Streaming Availability: Hulu
Predator 1 is big twitching biceps, big twitching machine guns, invincible masculinity slaughtering everything in its way. In one of its best choices, Predator 2 decides to be a different kind of action movie. See, there are subgenres here, not schlock action movie was Commando, there was also Die Hard. These are slightly more grounded movies with heroes that can get hurt, but still they solve all problems with bullets, grit, and catch-phrases. The comparison between Predator 2 and the Lethal Weapon franchise is unavoidable. Shane Black wrote Lethal Weapon 1 and he was the guy in Predator 1 making bad jokes about his girlfriend's private parts. Today's movie stars Danny Glover as a badass LA cop prone to cowboy antics to the frustration of his superior. Imagine if Murtaugh fought an alien while Riggs was on vacation or something. Also, Gary Busey is here. Unsurprisingly, producer Joel Silver is involved in both franchises, he did not mind a bit of cross-contamination.
So before Predators ever fought Aliens, they also were the villain of a stealth Lethal Weapon 2.5.
The shift in location and genre is something I admire. This is what the Predator franchise should have done: in every entry find a new subgenre to break into. John Wick should fight a Predator one day. In Predator 2 we got from jungle to urban jungle, the verticality of the rain forest going to Los Angeles high rises, set in the near-future dystopia of... 1997. Lt. Harrigan (Glover) is melting in every scene, his enormous costume which seems to be three sizes too large is usually soaked. They explain this by saying we're in a middle of a big heat wave, which has the city literally exploding.
Schwarzenegger is a pair of oiled-up biceps that walk like a man, Danny Glover is not. He has to aim, for example. He has to worry about getting hit. He has an annoying superior who threatens him in typical cop movie fashion. It would be a Buddy Cop movie, except Harrigan loses his partner early on. Instead the odd pairing is Harrigan's two sidekicks, the straight-laced Leona (María Conchita Alonso) and a newbie goofus comic relief in Jerry (Bill Paxton, a real highlight of this movie). Predator 2 would be the usual "the rules don't work on the means streets, man" cop fantasy bullshit if not for the fact that an alien has landed in LA and is butchering people.
Another genre shift is a turn towards Verhoeven-esque RoboCop satire. Demolition Man also opens on a late-Nineties vision of LA in flames, there was something in the zeitgeist assuming the cities were ripe for complete meltdowns. Predator 2 sorta got this right in the most backwards way, LA Riots will happen in 1992 and those racial tensions with dominate American discourse in the Nineties. Unfortunately the cure for all this violence in these movies is more of the cause: police brutality. Don't expect Predator 2 to have great politics, it will get worse. We open on the entire city in a giant gunfight. It is so over-the-top it tip-toes to the line of becoming comedy. We get a lurid blood and guts reporter in Tony Pope (Conservative trash TV personality Morton Downey Jr.), a Greek chorus figure to give exposition for how every right-wing fantasy of urban decay having come true. He ends up being just another nuisance to Harrigan, who punches him in the face.
The weirder thing is that the gang war imagined in 1997 is a battle between Colombians and a crew of extremely racist "voodoo" stereotypes, who are also dope-smoking Jamaicans. The Ranged Touch podcasts have a a catch-phrase: "I don't know what to do with this", and I think that applies here. I don't know what to do with any of this. It makes no sense. There is not a large Jamaican population in LA, for one. Also, Voodoo is more a Louisiana thing than Jamaican, not that it matters. I don't know to get into the history of East African diaspora folk religion, because this movie does not a give a fuck about any of this! It's exploitation in the most careless and sloppy way, Live and Let Die had more authenticity. Plus, it goes nowhere. All the magic in the world does nothing when an invisible giant alien (Kevin Peter Hall, returning as the Predator) simply rips off the head off the main drug lord, who has one scene. All it does is let us know in this film's imaginary that we need Harrigan because the criminal element has turned into spooky, weird nonsense that needs to be burnt out.
My one theory is that they have Jamaicans in this movie because the Predator has dreadlocks. Which... you know, now that you bring this up, Predator 2, maybe that's a problem actually. I didn't even realize what you were doing racializing this alien until just now. Cut this shit out.
I do like a lot about Predator 2. For most of of my life, this was the only halfway decent sequel in this franchise. For one, it is not a complete mess, racial politics aside. I even enjoy the other Predator 2, I Come in Peace (AKA: Dark Angel), also about a cowboy cop fighting an alien with wacky super-sharp gadgets in a crime-torn city, which also came out in 1990. That movie reps Houston though, in Predator 2 the LA backdrop feels iconic. There were so many ridiculous action B-movies in this era: all you needed was a film crew, a few junker cars you could explode, and a stuntman willing to jump off a roof, and you could make six of these a year and go straight to VHS. Predator 2 is well above average by that standard. Danny Glover carries the movie, and the final fight I think is better than Predator 1.
Some scenes do not work. Jerry's death on the subway is shot like shit, the lights will not stop flashing. But most of the action is really good. You get a fun Gary Busey performance as the face of the Government Conspiracy trying to capture the Predator. He's playing it straight as a stuffy "stay out of my jurisdiction" cliche. But just when you think Busey won't be wacky enough, he's back from the dead, missing a tooth, and screaming his head off before he gets cut in half in a meat plant.
The ending is a fascinating one. Harrington does not win by dipping into a primal animist nature, he's just a bit lucky and never gives up. Glover never says "I'm too old for this shit!" but it's all over his face when he has to climb down an apartment building or jump down an elevator shaft to fight an alien. He gets to go down to the Predator ship, which decorated like cenobites met some Aztecs. He's given an antique 18th-century pistol, a fun little twist on the bow of this movie. The Predators have been here a long time. And they'll be back.
Also there's a xenomorph skull in the background of a few shots. It is never the focus of a shot, it just happens to be there. Somehow that's the one part of Predator 2 anybody remembered. Let that be a lesson to you: never do a fun easter egg. The fans will never let it go. It will torpedo your franchise.
Next time! Fuck I'll have to do Alien vs Predator at some point, won't I? Goddammit. But it is not time yet, first we do a movie I actually like, the remake of The Blob!
No comments:
Post a Comment