Predator

I watched Predator again after about ten years. I can state without exaggeration that this film is more perfect than I thought. Even after all these years, a group of tough mercenaries hunted by an alien skull hunter captivates with a perfect atmosphere that benefits especially from the creeping voyeurism of the camera and Silvestri's unnerving music. Keeping a firm hand on all this is director McTiernan, who was one of the absolute best in the action genre in the 1980s... and went crazy in the 1990s. (08/05/2009)

Plain and simple: fucking perfect. I rewatched Predator after a long time and I realized that it belongs to that proud group of my beloved cinematic works from which I would not remove or add a single frame. Without a doubt, this is the most masculine film in history, where tough guys first dish it out loudly to declaim their fearlessness, and then get their asses kicked in a way I wouldn't wish on perhaps a cancer cell on my most sensitive body part. And it ends with the most thrilling one-on-one fight, where a man in the face of a real monster accepts its rules and, as a hunter from ancient times, adapts to the conditions of the surrounding wild nature. Bad Ass Arnold is unbeatable as usual, but the biggest stars here are definitely Alan Silvestri, whose soundtrack is an amazing embodiment of suspense and confrontation with the mysterious evil, and director McTiernan, who shot the whole story without a single stumble and staged so many iconic moments that no sequel will ever be able to top this original (I single out the mass "shootout" scene with the invisible enemy, which is one of the funniest of the entire 1980s for me – I can see it five times a day, but I will never tire of Arnold's face as he shoots into the void for a minute). 100% (08/26/2011)

It's still excellently rough, the great effects are still here, unbeatable Arnold, and above all, the incredible mask created by Stan Winston. The character of the Predator is so great on its own that it could carry the film, which to some extent happened here, but the jungle and the fear of individual mercenaries also work well. It's still entertaining, even after all these years. (10/22/2014)

A significantly overrated film that capitalizes on nostalgia and the age of reviewers. It does not come close to the genre's peak by any means. It is literally an embodiment of genre clichés and besides the action, it offers only the exoticism of the Central American jungle. A simple story, characters that don't need to act due to script requirements as long as they look fierce and shoot wildly around them. Lots of stupidity - one of the mercenaries is holding a machine gun in his hand that is mounted on the undercarriage of planes and weighs so much that if I had to drag it through the extreme conditions of the jungle with 100% humidity, I wouldn't wait for a predator and it would end right there for me (probably after five minutes). The film does not have particularly innovative direction, but John McTiernan maintains a certain level - within the genre, there are undoubtedly incomparably worse films. I would give it three stars, even though I'm not a fan of the genre, but the political backstory, when the American commando fights against evil guerrillas, was simply disgusting. The political reality of Central America in the 80s was exactly the opposite - the American government supported any dictatorial scum... Overall impression: 45%. (01/13/2009)

Sweaty machismo grossly overstepping the boundaries of heterosexuality is a thing my childhood memories of Predator have mercifully kept from me, but in the field of gun-fetish and male-bonding of his day, McTiernan was in the big leagues. This film proves it from the shot of a casual Arnold flicking away a cigar butt in a helicopter to the final dick measuring with Winston's amazing creation. (07/26/2016)