. Glover’s advantage is that he knows his environment better than his enemy and is smart enough to stay half a step ahead of the Predator’s weapons. Prey, which I think is just as good as (if not, whisper it, better than) Predator, has Naru, played by Amber Midthunder, learning to become the ultimate hunter in parallel to a young Predator. It is only when she has proved herself enough of a threat that the monster even notices her and, by that point, she uses all she has learned throughout the movie to take it down in immensely satisfying fashion.
Prey director Dan Trachtenberg followed this up with the animated anthology movie, Predator: Killer of Killers, which was out earlier this year in the run-up to this month’s Predator: Badlands. Through its three stories, starring a Viking Shieldmaiden, a Japanese Ninja, and an American pilot in World War Two, Trachtenberg reiterates the frachise’s themes that were put to such good use in Prey – each character must rely on both their ingenuity and tactical skillsets as much as their unique weapons. This culminates in all three characters joining forces to take on Predators on the creatures’ home world.
The greatest weapon in the Predator universe, as these brilliant entries show, is the mind – which is why they work, and Predators and The Predator don’t. Simply put, the characters in both of these flop franchise additions are idiots – and the directors behind them not much better. The franchise’s bread and butter is convincing us that people of seemingly less physical power (yes, that means Dutch as well) can beat the Predator. Predators is already off to a wobbly start with that with a dodgy script, where I have to suspend my disbelief that at any of these fools surviving a planet full of Predators for more than the title credits. But where it really goes off the deep end is in the casting of Adrian Brody as a supposed badass, a miscasting is so distracting that every time he says anything I’m taken out of the movie.
The Predator is even worse. Billed as a return to the franchises roots after the perfectly fine AVP: Alien vs Predator, and the awful Requiem, and helmed by Shane Black whose credentials include writing a bit of the first movie and being blown to bits as Hawkins onscreen. What we get is less of a return to form (we would have to wait for Prey for that) and more of the stupidest Predator movie you could possibly imagine. The Predator is the nadir of the franchise for a few reasons; a mish-mash of a boys own adventure story, a buddy movie where all the buddies are insane, and a comedic undertone that burst out and destroys everything else until all we are left with is the equivalent of Abbot and Costello meet The Predator. Predator is a franchise that, for the most part, takes itself relatively seriously, and this tone flattens any impact and makes for an uneasily unconfident entry into the series.
Apart from the soggy middle of Predators and The Predator, the franchise is at its best when it keeps to its core tenants of brain over brawn. The human prey must turn the tables on the thing hunting them in there own character specific way; this is what has given the franchise life for nearly forty years and why it is the few film series originated by Arnie that hasn’t needed him since it started.
What’s your take on the Predator series? What’s your favourite film of the bunch, and what is the series’ worst? Let us know in the comments!
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By Kevin Boyle
(header image via Amazon)
No But Listen 