Arnold, Action, Aliens and Armaments in a Classically '80s Military Throwdown

Rating: 7/10 (27 November 2018)

Having lost a chopper filled with political hot potatoes behind enemy lines, the US sends in a meathead commando unit to locate and, hopefully, extract them. Along the way, they just so happen to get caught in the crosshairs of an invisible extraterrestrial stalker, who gleefully hunts the entire team for sport.
As an adrenaline-pumping, bullet-riddled 1980s action movie (starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, no less), one can accurately predict exactly what type of cinematic experience this is. And it doesn't disappoint: we're served a buffet of idiotic one-liners, baby-oiled biceps, dismembered limbs, explosive firestorms and cute personality traits. More surprisingly, we also get a fairly effective science fiction thriller, one that's become remarkably influential in the thirty years since its premiere.
Filmed in an age before computer-rendered effects were the norm, Predator still looks convincing and impressive, especially in regards to the alien monster himself. His advanced arsenal is borderline revolutionary, a fantastic mix of high-tech and low that never quite breaks the illusion of reality, and his getup is both sleekly futuristic and functionally simple. He's a conundrum, hard to handle for a variety of reasons, which makes his lengthy final battle with Arnold (seriously did not remember how long those two went mano a mano) all the more interesting.
An unusually fresh, consistent example of an era and genre mix that doesn't usually age very well. Too bad about the sequels.