Violent sci-fi action in the jungles of Central America

Rating: 8/10 (21 October 2009)

This is a classic '80s "Arnie" film with plenty of violent action so if you liked previous films like "The Terminator" and "Commando" you are bound to like this too. Once again there is a large body count as our heroes first wipe out a rebel camp then find themselves hunted by the predator of the title.
The film opens with a short scene where a spaceship drops off a smaller craft which we see descend to Earth... we are not shown what it contained. We then join Arnie and his team of military experts who are given the job of flying in to a war torn Central American country to rescue a friendly local politician from the rebels. They are joined by CIA officer Dillon, played by Carl Weathers, who seems to know more about the mission than he is saying. It is soon clear that this isn't going to be a routine mission when they find the remains of the previous rescue mission skinned and hanging from a tree. When they find the rebels they kill them all apart from Anna, a young woman who they take with them. It is after this that the Predator really joins the story as it starts to pick off members of the team. At first they don't believe Anna when she tells them that "the jungle came alive" but soon realise that while that isn't literally true there is something out there that isn't human.
The action is pretty exciting throughout the film, it is also fairly violent with people dying after being shot, blown up, set on fire or impaled by a thrown machete.. and this is just the early scene where our heroes take on the rebels. As well as Arnie doing well in the lead role as Dutch the other actors do a decent job, especially the always good Bill Duke as Mac. The special effects are great for a pre-CGI film, especially the look of the predator's chameleon-like armour.
Even though I don't think this was as good as "Alien" in the space-monster genre I'd recommend this to any fans of '80s action movies as this is a great example of the type.