THE REAPPRAISAL · ISSUE 001
Predator 2 went the wrong direction. That’s why it works.
The easiest thing Predator 2 could have done was make Predator again.
Another jungle. Another impossible squad. Another version of Arnold Schwarzenegger staring down something that should not exist.
Instead, it makes a hard turn into an overheated near-future Los Angeles, hands the lead to Danny Glover, stuffs the city with cops, gangs, federal agents and nonstop gunfire, and turns the Predator into one more thing trying to survive the chaos.
That is the case for this movie: stop grading it for refusing to be its predecessor.
The Case Against It
The reviews quoted at the beginning of our Episode 79 are brutal. They call the movie derivative, generic, plotless and needlessly violent. One of the criticisms basically amounts to: you already saw Predator, so why bother with this?
That last complaint is almost the perfect doorway into the Reappraisal, because Predator 2 is interesting precisely because it refuses to give you the same experience twice.
The Reappraisal
This is not the jungle hunt again. It is an urban action movie with a Predator dropped into the middle of it.
Los Angeles is hot enough to feel hostile before the creature even arrives. Danny Glover plays the movie like a man who has already had a full day before breakfast. The police station, the streets, the subway, the gang war and the federal operation all make the city feel like a pressure cooker.
The movie does not tiptoe into that choice. It goes for it.
And that matters. A sequel does not have to recreate the exact chemistry of an all-time great original to justify existing. Sometimes the best reason for a sequel is seeing what happens when you take the central idea somewhere it has never been before.
Predator 2 is a different movie. Let it be a different awesome movie.
BOLO — Before You Watch
If you have not watched yet, keep your eyes peeled for:
- The heat. The movie keeps reminding you that Los Angeles itself is part of the pressure.
- Predator Vision. Watch how often the movie lets us experience the city through the creature’s point of view.
- Red dots. Once you start noticing them, you will keep looking for them.
- Robert Davi. A perfect piece of this movie’s police-station energy.
- Gunfire. This city appears to have chosen volume as a governing philosophy.
The Draft Pick
The subway sequence.
It is the movie’s concept distilled into one set piece: a Predator, a crowded city, ordinary people trapped in the middle, and urban chaos replacing the jungle. It could only happen in this sequel.
Spin-Off Corner
This movie leaves behind enough strange supporting energy to make you want more from the world.
The Briefcase Boys: give Gary Busey’s government team the prequel treatment. What did these guys know before they ever arrived in Los Angeles?
El Scorpio: take one of the movie’s most aggressively memorable personalities and build the origin story nobody asked for but Movie Optimists would absolutely watch.
One Change
The movie spends almost two hours proving that it is willing to go big, nasty and excessive.
So when Gary Busey’s character gets his moment, do not hide the payoff behind the hanging carcasses. If you are going to make Predator 2, make Predator 2.
Critics Blew It?
Our verdict: this movie was punished for not being Predator.
Your turn: Absolutely · Fairly rated · Critics were too nice?
Join the Reappraisal Club and vote with the Movie Optimists as the club grows.
Next on the Shelf
Alien 3 — another franchise sequel forced to live under the shadow of beloved predecessors, and another movie that gets much more interesting when you stop asking it to be the movie before it.
ENTER THE MOVIE OPTIMIST VAULT →
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