The Predator films are all a fun time with good action, but with varying qualities.

The film that started this mega franchise, which later on came to include video games, comic books, novels, and had three crossovers with Batman of all people, was a little film simply titled Predator (1987), directed by John McTiernan (the same guy who directed Die Hard).

The film follows special forces soldiers led by Major Alan “Dutch” Schaefer (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) who are sent in to rescue some soldiers in a rainforest along with a CIA handler named Al Dillon (played by Carl Weathers) to rescue a presidential cabinet member. However, after completing their mission (and subsequently figuring out that they were set up by the CIA to get intel on some Russians) they begin to head back to the extraction point only to realize that they’re being hunted by something not of this world.

The film has a very clever opening, setting up everything as just a typical Schwarzenegger action flick; i.e everyone shooting from the hip with pinpoint accuracy, none of the enemy soldiers being able to hit the broadside of a barn, and explosions going off whenever there’s a firefight for seemingly no reason. 

The opening not only tricks the audience into thinking they’re just watching a typical action flick but also shows the audience that Dutch and his crew are extremely skilled, deadly, and harder to kill than your average soldier. So when the Predator (played by stunt actor Kevin Peter Hall) takes out one of Dutch’s men like it was nothing, it comes off as a big surprise when the film takes a hard turn into horror.

The film goes out of its way to show that the usual action trope of spray and pray won’t work on this creature. When the soldiers level part of a forest with machine gun fire and explosives they merely graze the alien. The film’s clever writing doesn’t stop there however, as when they realize they’re being picked off, the team comes up with some pretty clever ideas, showing the audience they’re not just a bunch of macho men, but actually pretty ingenious.

The Predator creature itself is very well done, with practical effects that still look great. The alien and its advanced technology to go invisible, see in infrared, and its shoulder mounted plasma launcher alone give it such a large advantage that it stacks these tough men in a situation where anyone of them could die at any moment. 

The creature isn’t all technology however – the film shows us how large and physically fit it is. The creature jumps from tree to tree with the ease of a monkey, showing the audience that not only is it technologically superior, but physically stronger than human beings.

The film wouldn’t be nearly as good if the characters weren’t memorable or likeable. The characters have really good chemistry with each other and are just really fun to watch, whether it’s Hawkins (played by Shane Black) telling the same joke to everybody until somebody laughs at it or Blain (played by Jesse Ventura) saying “I ain’t got time to bleed” after getting shot, with Poncho (played by Richard Chave) replying with “You got time to duck” after firing his grenade launcher.

The sequel to Predator, simply titled Predator 2, was released in 1990 and was directed by Stephen Hopkins.

The film takes place in a fictional 1997 Los Angeles, replacing the rainforest with the concrete jungle of L.A; the city not only being in the middle of a heat wave, but also a massive gang war plunging the entire city into chaos. 

During a police raid led by Lieutenant Mike Harrigan (played by Danny Glover) every gang member in the building is brutally murdered before the police have a chance to clear the building. At first it’s thought to be a rival gang, however, government agents led by agent Peter Keys (played by Garry Busey) begin to get involved. 

After this and similar events involving different gangs’ hideouts being attacked in the same way, Mike comes to the conclusion that a third party must be involved.

The Predator, instead of invading an action flick like the first movie, invades a police drama with all the expected cliches that come along with it. There’s Mike, the loose cannon cop who doesn’t play by the rules, the crotchety police chief who’s always yelling at the loose cannon that he has enough problems with the media and mayor’s office, and if the loose cannon wasn’t such a fine cop he would have fired him by now. And then there’s Jerry Lambert (played by the late, great Bill Paxton) the new police officer from another precinct who’s hot headed and smug thinking he’s seen it all, and that this new post won’t be any different.

On a basic level Predator 2 is very similar to the original Predator, with the Predator invading what seems like a different type of film, and the characters who are typically seen in that genre having to change how they fight to defeat the Predator. 

However what this film does (smartly, I might add) is build off and expand the Predator lore that the first film barely touched upon. The film shows us more tools it might use, aside from what it used in the previous film, such as different visor modes for it’s helmet or the smart disk which can seemingly cut through anything and has the ability to return to its user after being thrown.

Something else I like about the film is the main character Mike feels a lot more human compared to Dutch, who might as well have been an Olympian god carved from marble. Mike feels more relatable. When his partner Daniel (Ruben Blades) is killed he is actually really psychologically hurt from the news and goes to visit his grave. The film also goes out of its way to show that Mike has acrophobia (a fear of heights). This allows the audience to sympathize with Mike.

Just like the previous film, I also really like the human characters in this one. My favorites being Jerry Lambert, the new but resourceful cop of the group, and Keys, a smug and punchable jerk. You love to hate him everytime he comes on screen.

The third movie out of this quadrilogy simply titled Predators (because I’m sure that title won’t be confusing in day-to-day conversation), was released in 2010 and was directed by Nimrod Antal. Most interesting, it was produced by Robert Rodriguez, who’s most well known for making very good movies on a small budget. Most famously Rodriguez made the Machete and Spy Kids films. 

This film flips the usual Predator formula on its head. So unfortunately, dashing all my hopes, the film is not about the Predator invading a Romcom, with a love triangle involving the male lead, the female lead, and the Predator. 

The movie follows an American mercenary (who we don’t get the name of until the end of the film, so I won’t spoil it, played by Adrien Brody); an Israeli Defense Force sniper named Isabelle (Alice Braga); a Mexican drug enforcer named Cuchillo (Danny Trejo); Nikolai (Oleg Taktarov), a Russian Spetsnaz special forces soldier; Hanzo (Louis Ozawa), a yakuza enforcer; Mombasa (Mahershala Ali), a death squad officer in the African Revolutionary United Front; Walter Stans (Walton Goggins), a serial killer on death row; and Edwin (played by Topher Grace), a random doctor. 

All of them wake up in the middle of the air and parachute onto what seems to be a random forest. Only later do we find out that they’re actually on an alien planet, and instead of being hunted by one Predator, they’re being hunted by three, all of whom have some quirk or gimmick that differentiates them from each other.

The film has a decidedly more serious tone from the get go; in the previous two films we see what the characters were like before the Predator invades, with them joking and quipping with each other. This film starts off with the characters in danger immediately. As all of these people don’t know each other and almost all of them are violent killers, they don’t know where they are going half the time, and have little to no chance to escape.

The film’s characters are a lot less charismatic than those in the two previous films, which leads to a lot of character details being shown instead of told. For example, when Hanzo is first introduced to the audience he is taking off his nice shoes, this tells the audience that he cares a lot about how he looks. This is further demonstrated by the fact that no matter what is happening in the film you see him wearing his nice suit. 

This implying of character traits, along with them telling each other a little bit about themselves, helps to get across their characters quickly. It worked so well that I couldn’t guess who would be the first to die, and that’s not something you see often when it comes to horror films. 

Though the film is still a bit flawed, the practical effects look great and the creature effects still look really good to this day. However, the CGI leaves a bit to be desired, whenever it shows up it is pretty obvious, specifically when it comes to the CG blood. I don’t know why this is, but CG blood almost never looks right in movies. 

I also have critiques with two actors specifically, Adrien Brody and Topher Grace. They’re fine actors in their own right, and do a decent job with the roles they’re given.

In Adrien’s case I don’t buy him as the action hero he’s supposed to be in this film. That mainly comes down to the fact that he’s a bit too skinny for me; that’s not to say he’s out of shape — he clearly got in great shape for this film. They’re trying to go for a more Arnold Schwarzenegger than Danny Glover, but that would require a person that oozes physical strength and Adrien Brody just doesn’t do it for me. 

Next is Topher Grace. Poor Topher Grace. First Spiderman 3, now this. Again he does an OK job as a nerdy doctor, if a little awkward, which I think they were going for. Later on in the film however, there are scenes where he’s supposed to be intimidating and creepy. I’m sorry but little, skinny, Topher Grace is not that intimidating, especially when you compare him to some of the other characters in the film.

The next Predator film titled The Predator (2018, are they intentionally making confusing movies titles to irritate me? Because it’s working) directed by Shane Black (aka Hawkins from the original), is more of a straight forward action comedy with mixed results.

This film’s plot follows Quinne McKenna (Boyd Holbrook), an American Special Forces sniper who comes across a crashed Predator spaceship while on mission in Mexico. 

He decides to pocket some of the alien’s technology as proof, so the government won’t just lobotomize him for what he knows. And he decides shipping the technology across the border to his P.O. Box is his best option. Unfortunately for him his P.O. box is full, so the technology is instead sent to his estranged wife Emily (Yvonne Strahovski) and son Rory (Jacob Tremblay).

The Predator is looking to get back his technology and is willing to kill anyone who poses an inconvenience. This Predator is also on the run from an even bigger and stronger Predator, named the Upgraded Predator. 

Quinne, along with a group of soldiers called the Loonies (a squad of soldiers who all suffer from either behavioural or mental instability), led by Nebraska Williams (Trevante Rhodes), try to stop the Predators from killing his son while being on the run from government suits.

The film’s plot, while more complicated than a usual Predator film, is so flimsily put together, that any amount of scrutiny will cause it to fall apart in seconds. 

For instance, the first Predator is on the run from the Upgraded Predator because he plans to hand some technology over to the humans that will help them fend off any other predators in the future. But if that’s the case, why did it go out of its way to kill any human it came across? I don’t know about you, but if I plan to give a weapon to a group of people, I don’t go around and kill anyone who’s a part of that group. It only makes my job harder.

Also, very early on we see that Rory is on the autism spectrum and is very good with patterns. So later on, when he tinkers with the Predator’s technology he somehow deciphers the entire Predator language and figures out how to use the technology, we’re supposed to believe he did because he’s on the spectrum. Yeah… no. I don’t buy it. I could see him maybe deciphering a bit of the language like certain words or phrases but not the entire language. 

For example, there are three Japanese alphabets, and that’s just from our planet. For all we could know the Predators could have 10 alphabets, so the idea that this kid just decifers an alien language and understands how to use alien technology in a night is really stretching it.

Earlier I mentioned that Quinne had mailed the Predator’s technology to his P.O box. And it somehow made it into the U.S. without anyone checking what’s inside or scanning the large box full of metal and technology. Nope. Someone would have checked it, especially if it’s unmarked because I doubt the random Mexican bartender who Quinne had mail it wrote “alien technology” on the box.

The film’s comedy is hit or miss. With some scenes being legitimately funny, and one scene being down right hilarious. But there are some “comedic” scenes that fall flat and I was dead quiet when they happened. 

Once again the practical effects for the film look great, but just like the previous film the CGI is very noticeable. Instead of CGI blood it’s an entire CGI Predator, more specifically the Upgraded Predator. And oh, boy it sticks out like a big, ugly sore thumb, especially compared to the make up for the regular Predator, which is great.

Let’s talk about the Upgraded Predator as a concept; to put it simply, it’s stupid. The idea that makes the Predator scary is that it’s better than us. Physically, it could rip our spines out and use our skull as a trophy without breaking a sweat. And technologically, with its ability to go almost completely invisible, shoot plasma from its shoulder, or see things in completely different spectrums, hiding from it nearly impossible. 

The idea they introduce in this film is that the Predator doesn’t rip our spines as trophies. Where would anyone get that idea? (aside from all the times we see them rip out the spine and skull, and keep the skulls as trophies). They actually take the spines not as trophies, but so the Predators can harvest the spinal fluid of the victims. They apparently take the spinal DNA so they can use the best parts of each species. Imagining a Predator wearing a labcoat in a DNA lab just doesn’t work for me.

In fact, part of the reason they’re after Rory is because they wish to harness the power of autism. No offense to anyone with autism, but that is so lame.

The film feels like it needed to go through one or two more revisions, because there are good aspects here. The characters, while not having the most depth, are fun to watch for the most part, the practical effects look great, and there are some legitimately funny jokes. 

But as for the film we have currently, it works well as a stupid fun action flick, if you turn off your brain and don’t think too hard about it.
From best to worst the films go Predator, Predators, Predator 2, and The Predator