In PREDATOR, an intergalactic monster of a bounty hunter came to Earth in search of trophies to take back to his home planet and brag to his pals about over Martian brewskies and universal wrestling programs. Too bad for him he ran into a special forces unit lead by muy macho Arnie Schwarzenegger. Though he managed to kill pretty much everyone in the group, the Predator was defeated by Arnold, the dragon was slain and the day was saved... with only a heavy dose of damage done to the surrounding rain forest. Well, in the "future" world of Los Angeles 1997 (remember, this was made in 1990), another Predator has come to Earth, also in search of some shiny new skulls and scalps to hang on his trophy wall. He shouldn't be in too much trouble though, cuz instead of Arnold, his only obstacles are Danny Glover, Garey Busey and Bill Paxton... THIS is the best Hollywood has to offer?! The Pred comes all this way across time and space, has to put up with who knows how many Star Trek toll booths, and the best Earth can offer him as prey is these losers?! Boy, if this Pred's got any skills at all, this should be a cake walk... which, sadly, it's not.

In the great bake sale that is the city of Los Angeles, 1997, it is a dark future indeed (remember, this movie was made in 1990) as the LAPD is caught in the middle of a city wide drug war that threatens to consume every honest, hard working person in it's wake. One such soldier in the war on drugs is Lt. Mike Harrigan (Danny Glover) who, despite his over-the-hill physique and stamina, is a rather effective deterrent against crime. In the opening sequence, one such battle of the drug war is in full swing, as Harrigan and his fellow LAPD porkers stand off against a gang of South American cokeheads who've taken over a sweatshop and are holding the innocent wetbacks inside hostage. However, the cops aren't the only ones on the hunt for illegal aliens selling narcotics, as a familiar looking topographic map with an attitude also has it's eye on the bad guys. That topographic map is of course another Predator in his stealth mode, which doesn't really make it invisible, but just makes them look, well, like a transparent topographic map... the reference sounded funnier when I discussed it with that doped up nun that's sleeping in my basement...

It's not long before there's guts strewn about the place and greasy flesh smeared on the walls and Lt. Harrigan and friends are left to ponder just what the fuck it was that could carry a 200lb man UP a wall and across a ceiling. I can tell ya what did that Mike, it's the same creature that's watching you from the building across the street and talking to itself. Yep, that's not heatstroke Harrigan, that's an intergalactic apparition jumping around up there! Afterwards, Lt. Harrigan is left to pick up the shit, as he's reprimanded for his "John Wayne attitude"... in other words, his methods of fighting crime are a little too "over the edge" for the white guys upstairs. This may be the first hunt for the new Predator that Mike's involved in, but it's sure not the last, as another drug war incident turns up bodies stripped of flesh and other tasty atrocities, including frantic prostitutes who are too in shock to make any sense. Many a police report involving me and my pal Set have ended in the same fashion, heh heh. Of course, you can't make a gritty cop character like Harrigan without a big personal loss to motivate him, so, while poking around the crime scene after all the other cops have gone home to their sties, Mike's long time friend on the force, Danny, becomes the Pred's next prize. Such ends the beautiful and rich tapestry that was simply the character of Danny... so sad to see a character with such potential cut so short... not really...

Still not sure of what exactly it is they're dealing with, Mike sets up a meeting with King Willie (another of my old college nicknames), the head of the Jamaican drug czars, in the hopes that he and Willie may be able to help each other out and stop this invisible killer. After babbling some ganga fueled stoner shit about their enemy being from the spirit world and shit, King Willie outlives his usefulness and Mike decides to head elsewhere. Speaking of heads going elsewhere, after Mike leaves Will says hello to the Pred and goodbye to that tangled mass of dreadlocks he calls a head! Wouldn't it be hilarious if, after the Pred lobbed off his dome, if King Willie's neck spouted out a cloud of reefer smoke like an industrial smoke stack?! That'd be great! Then again, I guess it would kinda take away from the seriousness of the film... Piecing together his info and following a lead or two, Mike pinpoints the Pred's lair as being somewhere in the LA slaughterhouse district. Wait, LA has it's own slaughterhouse district?! If I ever own a city BESIDES the one I make out of those oversized kids' Legos, I want to make half of the city "the Slaughterhouse District"! The other half? Of course, that'll be "the Hookers, Drugs and Lunch Meat District". However, on the way to the meeting, Mike's partners Joey (Bill Paxton) and Leona get caught up in a subway stand off. Though somewhat amusing, this scene is soon saved when the real hunter busts in and turns a near-tragically cheesy moment into a fast moving bloodbath! A little dash of Predator does wonders for dinner parties ladies!

From this carnage, Leona's carried away on a stretcher, badly beaten and baring numerous battle scars. As for Joey, well, he thought he could face down the Predator and come out the victor. Of course he doesn't, and his bullheaded rookie mistake leaves him as just another victim. Good, I think Bill Paxton should start doing the Jeffrey Combs move and die in all his films! So anyway, Mike shows up at the scene that, thanx again to him, his fellow officers have been killed and wounded in, and catches a glimpse of a renegade topographic map... oh wait, that's the Predator!... the topographic map thing's getting old right? Sorry, I meant to make mention of it in the original PREDATOR review, but I overlooked it and lacked the stamina to go back and add a bad joke or two, so I figured I'd mention it here instead. Now, I'm left with no humor and have to keep using the same damn joke... sorry folks. I know that many of you come here after a hard day's work to... hey, you know what? I think my reference to the Predator as being a killer topographic map is pretty damn original! Think you can come up with something better? Not too fucking likely, unless you plan on pulling it out of MY ass! Well, as I was dredging on, Mike chases the monster from the subway and the two have a VERY public exchange before Mike's picked up by a group of government "anti-drug agents". However, after a little conversation with their leader, Agent "No, I'm not the guy from SILVER BULLET" Keyes (Busey, who, by the way, WAS the alcoholic uncle in SILVER BULLET), it turns out that they're actually here to do some bounty hunting for Uncle Sam. If I need to tell you who they're hunting, then i think it best if you just go find a wood chipper and get very intimate with it.

Surprised that the government's after the Pred? Well, in case you're forgetting, they did send that task force into South America to take out the other one, and Dutch DID survive. Who knows what they got out of the guy, let alone how they did it, but either way they got the info and now they're in LA and looking for their next weapon to point at third world nations. How do Keyes and crew intend to capture the ultimate galactic killing machine? The answer to everything: radioactive dust. Using radioactive dust to blanket the Pred's slaughterhouse headquarters along with ultraviolet lights and infrared vision goggles, the agents plan to negate his cloaking abilities, making his constantly visible. Also, to make themselves invisible to him, they each don insulated outfits, which they intend to use to hide themselves from the Pred's heat vision. Great plans, right? Well, the government's files on the Pred are definitely incomplete, cuz he's got a few alternate scanning methods, of which at least one allows him to see the agents in their tax payer bought spacesuits. It's like the old saying goes, "there's more than one way to scan a cat"... you know, because it's really "skin" a cat, but "scan" sounds similar... piss off. So yeah, as I was saying, the Pred wastes the agents with ease. All their high tech namby-pamby bullshit didn't do squat, so it's up to Lt. Harrigan and his trusty old revolver! When in doubt, go with portable, light-weight firearms! :D

In the forthcoming battle, Mike blasts the fucking alien numerous times but good! Not to be the bitch of the pairing, the Pred gets in a few decent hits on his own as the two trade open wounds. The chase ends in the sewers as the gladiators wind up at the Pred's spaceship. It's time to bring an end to the film though, as we really don't want to push it too far beyond the 90 minute point, so Mike adds a little humility to the beast's ass whoopin', killing it with it's own razorblade death frisbee. Afterwards, the rest of the ship's crew make themselves known and soon have Mike surrounded! Will an out-of-shape Danny Glover be able to overcome a gang of the most deadly hunters in the universe without the help of Mad Max? Though it's about as fucking likely as Martha Stewart appearing in Playboy, it's not even an option. The other Predators (who are actually a very noble and classy alien race who lift their pinkie fingers when drinking tea... on both hands even!) honor Lt. Harrigan for his victory over their comrade. As a trophy, they give him a pistol from 1715 (these guys have been making safari trips to Earth for quite some time), a handshake and a pat on the ass and then they leave in their ship to look for the next hunt elsewhere. My only question now is, what do birds have against Danny Glover?

Though not as much a he-man action extravaganza as the first PREDATOR, PREDATOR 2 does carry a lot of merit with it. It's still a nice, fast paced actioner with great special FX, daring stunts and a great setting. The acting's good, not Oscar caliber, but for an action flick it's good... though I hate Bill Fudge-Paxton. The premise is the same, but with Predators, the premise will almost always be the same. I mean, all they do is cross the universe hunting alien races, so you're not exactly gonna get a shitload of intricate storylines or dramatic cinematic prose out of 'em. Then again, the ALIENS series has actually been prone to some suspense and drama, so who knows. With the right writers, there might actually be a Predator film that doesn't involve numerous explosions and shoot 'em up deathmatches... FUCK THAT! The Predator's all about action and that's the way it will always be! I know some of you out there with your limited creativity may be saying, "But they already had a Predator fighting humans in a jungle AND a city! What else is there?!". I forgive you for your ignorance, but I can think of at least one big idea: ALIENS VS. PREDATOR!

It's happened in comicbook, card games, video games and other forms of media as well, so why not finally pit the two alien forces against one another! It wouldn't be hard to do and the bases already exists... there's an alien skull on the Predators' trophy wall in PREDATOR 2! Yep, keep an eye out and you'll notice that rather large and phallic shaped skull that could only belong to one of the demonic creations of H.R. Giger! There's been talk of an ALIENS VS. PREDATOR flick for years, ever since the comicbook printed by Dark Horse Comics was published in the late-'80s. Since then there have been a near unfathomable number of ALIENS VS. PREDATOR stories published, there's plenty of material to draw from... though none of them were really much good, as Dark Horse was really just hoping to score another financial success... which they never really hit, even when they added James Cameron's TERMINATOR to the fracas in the mini-series ALIENS VS. PREDATOR VS. TERMINATOR. Actually, now that I think of it, the Predators have come face-to-face with numerous four color opponents, including Tarzan, Magnus Robot Fighter, Witchblade and Batman! I'd pay good money to see any one of those on those the big screen!... well, except for Magnus, cuz he and the rest of the Valiant/Acclaim Universe are just pathetic... then again, Turok might make a good opponent for a Pred... Either way, if they do make another Predator flick, they'll have to find someone else to play the title role. Kevin Peter Hall, who played the beast in both films, died not long after the finish of PREDATOR 2 thanx to that little viral bitch that's been making my job that much harder: AIDS. For those of you who don't think it take much talent to play a fugly squidfaced monster that can look over Arnold Schwarzenegger's head, then you're just as ignorant as my pancreas, which doesn't know it's supposed to be making sugar for me... speaking of which, I gotta go shoot up. You know where the door is. R.I.P. Mr. Hall

Sequels: though there should be more, sadly, as of this review, there aren't even plans to make a third.

If You Liked This Flick, Check Out: THE HIDDEN or ALIENS