"If it bleeds...we can kill it"

Rating: 10/10 (13 April 2017)

Director John McTiernan put himself on the map big time with box office hits and action classics Predator and Die Hard. Predator next to Conan The Barbarian is by far my favorite Schwarzenegger film and in my opinion his best performance to date. The film has a lot in common with much of Arnold's output at the time, but is also unique and one of his most well made cinematic efforts overall. Predator is a hybrid of Aliens, Commando and The Dirty Dozen. What starts out as a routine rescue mission turns awry when Arnie's alpha male special forces team of commandos starts getting picked off by an unknown enemy. You know if Arnold's group of seasoned bad ass soldiers are afraid of what is hunting them, I am as well. While there is less screen time for the ensemble cast, they all performed well and are memorable bad ass characters. Carl Weathers, Bill Duke, Jesse Ventura, Sonny Landham,Richard Chaves and Shane Black were all excellent and were eliminated by high tech alien hunter/warrior the Predator. The special f/x are state of the art and is due to the brilliance of special f/x wizard Stan Winston. The tone of the film is right and is very well written and put together overall. There is not a lot of time for humor here, but there are a lot of memorable one liners and all the firepower and pumped up testosterone that should please the most jaded action fans. The sci fi and horror elements are prevalent as well and along with James Cameron's masterpiece Aliens, Predator is the best sci fi/action/horror hybrid of its time and all time.