Mediocre 80's action flick redeemed by

Rating: 7/10 (5 October 2017)

The original Predator is very 80's. Sometimes that's a bad thing. Like when they stumble on the guerilla base and it turns into "The A-team". Offensive the way those bad guys are stereotypical, Spanish-speaking puppets, mowed down by the dozen. Then later, in contrast, the black guy's friend dies (the tobacco-chewing, cowboy- hat-wearing, Southern fella), and the film goes all teary-eyed on you. Ridiculous. Also strange how at the beginning, Arnie says his is a rescue team, not an assassination team. Then later they happily rank up video game kill count numbers.
About Arnie, he does a good a job of playing the responsible team leader. The few one-liners he lays down don't work the way they do in some of his other movies, and I don't find the way he survives later on all that believable. But overall, I think he was well cast.
So what is it that redeems Predator? Two things: the phenomenal soundtrack (it really is) and of course the (very cool) predator character. You don't get to see much of it for a good while, but the threat is looming. In conjunction with that, is Billy, the Native American looking guy and to me the most memorable of the bunch. His hunter's instinct senses the predator, even if they can't see it, and leaves his team worried. At one point, he tells the others that he is afraid and that whatever is hunting them, is not a man