PREDATOR

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STARRING: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Elpidia Carrillo, Bill Duke, Jesse Ventura, Sonny Landham, Richard Chaves, R.G. Armstrong, Shane Black, Kevin Peter Hall

1987, 107 Minutes, Directed by John McTiernan

Description: Arnold Schwarzenegger leads an elite squad of U.S. Army commandos to a remote region of South American jungle, where they've been assigned to search for South American officials who've been kidnapped by terrorists. Instead they find a bunch of skinned corpses hanging from the trees and realize that they're now facing a mysterious and much deadlier threat. As the squad is picked off one by one, Arnold finds himself pitted against a hideous alien creature that's heavily armed and wearing a spacesuit enabling the creature to render itself invisible. — Amazon.com

Big budget B-movie as Arnie gets slugged around a lot by a viscous intergalactic big game hunter in some South American jungle.

While the said "predator" is truly a unique creation in science fiction moviedom, one cannot help but feel like a character from a previous Schwarzenegger movie who at some stage remarked in desperation: "I've had enough of this macho bullshit!"

Instead of being given believable characters to identify with, we have to cope with an elite military platoon with some serious testosterone problems sent to rescue hostages from a guerrilla group. After having wrecked the guerrilla base in true Rambo style, they find that there are no hostages and that they have been set-up by their commanders to retrieve stolen information instead.

On their way back, they get picked off one by one by an invisible alien. At the end only Schwarzenegger remains who we know will not die because he is, after all, the lead actor in the film. And he's Schwarzenegger, of course. This film garnered quite a cult following although it's rather difficult to see why: it's Rambo meets Alien! 

(Followed by a sequel, Predator 2, in 1990 starring Mel Gibson's "I'm getting to old for this shit" Lethal Weapon sidekick and no Arnie! In 2004 Alien vs Predator combined the two moribund franchises in one filmic outing.)

• Read our review of Predator on DVD.
• See also: Cold Fusion Video Reviews.
• Read the script.
• Download the trailer.