Film Review: PREDATOR 2 (1990, Stephen Hopkins)

Stars: 3 of 5.
Running Time: 108 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Danny Glover, Gary Busey, Maria Conchita Alonso, Ruben Blades, Bill Paxton, Adam Baldwin, Robert Davi, Kevin Peter Hall, Calvin Lockhart, Alan Silvestri, Mark Goldblatt (editor and director of DEAD HEAT)
Tag-line: "Pull over, park, and pray." AND "Hunting season opens again... this Christmas."
Best one-liner(s): "Want some candy?"
Best lazy one-liner: "I'll show you insubordination, you sonofabitch!"

MYTH: The finale of PREDATOR 2 involves Gary Busey putting the Predator in a headlock and biting off some of his dreds with his ginormous, shining teeth. FACT: If it did, this movie would have garnered five stars.

Another FACT: the Busey storyline is given the short shrift, and has a frankly anticlimactic conclusion. Although they at least allow him to psychotically say, "Lions and tigers and bears...OH MAI."

MYTH: Danny Glover's main character trait in this film is that he likes having an extensive collection of handguns.

FACT: Glover's key character trait is that he despises birds. "Damn. Damned birds!" Maybe they figured, hey, snakes worked for Indiana Jones, so...

MYTH: The Predator is pro-choice. FACT: The Predator has a stranglehold on an ARMED woman, and is about to deliver the coup de grace when his thermal vision spies a baby within her womb.

He spares her, thus affirming his pro-life ideals or that he considers all fetuses to be humans or something.

MYTH: The filmmakers accurately depict voodoo and its rituals. FACT: Shall we begin with the fact that in the film, it's a JAMAICAN, not Haitian, killer voodoo posse? In fact, I'm pretty sure the only reason they inserted this plotline was so there could be a couple shots of dudes in dredlocks in silhouette and then for half a second you could be like "Wait, is that the Predator?... Oh."

MYTH: This movie tried to make "Damn birds" into a catchphrase. FACT: It was "Want some candy?"

MYTH: There's hardly any POV Predator-vision in this movie. FACT: They went overboard. Even the main title is in Predator-vision.

There's so much Predator-vision that the viewer will later DREAM in Predator-vision. They should have called this movie PREDATOR 2: PREDATOR-VISION.

Concluding thoughts: Three stars: five stars for Busey, Glover, and overall insanity, minus two stars for not using Busey to full capacity. "It's between ME and HEIM!"

-Sean Gill