Predator 2

Los Angles 1997. Gang warfare rages between rival drug gangs with the police caught in the middle. During one shoot out the police led by Mike Harrington (Glover) trap 6 men in a building. Before they can act the 6 are violently killed and stung up by an unseen attacker. As more armed gangs are attacked and killed in similarly unexplained ways the police realise that a new element is attempting to muscle in on the existing gangs. Glover and his team begin to hunt the new gang until they are joined by a FBI unit who seem to know more about the gang than they let on.

This follows on from the first movie well - not a forced sequel picking up from the last, but a different film that ties it's action in with previous events. None of the original stars return but the cast is full of name stars - Gary Busey, Danny Glover, Bill Paxton, Ruben Blades, Robert Davi. The plot is basically the same as the first - an unseen attacker attacks armed forces in the jungle - except here it's in the urban jungle, and it's actually pretty good.

The plot has the core of the predator doing battle, but now has another string of the FBI/Gary Busey conspiracy which makes the film much more interesting. However all this is window dressing to the action scenes. Unfortunately this doesn't have as much slow tension as the first film, but rather has long raging gun battle throughout - this does tend to bring it down to the level of a standard action movie but it does have some standout scenes that lift the film. The strobing fight on the subway is the most effective but the battles between police, gangs and predator are also very well handled. Overall the action is great but could have benefited from more slow, tension building. That said this sequel doesn't make the mistake that other "creature-feature" sequels have made - this keep the Predator hidden even though we already know what it looks like. For the most part the Predator moves cloaked and we only really seek the consequences of it's actions rather than the whole beast revealed. This keeps a certain mystery and helps build a certain amount of tension.

The final battle between hero and Predator is not quite as good as Schwarzenegger's confrontation with the alien, but is still a good finish to the film. It's easy to believe that Arnie could use the jungle and stealth to defeat the alien - but Danny Glover (Mr "3 days from retirement"?) taking on the Predator in what is essentially an extended fist fight? Sorry - it's fun to watch but a little hard to believe.

The performances are good, Glover gets to be a Riggs type rather than a Murtagh/retirement case. Paxton plays the energetic side kick and continues his killer-alien experience that he started in Aliens. Even Busey, now almost completely bereft of his star status and wallowing in video thrillers, is good here as a shadowy FBI agent. Sad to think that he got so good at this role that he got regularly typecast and is now doing things like Lethal Tender, Universal Soldier 2 and many others I've tried hard to forget. The rest of the cast do well as fodder for the predator but it's really all about the action.

The film contains some nice touches that develop the Predator in the same way that Aliens took a step along from Alien. The feeling that the Predator has hunted across all worlds (including the aforementioned alien) is cool as well as some other things that you get from the ending that I wouldn't spoil. But the attempt to give the Predator a sense of mercy is a bit forced. In the first it wouldn't kill an unarmed person, i.e. it always wanted sport. Here this extends to it sparing the life of an armed police woman because she is pregnant, that just seemed a little out of character to me, but I understand why they did it.

Overall this is a solid action movie with plenty of good scenes. When compared to the first movie it almost holds it's own but it lacks the sense of fear and being hunted that the first brought - this has tension but the first film have tension by the bucket.

10 years after the events of the last film, Lieutenant Mike Harrigan (Danny Glover) is a hard edged and stubborn cop who leads a team of detectives in keeping the battles between the Jamaican Voodoo Posse and the Latin American gang the Scorpions at least somewhat under control. When a group of Scorpions is slaughtered in an elaborate and over the top fashion including being stripped and skinned, Harrigan's investigation is stonewalled by Special Agent Peter Keyes (Gary Busey) who claims he's with a DEA task force but Harrigan is skeptical. As Harrigan and his team investigate the murders of not only the Scorpions but the Voodoo Posse, he soon finds out the killer is an alien trophy hunter.

After the success of the first Predator, 20th Century Fox approached Jim and John Thomas, the original films screenwriters, about the possibility of a sequel. The duo pitched a number of takes for possible sequels with the concept of the Predator in a city garnering the most interest. The Thomas' goal for the sequel was to expand upon the character of the Predator as well as showing off an expansion of its weapons (including its spaceship) and building on lore for its species. Stephen Hopkins was selected as director by Joel Silver based on his work on Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, and Hopkins had originally sought either Patrick Swayze or Steven Seagal for the role of Harrigan with the intention of teaming them up with Arnold Schwarzenegger's character Dutch, but Schwarzenegger declined to return and Hopkins opted for Danny Glover in the lead to make him more of an everyman while Dutch was rewritten as Peter Keyes. Released in November 1990, the film was overshadowed by films such as Dances with Wolves, Three Men and a Little Lady, Rocky V, and Home Alone and was edged out of the box office with $57 million in box office against its estimated $20-30 million budget. The movie has gone on to find appreciation by franchise fans and even Hopkins and Glover have spoken favorably about the movie in retrospect. While Predator 2 doesn't match its predecessor, it's a valiant effort with a lot of solid craft and passion.

Much like how the first movie started out as a typical Rambo/Commando style action movie, Predator 2 ties in with another staple of 80s action cinema: the cop film. With the multitude of cop films released throughout the decade featuring the likes of Clint Eastwood, Chuck Norris, Charles Bronson, and etc., it makes sense as a logical step for the Predator series in taking the audience through what seems like one genre only to throw that genre on its head and throw an alien trophy hunter into the mix. While Danny Glover has played cops before, notably as Roger Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon series, Glover plays a decidedly more hard edged cop who's of the mindset it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission. It's a really solid role for Glover and makes him a formidable foe for the Predator (know as City Predator in some circles of the fandom) and he's definitely firing on all cylinders in the movie. The movie also gives him a solid supporting cast with Ruben Blades, Bill Paxton, and Maria Conchita Alonso playing the fellow detectives who help him track down the murderer in high profile gang slayings, but unlike the first Predator that was more of an ensemble film with most of the characters getting equal screentime to develop character, the movie does feel like it's more centered around a single lead (Glover) this time around. The Los Angeles setting is put to good use with the gang culture, dark alleyways, and subway systems of the city used for memorable setpieces and it definitely helps give the film a unique feel that separates itself from its predecessor. While Hopkins does go a tad over the top in some scenes (such as the scene with the Predator holding his spear aloft to a lightning strike) it's the fun kind of over the top that's still enjoyable. Gary Busey's Peter Keyes character is one of the weaker points in the film, while I'm aware the character was a rough stand-in for Schwarzenegger's Dutch, even if Schwarzenegger had returned I'm not convinced this plot point would've worked. For me Keyes and his team felt like a rehash of the Weyland-Yutani stuff from the Alien films with their goal being to capture and study it and I think it doesn't work as well with The Predator because of its nature as a more intelligent antagonist than the comparatively more animalistic Xenomorphs.

Predator 2 doesn't match the level of the first film, but with a unique enough take on the Predator and with a solid ensemble filling out the cast we do get some memorable sequences. While Hopkins maybe goes a little too over the top in some sequences and the Peter Keyes subplot feels really unnecessary, Predator has enough good points to warrant a viewing and is better than most are willing to give it credit for.

Yes, you may not agree with me but I think that Predator 2 was as good as Predator and it even had something the first movie lacked: more screen time for the Predator. The Predator movies are a fan boy's dream come true as the Predator is arguably the best alien on film. The Alien movies and The Thing nonwithstanding. It's not Citizen Kane or anything but the film has plenty of action, decent performances and plenty of the Predator, including the showing off of a few new gadgets of his. I always liked the fact that Predator 2 is set in an urban environment, the jungle is too remote. Not enough prey you see. Although Los Angeles 1997 doesn't look like that then or now,(most parts anyway), the movie does a good job of putting the Predator in what I like to call a target rich environment. Danny Glover isn't Arnold but he does a good job as the lead anyway. Arnold didn't make the first movie good, the Predator did. I think a lot of you miss that. The late Kevin Peter Hall does as well as you can ask from a character with no lines or facial expressions to speak of. Bottom Line: A decent follow-up to Predator. If you haven't seen it yet check it out.

The entire 3rd act of this film is gold. Danny Glover is tired of this predator nonsense and he's going to do something about it. Haha. By the end Glover is in such horrendous condition you really have to laugh. Very underrated.

Underrated, interesting sequel to the Arnold Schwarzenegger hit has Danny Glover trading in his user friendly Roger persona to play a rougher, tougher, more kick ass cop who fears heights and goes one on one with a new Predator, who has some new tricks to share with the world when he lands in LA during a wave of both crime and heat.

Danny Glover may not be Schwarzenegger but he is quite good in his role as the cop.

The action is well mounted and the big difference of having the Predator in a city VS the jungle makes for some very interesting atmospheric moments and what not. There's also some SEX! Something that was sadly missing from the first film. The first film is better but this is still a worthy action film in its own right.

"Seems he has a taste for beef."

"I didn't think he was a vegetarian."