"Sport"

Rating: 9/10 (2 August 2010)

With a premise reducible as 'Schwarzenegger vs. superpowered alien in jungle from the director of Die Hard', it would seem a given that Predator could hardly be less than a rip- snorting good time. And the film is more fun than one could ask for, natch, but its real surprise is that, rather than simply a guilty pleasure, it isn't half bad in any regard, boasting enough of a brain and thematic backbone to, in combination with its combustible mayhem, easily cement it as a genre classic.
Boasting one of the most impressive genre resumes in cinema history, director John McTiernan certainly knows his salt in terms of hard-thwacking, supremely satisfying action and Predator, one of his earliest offerings, consistently fires on all cylinders. McTiernan is wise enough to concentrate on the minutiae within the bombastic, dwelling as much on details such as exactly how the team members strap on their weapons, cock their heads to listen for threatening sounds or sing songs to themselves to quench nerves coming away as just as memorable as any explosive showdowns. Such an attention to detail is what truly elevates the film from the chaff, with a painstakingly creeping sense of peril and dread leaving the audience constantly scrutinizing background trees, the soft crinkle of ferns, the hiss of breathing and any unexpected movement as the film stalks away from the familiar comfort of civilization into the horrific isolation of an alien jungle. For its use of sound alone, the film should be considered a classic of horror as well as action.
With its claustrophobic arousal of tension, the film is unquestionably indebted to Spielberg's Jaws, the Predator's infra-red POV fittingly substituting for the lurking underwater shark cameras, yet in many ways the film eerily foreshadows aspects of Spielberg's Jurassic Park, bringing the cycle of influence (whether conscious or not) full circle. To mention McTiernan's film in the same breath as such classics is no accident, as he cannily utilizes such established conventions to bend viewer expectations and sympathies (it is worth noticing who the audience is 'watching' at what point during the film, alternatively aligned with Dutch or the Predator, making traditionally black and white sympathies murky) to draw them in all the more. While the film may lag a bit near the middle, with several 'apprehensively wandering through the jungle' scenes feeling extraneous, to say nothing of the genre cliché unapologetically yet clumsily speckled throughout ("Stick around!" smirks Dutch as he fastens an enemy soldier to a door with a knife), it is exceedingly rare to see such astute talent and focus dedicated to a film which could easily have been written off as an "expendable" B- feature.
Of course any good 'creature feature' would be nothing without its antagonist, and the Predator itself is a spectacular creation. An ingeniously inventive design, from invisibility- yielding chameleon armour to sinister clicking call to its fusion of the organic and technological, the Predator is a force of almost every antagonistic nature combined, and, chillingly enough, in the fleeting segments the audience is left alone with it, shown to be a more sophisticated extrapolation of the testosterone-pumped yahoos of Dutch's team that it hunts. Though it may be a stretch, the Predator can be seen to represent the essence of 'manhood', the masculine ideal, steadily overcoming all other semblances of machismo represented by Dutch's team and absorbing them into itself, taking skins, spines and heads for the sake of proving itself.
As odd as it may seem to consider Arnold Schwarzenegger an example of progressive masculinity, Dutch, while introduced in a flurry of cigars, bulging biceps and one-liners as just as an example of the same kind of cocky manhood as his team, is the only male in the film willing to depart from the usual role of hyper-physical masculine, privileging running from the Predator for the sake of protecting his men rather than pursuing it on a macho vendetta like the rest of his team. McTiernan's introduction of Anna, the only female in the film is particularly interesting: reduced to a nearly nonexistent role, she serves primarily to articulate the attitudes of the men around her. While the majority of the team instinctively try to repress or conquer her (the Predator outright ignores her, opting instead for fellow machismo to overpower), Dutch is the only one to give Anna her say, trust her and release her. It is only through these departures of traditional masculinity that Dutch can defeat its epitome, the Predator (complete with an ironic, mockingly vaginal face), which, fittingly enough, destroys itself when Dutch demonstrates mercy towards it, unable to accept its defeat by a less primal form of manhood.
In terms of performance, apart from said occasional one-liner, Schwarzenegger is refreshingly reserved, delivering, in spite of himself, a performance of credible steely focus and rough compassion, a fitting emotional anchor for such a grisly film. Similarly, Bill Duke is excellent as solemn soldier Mac, as adept at delivering a grim whisper as a heartbroken sob, and injecting the film with raw compassion and heartbreak. Jesse Ventura also stands out as the most gung-ho of the pack, his brazen tobacco spitting ("This stuff will make you a goddamned sexual tyrannosaurus!"), minigun-toting Blain providing the definitive final word on good, old fashioned, macho posturing.
Whether appraised for its underlying sociological group interactions, gender politics, or simply the volume of gasps and explosions, Predator proves difficult to beat on the action/thriller front. Impeccably constructed and fun as can be, McTiernan's film is a must- see for all those capable of stomaching exploding heads and/or Schwarzenegger's sizable biceps.
-9/10