Still, it’s got Bill Paxton in it, and Bill Paxton could give any movie an extra star on its score.ĭirector Jean-Pierre Jeunet and writer Josh Whedon were hot properties bristling with Hollywood potential when they came together to work on Resurrection, coming off the back of The City of Lost Children and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the movie version) respectively.
But the various parts of Predator 2 don’t fully merge into a coherent whole that makes the most of its cast or premise: an alien hunter on the loose in a sprawling modern metropolis should have more punch and bite than this. Glover’s turn at being an all-action leading man in his mid-40s isn’t without merit (the younger Patrick Swayze had originally been envisioned for the Harrigan role), and his slighter-than-most frame almost gives this a Die Hard edge where an ordinary man finds himself in an extraordinary situation. Director Stephen Hopkins’ slasher-movie past presents itself to the fore in Predator 2, as this flick is soaked through with the red stuff, but it lacks the suspense of 1987’s predecessor (not to mention the Schwarzenegger star power) and the surprises of the movie that’d follow it, 2010’s Predators. It’s a movie in which it’s hard to root for anyone - not Danny Glover’s Harrigan, the Los Angeles-terrorising Predator itself, or even the “ want some candy” kid. Until a recent re-watch, I’d forgotten - or simply never appreciated in the first place - just now nasty Predator 2 is. Oh, and spoiler? The Predator? There’s more than just the one, SMDH. Somewhere, there’s a full-on comedy fan-cut of this movie that runs for 20 minutes and is infinitely better than the full 107 minutes we get here. It’s sometimes goofy enough to raise a smile, and there are some fun nods to the series’ past - Jake Busey plays the son of a character from Predator 2 who was played by his real dad, Gary, which is nice - but the story’s a mess, the dialogue dreary (if in doubt, add profanity), and tonally The Predator is all over the place.
That said, the kid is from the most annoying cast member here, as a slew of semi-famous faces (yes, that is Mass Effect’s Miranda Lawson) ham it up in between bloody kills and gaping plotholes. He’s presented as a sort of superhero - and that’s really not how autism works. But while The Predator is notable for presenting autism as something other than something to be ‘cured’, its depiction goes too far the other way and makes the young Rory, who finds some Predator gear and immediately knows how to work it, into Professor X or something. Aliens is all the way up there, down there, and one of its main characters is the squeaky little Newt. I’ve nothing against kids being in these movies.
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