When I was like 10 a friend told me there was a movie where this alien hunts down dudes and kills them one by one...

Rating: 8/10 (26 August 2015)

Predator is an epic, primal adventure; a fight between man and beast, hunter and prey, a tale of survival of the fittest. The Predator is a creature with neon green blood, thermal vision, an invisibility cloak. Its prey are a bunch of bros with guns, including classic parts for Carl Weathers and Arnold Schwarznegger. If not for all of his other career-making role in The Terminator, this would be my first exposure to Arnie, as we called him then. He represented, in this movie, the absolute best a man can be. He's good-looking, strong, makes decisions, and says things like "get to the chopper" without a shred of irony. He also says "if it bleeds, we can kill it," and "Do it, do it now!" which are just fun to drop into any dinner party.
The movie is a masterclass in pacing for action films. It works equally well as an action and horror film. In fact, it is the originator of a structure that I have come to think of as the Predator Structure, where people are hunted down and die one by one until only one remains. Its standard blu ray release has incredible sound quality, but just a passable picture. The film was shot with a lot of low lighting, and that doesn't tend to pop on in definition. Its murky and grainy, but still looks better than the previous DVD release.
The only thing that has not aged well are the special effects related to the alien technology: the Predator's heat vision and invisibility cloak always looked bad, but they look positively silly in high def. Once you're used to them, you can easily look past.
Who am I kidding, my love for Predator and Arnie in this movies goes way beyond the measured art of reviewing. This was a childhood favourite of mine and yes I had an awesome childhood. I first heard about it on the handball courts in primary school from this description "an alien hunts down a bunch of marines and kills them one by one, its awesome." I instantly wanted to watch that movie as soon as I could, and I loved it then and have loved it ever since.