Predator (1987) is a 80’s Action film genre movie directed by John McTiernan and produced by Joel Silver. The film stars Schwarzenegger as William “Dutch” Schaeffer, Dillon to his friends. This film was distributed by 20th Century Fox. The film’s content : Action, Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi. The film’s duration is 97 minutes.
This film is based on the novel “The Hunter” written by Quinn Moreland in 1975. This book is book two of the Quartet series (Space Marines).
The Predators are ancient and powerful alien creatures that hunt down and kill other predators (human or otherwise) for sport, pleasure or revenge. The Predators are characterised as being heavily protected, extremely skilled hunters and each with a signature weapon or ability.
Background information:
Al ‘Dutch’ Schaefer was an ex-US Army Special Forces commando who is murdered and replaced by a shape-shifting alien Predator. The alien Predator kills most of Dutch’s team and flees his former quarters; the only survivor is Dutch’s son Jesse, who is unharmed. Dutch’s body is recovered by the LAPD and sent to a morgue. The Predator returns to the morgue where it retrieves Dutch’s body, assuming his form.
Having been raised in a communal atmosphere, Dutch has undergone extensive mental conditioning as a result of his training and missions; he has almost no memory of his home life, nor does he recognize his brother Peter when he meets him. Dutch is unaware of his nature as an alien, which nearly leads to his discovery when he is presented with a mirror. It is only with the help of psychologist Dr. Casey that Dutch learns he was abducted from his home and replaced by an alien, but that the latter’s skin had begun decaying as a result of prolonged exposure to Earth’s atmosphere. The Predator learns of Casey’s research and seeks her out. A group of armed robbers raids the facility where she is being held, enabling her to escape. The Predator tracks her to a building under construction in a condemned housing project, where she tries unsuccessfully to reason with him. The Police surround the building and open fire on the alien when it emerges with Casey, but they are only able to wound it before it returns to its spacecraft and departs. The Predator returns to the LAPD morgue and restores Dutch to his human form. Casey has a brief online encounter with the Predator, who she believes is Dutch, describing him as “a beautiful man”.
Dutch learns of his son Jesse’s survival; he is told that Jesse was placed with a foster family who later abandoned him. At the LAPD D.A.’s office, Dutch speaks and is taken off-guard when Casey interjects that he has been aware of this since their first interaction months earlier. Dutch angrily reminds her that he has been dead since the morgue, but Casey counters that the Predator was using Dutch’s DNA to make his own body appear human, which he managed to do despite being an alien. He also reveals the Predator’s gender; the creature is male. During a raid on a D.A.’s office, Dutch shoots and kills Casey after she issues him with a warrant for his arrest based on evidence from their first encounter. Dutch flees to a derelict building and encounters the Predator, who takes Dutch’s form. The Predator corners Dutch, who is armed with an improvised flamethrower and almost kills him before he sees his reflection in a mirror, on which the charred words “you are one of us now” are written.
The Predator is destroyed during an encounter with the LAPD. The bank robbers, having witnessed the killing of Casey at Dutch’s hands, watch as he comes out of his hiding place and is shot down. They take his body to the crime scene where Casey was killed. The body is missing and a wall is knocked down, revealing an identical room with a new corpse: Dutch’s. The bank robbers then leave the area, with Dutch’s corpse in tow.
In a mid-credits scene, the LAPD holds a press conference to announce that they have captured Dutch and killed him when he tried to escape. When they are all out of sight, Dutch’s dead body disappears; the Predator has taken his form again, alive and well.
Cast :
Further information: List of Predator (film series) characters
The main cast of Predator. : Ventura, Black, Schwarzenegger, Duke, Weathers, Landham, and Chaves
Arnold Schwarzenegger as Major Alan “Dutch” Schaefer
Carl Weathers as Al Dillon, Dutch’s Vietnam War buddy, now a CIA operative
Elpidia Carrillo as Anna Gonsalves, an insurgent
Bill Duke as Sergeant Mac Eliot, Blain’s friend and a machine gunner
Richard Chaves as Jorge “Poncho” Ramírez, an explosives expert
Jesse Ventura as Blain Cooper, heavy-gunner, uses a minigun dubbed “Ol’ Painless”
Sonny Landham as Billy Sole, a tracker and scout
Shane Black as Rick Hawkins, radio operator
R.G. Armstrong as Major General Homer Philips[notes 1]
Kevin Peter Hall as The Predator / Helicopter Pilot
Peter Cullen supplies the Predator’s voice, credited as providing vocals (noted as “Vocalizations By”) in the staff roll. His name shows up much later than the rest of the cast.
Sven-Ole Thorsen as Soviet Military Adviser (in an uncredited role)
Story Outline
“How do we fight the Predator? These aliens are not flesh and blood human lives. They are part of the same strategic doctrine that we are. They seek to enhance their own race’s survival by defeating us.” – Colonel Trautman (in “Soldier”) When a tough-as-nails mercenary team, led by the incomparable Major Dutch Schaeffer (Arnold Schwarzenegger), is hired to rescue hostages from guerrilla territory in Central America, they end up facing a tougher battle than they bargained for. Recruited by Colonel Trautman (Charlton Heston) to find his son and last missing member of Special Forces, Major Dutch leads his team into the unknown world of aerial combat in a large forest. The team soon discovers the jungle is full of deadly perils: vicious hunters, mutant creatures, and the mysterious Predator, who thinks nothing of blowing up his prey with a cluster of grenades on his chest. In the end, it’s Trautman who saves Dutch’s life with a shot from an M-60 machine gun that blows away his arm. But only then does Dutch realize he’s been fighting for nothing – Trautman has no intention of helping. He’s actually working for the other side, and his men were expendable.
The Colonial Marines have facilities in orbit above and around the Earth; they also have a facility at Area 51 . The clandestine Predator mission is a joint effort of all branches of the US government: “We did not see that coming. I don’t know what’s out there.” – General Taggert referring to the aliens in which a number of characters appear in both “Predator”, and “Predator 2”.
The film was shot at various locations such as; the Canadian Rockies and downtown Los Angeles, California..
The film was released in North America on September 18, 1990. It earned $12,858,532 on its opening weekend. It ended up grossing a total of $57,090,434 in the United States.
“Predator 2” was not as warmly received by critics as its predecessor. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film currently holds a 47% rating based on 33 reviews. The consensus is: “Despite some strong action scenes, “Predator 2″ fails to capture the magic of its predecessor.” On Metacritic the film has a 46/100 rating, indicating “Mixed or average reviews”.
Roger Ebert gave the film two out of four stars and commented that “”Predator 2” is more of a sequel than a sequel, more a sequel-within-a-sequel than an original piece. But it’s not without some memorable moments. It’s just that so much works against it. Arnold’s formulaic approach to the acting, with the actor trying hard to convince us that he isn’t acting, is more distracting than it was in “Predator”. The script loses its satirical edge as it moves from comedy to action. And no one can play a military man without being a little threatening.”
