In many ways , Predator 2 was the sequel no one wanted : It did n’t have Arnold ; it did n’t have handsome , awesome triggerman ; and it had the mirthful Jamaican voodoo posse threat . But it merit another look . Honest .
The trick to getting the most entertainment value out of Predator 2 is make that 1987 ’s Predator did n’t live , pretending that Arnold Schwarzenegger did not conduct the manly dramatis personae since The Wild Bunch — including Carl Weathers , Jesse Ventura , Sonny Landham , and Bill Duke — in an explosively destructive jungle hunt for a tricksy foreign hunter . Already hobbled by not being able to have Arnold ’s Dutch at the pith of the story — Schwarzenegger shot Terminator 2 : Judgment Day instead — director Stephen Hopkins and writers Jim and John Thomas made one crucial mistake : they made P2 a closed book .
Why orient a whole pic around Danny Glover ’s seeking to teach who could possibly be killing the Columbian drug lords and Jamaican juju chieftains while leaving spines and skull all over Los Angeles ? We know who ’s doing it — we ’ve already ascertain the first predatory animal . It ’s one thing , as a film maker , to reserve the hearing to be one footstep beforehand of your independent part , but it ’s a whole other matter for the audience to have already skipped to the end .
But let ’s say that you never saw Predator — you ’ve missed out on something beautiful , but that ’s your own cross to bear — and so you do n’t know that the thing doing all the violent death is an exotic hunter that uses Earth as a game preserve . In that vitrine , Predator 2 is a utterly serviceable thriller . It ’s scud with sinewy dash , the set pieces are impregnable , and Danny Glover is well - mold as a LAPD detective trying to stop over an all - out gang war while tracking what looks to be a serial killer . The supporting form is substantial : Bill Paxton , Ruben Blades , Gary Busey , Maria Conchita Alonzo , and a preposterously new Adam Baldwin all do okay employment . Plus , the seeding of the Alien vs. Predator crossover , via a skull found in the hunters ’ prize way , was a masterstroke .
If you may pretermit the inbuilt silliness of the “ Jamaican voodoo posse ” — a rather peculiar , short - survive line of ’ ninety movie scoundrel ( see Steven Seagal ’s Marked for Death ) — and will yourself into ignorance of the first cinema , Predator 2 is deserving revisiting .
Or not . Those posse were really slaphappy .
MoviesPredatorSequels
Daily Newsletter
Get the good tech , science , and culture tidings in your inbox daily .
News from the future , delivered to your present .
You May Also Like
