Prey, the latest in the Predator series, has gained very positive word of mouth from Comic Con and promises to rejuvenate an ailing franchise. If the Predator sequels have skewed too close to the original, with the alien hunter picking off military types for sport, then Prey’s Comanche Nation setting suggests something different. However, it’s not the first time the franchise has done a complete 180 in terms of tone and location. In 1990, Predator 2 transposed the action from the jungle to a semi-futuristic LA with a completely different cast. Boasting big performances, plenty of B-movie thrills, and a genuine attempt to take the story somewhere new, Predator 2 is worth hunting down.
Set in Los Angeles, 1997, Lieutenant Mike Harrigan (Danny Glover) and his fellow cops investigate a series of gory gangland slayings. As the body count grows, it becomes apparent that an alien entity, The Predator (Kevin Peter Hall), is killing criminals across the city. When members of his team are killed, Harrigan finds himself in a showdown with a seemingly unstoppable opponent.
Opening with a shot of palm trees in sly reference to the original film, Predator 2 pulls back to reveal its new urban location. Future LA is imagined as a gun-crime infested city on the brink of collapse, with the media feeding on every new atrocity. It recalls the gleeful bad taste of Robocop, but it’s not as smart and funny as that film. Coming out in the year before Rodney King was assaulted by four LAPD officers, Predator 2’s setting and tone was no doubt influenced by the simmering tensions of the city, although it contains none of the straight-faced irony of Paul Verhoeven’s movie. Harrigan and his team are presented as straightforward heroes. Various gangs appear, representing Columbian and Jamaican cartels, but they’re quickly dispatched by the Predator. In one scene on the LA Metro, an armed gang threatens a commuter, only for the intended victim and most of the carriage to pull weapons – soon enough everyone is dead at the hands of the alien.
The movie’s low-key futurism extends to 1940s inspired costuming (Glover wears very high pants throughout) and pastel shades, reminiscent of Verhoeven’s Total Recall, which came out the same year. Arnold Schwarzenegger opted for that film rather than the Predator sequel, which means Predator 2 is gifted with Glover as a solo action lead. He gets to kick butt and be a loose cannon in a way that his most famous role, Lethal Weapon’s Roger Murtaugh, rarely allowed. There he had to play the exasperated straight man most of the time, so it’s fun seeing him be the one to rail against the rules and take on Gary Busey (playing a creepy special agent with an agenda). Glover’s a rare star of the time who was both an excellent actor and convincing as an action lead. The fact that Predator 2 was neither a commercial nor a critical success probably curtailed further leading roles for him as an action star, which is a shame.
His main co-star, The Predator, is as impressive as ever – an efficient killing machine with its mask on, and an insectoid nightmare (courtesy of Stan Winston’s excellent effects) with the mask off. Predator 2 throws in a few new twists, such as a razor-sharp weapon that looks like a frisbee and the alien’s home surgery kit. Yet the film is ill-served by comparison to the original. Predator is one of the great action movies of the 80s, but it’s still a B-movie at heart. The story of humans being hunted for sport is a sci-fi twist on an old chestnut, The Most Dangerous Game, and comes off like a bigger-budget version of flicks such as the Ozploitation Turkey Shoot. However great the Predator design might be, the xenomorph from the Alien franchise is a scarier monster. Aliens provides the greatest sci-fi mayhem of the period and The Terminator is Schwarzenegger’s best early film.
Nevertheless, Predator 2 leans into the B-movie elements as a strength, hitting every genre mark along the way. A scene with Harrigan telling a rookie team member his philosophy of the streets? Check. The hero being called into his boss’ office for a dressing down? Check. A government agent admitting he admires the alien killer? Check. When Special Agent Keyes (Busey) leads a team into the Predator’s feeding ground with a fool-proof plan, it’s only too obvious that things are going to go south. From the gung-ho marines of Aliens to the FBI agents in Die Hard, hubris is an unforgivable sin in 80s action cinema – punishable by dismemberment or being blown up. Sure enough, Keyes and his team have perfectly masked their body heat from the Predator’s thermal vision but forgot about the massive torches strapped to their shoulders. Oops.
Predator 2 would probably have more of a cult following were it not simply remembered as an inferior sequel. As a slice of aliens-in-LA mayhem it’s up there with 80s genre pieces such as They Live and The Hidden, guilty pleasures that were reappraised in the video shops of the early 90s. While Total Recall was the big sci-fi actioner of 1990, Predator 2 stands out for its more diverse cast of character actors, including Maria Conchita Alonso and Ruben Blades, who get decent roles as members of Harrigan’s team. Robert Davi makes a brief appearance as Harrigan’s uptight boss, although he disappointingly doesn’t get to meet the Predator. Bill Paxton provides the crazy-guy energy he specialized in at the time.
Inevitably, it comes down to Glover against the Predator, convincingly chasing the alien through apartments and lift shafts in a manner that recalls both Blade Runner and Die Hard. Predator 2 is a derivative movie in the best possible way. If director Stephen Hopkins’ subsequent filmography (which includes Blown Away and 1998’s Lost in Space) doesn’t impress, then his innovative work on the first season of 24 suggests that television was a better outlet for his B-movie sensibilities.
Two of the most influential ideas for the franchise come towards the end of Predator 2. In the Predator’s hidden ship, Harrigan finds a trophy wall displaying the skulls of various kills, including what is clearly that of a xenomorph from the Alien series. The Alien vs Predator comics were already in production at Dark Horse, although this is the first suggestion on film that the two creatures inhabited the same universe. It’s a cool idea, providing you can forget about the terrible AvP films that followed. Later, when Harrigan proves himself worthy of the hunt, a senior Predator hands him a reward – an antique flintlock pistol inscribed “Raphael Adolini – 1715.” That story was picked up in a later Predator comic (screenwriters Jim and John Thomas had planned a historical twist for a Predator 3 that never happened), but it also prefigures the early 18th Century time period we can look forward to in Prey.
For audiences that want to see the Predator hunting soldier types, revisiting the first movie has always been a better option than the other sequels. Predator 2 serves up something completely different – perhaps too different for audiences in 1990 that just wanted more Arnie. However, with Prey’s release this month, it’s solid entertainment that shows being hunted for sport by an alien is bad news in any time or place.
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