Retae Ekans

Film review: Predator (1987)

The year 2024 marks the twentieth anniversary of Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater. It’s crazy to think that its so-called author had never made anything better than it despite the critical acclaim he gets.

I am pretty much on the “Nah, I’m good” side for replaying Snake Eater this year. I am not going to recharge the 3DS for the definitive-enough-for-me version of the game. And the more I heard about the remake dubbed Delta the less incentive I get to buy it. Guess the “recycling voice track” thing can just kill any incentive. Instead, time to rewatch a movie that influenced it heavily. That movie is about a hunter whose hunts happen only in the hottest years. And this year, it grows hot here in the city hosting miHoYo’s global headquarters.

Kojima!

Predator, directed by John McTiernan, came out in 1987, the same year “Hideo Kojima’s” Metal Gear hit MSX. So, the flick had nothing to offer that particular game. However afterwards, “THE video game director” just could not help himself. What he had done to the movie is like its titular monster did to Billy the Tracker: rip the deceased’s skull along with the spine out with bare hands.

Skull

The 1987 flick showed 3 men skinned, gutted and hung upside down to tease what it is really about a little more than 15 minutes into its 107 minutes long runtime. I can only imagine the then-younger-than-I-am-now Hideo Kojima saw this and thought it’s a very good idea to shock the audience early into something.

There is the written-but-not-directed-by-Kojima Snatcher, where the player character was supposed to meet a fellow detective only seen the latter’s head rolling on the ground. Policenauts, the very first thing sold as “A Hideo Kojima Game”, had a player character’s contact meeting similarly gruesome fate. Then there are the bloody corridor in 1998‘s MGS and Vamp wiping out a Seal Team in 2001’s MGS2. Snake Eater got its nuclear explosion, Guns of Patriots got its BB crop fucking people up and Phantom Pain got its death squads.

Spine

Dutch is a special force major leading a heavily armed rescue squad. In the 1980s. he got a mission from an old friend named Dillion, former commando turned CIA spook. Dutch is told that the objective is to rescue a cabinet member of some friendly-to-U-S-A South American country in the jungle. Dutch soon realizes that he is lied to about the mission as intel gathering turned out to be the real goal. Meanwhile, there is something more dangerous waiting for him and his team in enemy territory.

Video games are no stranger to rescue missions even before Kojima entered the game developing arena. Nintendo alone already had a titular rescuer in Mario and a titular rescued in Zelda back then. So, I guess piss and vinegar packed young Hideo Kojima saw Predator’s “rescue mission with a twist and destined to fail” plot as perfect “bone” to put his bullshit “meat” on.

In Metal Gear Solid (1998), the “meat” is anxiety regarding nuclear weapon and genetic manipulation while in Sons of Liberty it’s anxiety regarding the digital age. Snake Eater would be the most similar to Predator given the jungle setting and Cold War undertone. Only, Kojima’s team took the Cold War thing the movie played down and just ran with it, made up a tale about friends, foes and duty of soldiers.

Metal Gear Solid 1 to 3 are only the good ones Kojima did with Predator plotline. After that, the so-called video game author did this bullshit twice and neither came close. One being Ground Zeroes, where players succeed in gameplay only to fail in cut scene just because Kojima really bought into his own hype. The other being Death Stranding, where successful rescue comes long before a boring and long “fourth act” before credits roll.

There is a saying regarding chicken spine here in miHoYo’s country of origin: it’s too blunt to eat yet too expansive to throw away. In the year twenty twenty-four common era, “A Hideo Kojima” just feels like that, especially after seeing where that spine really came from.

There is turn so,

Despite what Alex Navarro said, Arnold Schwarzenegger did not pronounce the word “around” with a heavy accent in the line above. In fact, former governor of California did many things differently in this flick, starting with sliming down a bit to look like a commando rather than body-builder. And the shoot them up action his flicks are famous for only occurs in the first act.

To showcase how capable Dutch’s squad is, the film let them wipe out a local guerrilla camp along with all the Russian consultants in it. Despite Dutch’s final “Knock, knock” regards, the team does not go in guns blazing, at least not all the way. Director John McTiernan sounds proud of his work here as the team cleared out the overwatching sentinels more methodically before they fire a single shot and disowns the shootout the second-unit did for him in the audio commentary.

I do wonder if Sigourney Weaver watched this film and vowed not to work with James Cameron again until he cast her as a queen of tree-huggers among homo sapiens in Avatar. Weaver taking an anti-gun stand in real life is contrast to Ripley’s gun-totting solution in Aliens. The summer after, Schwarzenegger starring in a film where his success rate goes up as his reliance on firearm goes down probably made Weaver regret returning to Aliens with an army.

After the raid on the camp and capturing a local lass named Anna, Dutch’s squad got picked off one at a time by the titular monster. Eventually, even Dillion the lying spook was killed. Dutch realized that his the team is dealing with a very different enemy, started to use his most powerful weapon, the mind. First, set camp and explosive traps for the night, only to find out that the Predator does not move on the ground but jumps around in the trees.

Then the team set up a trap packed with distraction in hope to net, trap and shoot the tree hopper. This plan goes so pear-shaped for the trapped’s shoulder-mounted gun and built-in blades. Dutch ended up the last man standing after this encounter. Just as he comes face-to-face with the alien hunter without any weapon to use and covered with mud, he discovered the limit of enemy’s thermal detection and lived to exploit it. With only one knife and a couple of grenades without launcher for, Dutch eventually selected a fitting ambush spot, set up a more elaborate trap and defeated the monster. Ripley’s future arsenal in Aliens is luxury compared to this.

With that rubber suit,

Legend has it that both Ridely Scott and James Cameron were approached by Fox in late 1990s to early 2000s about a fifth Alien film. Both deals fell through because Fox had the “brilliant idea” to pivot towards Alien VS. Predator, eventually helmed by Paul W S Anderson, aka the man who turned Resident Evil film into a cheap Aliens knock-off. Given how much efforts Scott and Cameron put into making the dickhead monster not look like “men in rubber suits” in their flicks, it would be fair guess that they were just against Predator in principle. For this one embraces “men in rubber suits” so much it would not be out of place in some Kaimen Rider show and it’s pretty ugly inside out.

Film director John McTiernan is most famous for making up the Die Hard formular and Predator can be seen as the one last step before that expansive one-location action thriller. Both flicks feature groups of fairly competent armed men and individuals killing them one by one. Unlike officer John McClane though, the titular Predator here is not likeable in the very least. The way this alien bastard left its victims indicates a sadistic personality and makes one long to see Schwarzenegger kicking its ass.

And that final brawl is bit disappointing even if you are not excepting some fancy Hong Kong choreography. Even compared to Commando before it, Total Recall after it or Kaimen Rider shows, it’s just off. The suit was clearly built better for drama than for action. Its first full showcase being the alien monster taking out a bullet out of its thigh. I think Snake Eater’s healing mandate is nice homage to that.

We are leaving. Now,

Compared to other Hollywood franchise, Predator seems like a bold one with each installment having different casts. Of course, none that follows reach the height of Schwarzenegger ascending. Of course, John McTiernan’s more methodical direction helps as well.

While MGS series’ first 3 installments had been seen as interactive Die Hard knock-off, the 1988 summer blockbuster was very much a point many things built towards to at that time. Films like Rambo: First Blood Part Two (1985) and Aliens (1986) both contained their action in somewhere that at least feels like “single location”. On top of that, Predator (1987) added the flavor of relying on mind instead guns. And on the extraction vehicle, one can finally feel safe. Reverse who the audience is supposed to root for, and you got a winning formular many went after for years.