A film without fault

Rating: Null/10 (22 April 2005)

Arnie is a commando. He has some commando buddies. They meet up with Carl Weathers and abseil from helicopters into the jungle. They're all on a big mission, ostensibly to save some cabinet minister or someone. They find some badguys. Arnie ruins their luncheon by pushing a truck armed with explosives right into their midst. Outrageous amounts of shooting take place. Jesse Ventura steals the film with his sensational medigun, a weapon so powerful it sets people on fire after a few rounds! Arnie throws a knife into some passer by, 'Schtick around' being his handy advice. But when the shooting stops Arnie feels betrayed, Carl Weathers lied! Horror of horrors these old pals are now in great dispute. Little do they know that they share a common enemy...the Predator, some kind of alien hunter that has arrived from space with the expressed intention of turning everybody it finds into some kind of quirky evening wear. The team move on into the jungle, the spectacled disgusting joke peddler being the first to die. Ventura is next, his stomach exploding in a cacophony of splurting blood! Bill Duke doesn't like that one bit, Ventura was his best mate, so he fires off thousands of rounds from the medigun into the trees, his commando mates doing the same. They all miss! The Predator has got away FOR NOW! Arnie has a plan, 'If it bleeds vee can kill it' he quips! The race is on to catch the killer, traps are laid, but when the Predator falls for them his powers of escape are better than they had all predicted. It breaks free and Richard Chaves finds out what happens when a gigantic log is hurled at high speed into your chest! Suffice to say he doesn't benefit from the experience. Bill Duke and Carl Weathers decide to track the creature, and amazingly discard much of their ammo! They both end up in a rather bad way, Duke's head exploding and Weather's arm being shot off, naturally the rest of him soon following. By now just Arnie is left intact, his American Indian friend having unexplainably decided to offer himself as pray! Just the crippled Chaves and some peasant girl remain. Chaves soon finds himself dead, whilst the girl runs off. Arnie then gets shot in the arm, but it causes him no worry, because his skin is obviously made of cream coloured armour. He jumps off a waterfall, he does the same moments later, but no side effects are suffered. Swimming through the cleanest river water ever seen Arnie lies helpless on a muddy beach. But alas, this saves him, for the Predator is very thick and doesn't notice him, the mud hiding his presence. Arnie then turns into a cross between Ray Mears and Tarzan before taking on the Predator in a series of fights. Things are going badly for him, he's seconds from death, but then rather luckily the Predator opts to stand under one of Arnie's log traps and is seriously wounded when the huge heap of wood descends onto his 7ft frame. Arnie gives a sigh of relief, but he's premature. The Predator is still alive and has detonated a bomb! Arnie runs faster than Linford Christie and then the bomb goes off. It can only be described as a nuclear explosion so large is its mushroom cloud. It destroys a forest. Not a tree is left standing. Only one thing has survived...Arnie! Yes, he has been shot in the arm, battered by a giant alien, jumped off a couple of waterfalls and outrun a nuclear holocaust, but did you ever expect him not to make it? Of course not! Predator is a stunning film, packed with action and one-liners, very funny at times and not too long. Arnie plays Dutch relatively straight faced and gives one of his best performances. Jesse Ventura is particularly good as the loudmouth tobacco chewin hick warrior Blaine. This is a film that can be seen again and again, yet still entertains. Few films come close to it.