Casey’s Reviews
Predator (1987) — Does it hold up?
It’s Reviewsday Tuesday and time to “get to the choppa”! Does the first Predator film (starring Arnold Schwarzenegger) hold up?
This review may contain spoilers.
The first installment in the Predator franchise, Predator (1987), starring a young body-builder named Arnold Schwarzenegger, has become a “cult classic” with some of the most meme-able lines and scenes in 80s film. You may know the film only from it’s oft-quoted lines in Schwarzenegger’s unforgettable accent, “Get to the chopper!” and “You’re one ugly motherfucker.” The actual plot of the film has largely been forgotten by those who watched it in 1987; only the last half-hour of the movie is at all memorable, including the death scenes of the last remaining characters and the incredible one-on-one battle between Dutch (Schwarzenegger) and the alien hunting down his team. The rest of the film might be surprisingly lacking for a young viewer unimpacted the nostalgia factor. As a first-time viewer myself, I thought I would try to answer the question:
Does the movie hold up for a modern audience?
In many ways, I think the film manages to hold its own. In others, it is extremely dated. The last thirty minutes or so of Predator are fantastic, but is it worth sitting through the first three quarters of the movie?
Characters
The cast of this film, though almost entirely male, manages to be incredibly inclusive for its time. Rather than falling for tokenism, the elite paramilitary rescue team led by Dutch (Schwarzenegger) is populated by a diverse crew, including two native American (Cherokee) characters, Billy (Sonny Landham) and Poncho (Richard Chaves, a Vietnam veteran). While Billy is occasionally stereotypical in his role as the team’s “tracker” (falling prey to ideas about Native American’s “innate” connection to nature), both characters are otherwise treated the same as the rest of the team and have important roles in the rescue operation. The team’s black member (Mac, played by Bill Duke) is not tokenized either, since there is another black character, Dillon (Carl Weathers), in a position of power. Dillion is Dutch’s “brother” from Vietnam who has become a CIA operative. Most, if not all, of the characters are either explicitly or implied to be Vietnam vets, which is why the atmosphere/vibe of the movie is so macho/pro-war.
The 80s were comfortably distant enough from the horrors of the Vietnam War that movies like Predator began romanticizing it. The veterans in Predator have come out the other side of the war with hardened bodies, unique skills, and a ton of cynicism, but no emotional trauma, apparently. These guys are the epitome of “badass.” They are killing machines, working in perfect synchronicity during the “rescue mission” that loosely defines the plot until it becomes clear that there is something inhuman hunting them.
The machismo vibe of the film is no more apparent than in the oh-so-meme-able “Predator Handshake,” a gratuitous closeup of Schwarzenegger and Weathers’s grasping hands and sweaty, oiled-up biceps. Half-handshake, half-arm wrestle, the way these men greet each other is the most masculine thing that can possibly happen in the first five minutes of a movie. It sets the tone: this film is all about the male gaze. The male gaze isn’t just about sexualizing female bodies; it also idolizes hyper-masculine bodies. The film contains many lingering shots of shirtless, sweaty men with their muscles rippling. Now, it comes across as campy, but in the 1980s, this was the pinnacle of machismo.
There is only one woman in the film, Anna, and she is a hostage and then a damsel in distress for most of the movie. She rarely speaks and is even more rarely understood. In a modern film, the lack of gender diversity would be a point against Predator. Keeping in mind the context that the 80s loved its male-only action flicks, and that the plot doesn’t require there be a woman there at all, I am inclined to let this one slide.
If it were only for the hypermasculinity (the slow pans of jacked male bodies, rippling muscles, physical affection between men, and lack of women), I’d be happy to say that the characterizations in this film hold up. However, there is also the matter of the dialogue, and many scenes between these dudes simply don’t. I get that it’s meant to be locker room talk, but some of the misogynistic and homophobic jokes in the first half of the film will, for a modern audience, be cringy at best and straight up offensive at worst.
Script
As I discussed in my review of Alien (1979), one of the first things I notice in an older film is whether it contains casual or unaddressed racism, sexism/misogyny, homophobia, and other problematic tropes or isms that would irk the average viewer or take them out of the immersion. The first half of Predator contains some seriously nasty jokes about women’s bodies. Consider this exchange between Shane Black’s character, Hawkins, and Sonny Landham’s character, Billy:
Hawkins: Billy. Billy! The other day, I was going down on my girlfriend. I said to her, “Jeez you got a big pussy. Jeez you got a big pussy.” She said, “Why did you say that twice?” I said, “I didn’t.” Billy: [stares blankly] Hawkins: See, ’cause of the echo.
Gross, right? This joke comes up again at least three times in the movie, with Hawkins making icky remarks about his supposed girlfriend’s vagina. He also makes homophobic jokes, and is constantly using this kind of humor in an attempt to “bond” with the other guys. It doesn’t work, but they also don’t really call him out for it either — and eventually, he does get a laugh. Since the film is set in the 80s, though, and not in the future like Alien, there is more wiggle room for that kind of dialogue to be realistic, if unpalatable and dated for the modern viewer.
While the script does have it’s moments — the alien being an “ugly motherfucker” and Schwarzengger’s unintentionally funny delivery of “Get to the chopper!” among them — for me, the movie really takes off once most of the team has been killed by the alien and Schwarzenegger’s character Dutch is left to outsmart the predator on his own. There isn’t much talking in this section, but the pacing, the cunning moves, the feats of strength and smarts, really make the movie shine. Originally, the movie was meant to be a mano-a-mano battle between Dutch and the alien straight through; according to Schwarzengger,
“The first thing I look for in a script is a good idea, a majority of scripts are rip-offs of other movies. People think they can become successful overnight. They sat down one weekend and wrote a script because they read that Stallone did that with Rocky. Predator was one of the scripts I read, and it bothered me in one way. It was just me and the alien. So we re-did the whole thing so that it was a team of commandos and then I liked the idea. I thought it would make a much more effective movie and be much more believable. I liked the idea of starting out with an action-adventure, but then coming in with some horror and science fiction.”
While perhaps a good idea in theory, the team-based action flick portion of the movie is by far its weakest. I think it would have been a much better film if that part of the movie was much shorter and Schwarzenegger fighting the alien took up far more of the plot.
Visuals
Other than the lingering male gaze which fixates on masculine bodies, the visuals in this movie absolutely do hold up. The gore is gory. It’s reasonably realistic. There isn’t any terrible CGI that I noticed. The alien is a guy in a suit, which makes it hold up much better than movies from the same period that attempted to use CGI to create aliens/monsters.
One cool thing this movie does is use POV shots from the alien that are infrared. This creates a disorientation for the viewer and highlights the differences between the alien’s physiology and the human characters. Making the alien’s vision very clearly foreign works to create an eerie feeling of being watched by something Other, and that feeling (and the way it is created) holds up for me.
The effects didn’t need to be “great” to work really well. The pacing of the story was enhanced by these brief shots, which built anticipation and added to the horror.
The Verdict: Meh
While parts of Predator (1987) hold up, there is definitely a disconnect between the first and second half of the movie. The first half of the movie is an action flick / war film through and through. You would never know it was meant to be sci-fi for a good chunk of the film, and it really doesn’t work as a “twist” to introduce that element so late. While the movie reads as horror throughout, the second half’s genre is significantly more “sci-fi” and less “action.” There aren’t really many deep thematic elements to carry between these two halves either, which is to its detriment. It’s a bit like watching two movies with the same cast and premise.
If you like campy 80s actions flicks, this movie is for you. It checks all the boxes: bulging muscles, feats of pure strength, guns, gore, self-sacrifice, a guy getting his arm ripped off… you know, all that classic action flick stuff. If you’re looking for science fiction, though, you might be largely disappointed. The alien is cool and all, but you barely see any of it until that last thirty minutes.
Those last thirty minutes are spectacular and hold up the rest of the film. If I have to give it a pass/fail, it passes only because of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Kevin Peter Hall’s performances in the final battle sequence. The twists are good. The traps are smart. The stakes are high. Brains and brawn are in perfect harmony. Dutch is a fantastic protagonist, and you can’t help but root for him — no matter how cool the alien looks.
Support the author:
For more like this, subscribe to me on Medium or check out my personal nonfiction, nonfiction journalism and longform fiction. I do not monetize poetry or flash fiction. My novels are temporarily out of print; find out why in my article, “The Dreamspinner Press Controversy.” You can also find me on Twitter or like my public Facebook page, or check out older Reviewsday Tuesdays on my YouTube channel.
If you’re enjoying my content, consider showing your support by buying me a coffee. If you sign up using my referral link to get unlimited access to all of Medium, I receive a small commission.