A group of friends and I were hanging about, and we were looking for the perfect movie to watch. Suggestions were thrown around like Altered States, Burt Reynolds The Gator, ARRIVAL, Conan, but we eventually settled on the classic Schwarzenegger movie THE PREDATOR. in a movie theater setting, I prefer to go alone. On my first watch of a movie, I really want to experience it unhindered by random giggling or whatever joke you happen to find funny at the particular moment. But movies like The predator that I've seen a hundred times and know inside and out, joking about them with a large group of friends is one of the finest pleasures life has to offer.
"A team of special force ops, led by a tough but fair soldier, Major "Dutch" Schaefer, are ordered to assist CIA man, Colonel Al Dillon, on a rescue mission for potential survivors of a Helicopter downed over remote South American jungle. Not long after they land, Dutch and his team discover that they have been sent in under false pretenses. This deception turns out to be the least of their worries though, when they find themselves being methodically hunted by something not of this world."
This movie is such a ridiculous indulgence of pure masculinity, it's hard not to be charmed by it. ever thing about this movie is over the top as fuck, the guns, the acting, the score, the practical effects by Stan Winston, it all blends to make this an action movie of high fantasy in a realistic warfare jungle setting. we joked during the movie you could have filmed the whole thing in one room full of vines, and the almost total lack of variety in this movies environment does lead to things feeling stagnant. but in all honesty, that's the only complaint about this movie what so ever.
you may not be surprised to learn that making this movie was a massive pain in the ass thanks to leeches, snakes, stifling humidity, heat, and rough terrain. All of the night scenes were filmed during freezing cold temperatures, which was especially hard on Arnold Schwarzenegger during the latter half of the film, when the mud he had to wear (actually pottery clay) became cold and wet. He was warned it would take his body temperature down a few degrees, and he shivered non-stop, even when they tried to heat him with lamps (it just made the clay dry out). He tried drinking jagertee, a schnapps mixture, to warm him, but that just got him drunk. if that's not bad enough the Predator costume weighed over two hundred pounds, and even though 7'2" Kevin Peter Hall was a large and powerful man, he had to be connected to a "bungie" rig to enable him to move more believably.
the entire time we were watching, we were quoting the movie the whole way through, laughing at the absurdity, praising Winston's PREDATOR design, swapping behind the scenes stories and trivia, and having a damn good time doing it. this movie was always the junk food of films to me, but now its a hall of fame classic
10 pencils Dylan was pushing to many of/10
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