Every Predator Movie Ranked From Worst to Best
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The post Every Predator Movie Ranked From Worst to Best appeared first on Consequence.
Sometimes I feel bad for the Predator. Of the two major sci-fi creature-feature franchises Fox popularized in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, the Aliens have had much better luck with both critics and audiences. But the Predator series has long felt like it’s struggled to keep up with the mastery of the original 1987 John McTiernan thriller.
In the ensuing 35 years since the first film came out, there have been four direct sequels and two spinoffs (in which they square off against their xenomorph cousins), and hardly any of them have had the rapturous reception of the first one. With this weekend’s Prey, though, that tide seems to have turned, which made us decide to revisit the other major attempts to depict the Predators on screen (sorry, we’re just not going to count the Aliens vs. Predator movies in these; whoever wins, we lose on that score).
After all, the idea of intergalactic game hunters, complete with high-tech weaponry and a cloak that makes them all but impossible to see, is a malleable concept fit for a host of settings and contexts. Which ones have worked, and which haven’t? Strap on your minigun, slather some mud all over yourself and stick around for our breakdown of the mainline Predator movies to date. Hurry up — we ain’t got time to bleed.
05. The Predator (2018)
The Hunter(s): One regular-sized Predator and a bigger, gloopier member of a rival Predator faction, who fight amongst themselves for (I guess) control over who gets to improve their DNA with the help of humans? Oh, and there are some cute Predator Hounds, one of which ends up lobotomized and helping the humans along the way.
The Prey: Army sniper Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook), his autistic savant son (Jacob Tremblay), your classic Hot Lady Scientist (Olivia Munn), an unscrupulous government agent (Sterling K. Brown), and a host of military misfits (including Trevante Rhodes, Keegan-Michael Key, and Alfie Allen) caught in the middle of an inter-Predator conflict.
The Game: At first glance, the idea of bringing back Predator castmate/script doctor Shane Black (who later became a director of excellent action comedies like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, The Nice Guys, and Iron Man 3) to helm his own installment sounds like a nice homecoming. The problem, unfortunately, comes when you try to fit a survival-horror square peg into an ensemble-sci-fi-comedy round hole; Black, for all his virtues, is the kind of guy who’ll try to glom his usual irreverent formula onto a creature that can’t really support it, and the results are hella messy.
It’s not helped, of course, by the sloppy edit and unlikeable characters, with a third act that feels clumsily tacked on in reshoots and way less interesting than the Dirty Dozen-with-Yautja vibe Black clearly wanted to go for. (And there’s the whole “hired his registered sex-offender buddy to share a scene with Olivia Munn” thing, which doesn’t help matters.)
Plus, there’s the icky implication that Tremblay’s character’s autism is “the next stage in human evolution,” which further sours an otherwise interesting middle act set during Halloween in suburbia, a throwback to Black and co-writer Fred Dekker’s script for Monster Squad. It could have worked, but studio interference and some massive tonal mistakes put this one at the bottom of the food chain.
04. Predator 2 (1990)
Director: Stephen Hopkins
The Hunter(s): A Predator of the classic mold, now upgraded for urban warfare with weapons like a retractable “Combi-Stick” that’s basically a fancy space javelin, and a “smart disc” you can throw like a boomerang to cut up people as cleanly as you can frozen sides of beef. (Kevin Peter Hall returns to reprise the role from the original.)
The Prey: Grizzled LAPD cop Mike Harrigan (Danny Glover, clearly still too old for this shit), desperate to find out what creature killed his partner (Ruben Blades) and the heads of some of LA’s most dangerous cartels; along the way, he runs into Agent Keyes (Gary Busey), who knows the Preds exist and has chased this one down to the City of Angels. And don’t forget Bill Paxton and Maria Conchita Alonso as Harrigan’s gung-ho partners.
The Game: There’s still a lot to like about Predator 2, even if it feels a step down from its predecessor: The notion to move the hunter from a literal jungle to the “urban jungle” of Los Angeles is a good one, and it’s nice to see a regular joe like Danny Glover pant and sweat as he faces down the Predator after squaring off against muscle-god Arnold Schwarzenegger.
But apart from that neat final act, when it’s just Glover and the Pred clambering across the dark rooftops and sewers of LA, Predator 2 is a bit of a boring slog. That feeling is hardly aided by its late ’80s depiction of the city (set in the far flung future of 1997) as a sun-soaked hellhole of ethnic gangs and rampant street violence, hitting all the Reagan-era War on Drugs stereotypes to a tee.
Sure, there are glimmers of Verhoevenian fun here and there, including Morton Downey Jr.’s ambulance-chasing reporter Tony Pope. But when all is said and done, Predator 2 feels mostly notable for introducing the concept of Aliens existing in the same realm as Predators (thanks to a xenomorph skull trophy on the Predator ship), as well as the 1715 pistol Harrigan receives by the head Predator, introducing the idea that Earth has been their hunting ground for centuries.
03. Predators (2010)
Director: Nimrod Antal
The Hunter(s): There are a host of Predators in this one, but the trouble comes from three “Super Predators” — the Tracker, Berserker, and Falconer — who are a bit bigger than your usual Yautja (as evidenced by their capture of a smaller, Kevin Peter Hall-sized Predator). Just like in The Predator, this one introduces the idea of warring factions of Predators, though the distinction feels somewhat irrelevant.
The Prey: A group of randomly-selected killers of various stripes — mercenery Royce (a beefed-up Adrien Brody), IDF sniper Isabelle (Alice Braga), wisecracking death row inmate Stans (Walton Goggins), Spetsnaz bruiser Nikolai (Oleg Taktarov), cartel enforcer Cuchillo (Danny Trejo), Yakuza Hanzo (Louis Ozawa Changchen), and African soldier Mombasa (Mahershala Ali), alongside mild-mannered doctor Edwin (Topher Grace). Oh, and the whacked-out survivor Noland (Laurence Fishburne), who’s stayed alive on the planet for years.
The Game: After the twin stumbling blocks of the Alien vs. Predator movies, producer Robert Rodriguez decided to take the franchise back to basics, sort of, with a wild, cartoony chase along an alien game preserve.
And honestly, it’s not all that bad, reaching neither the big highs or lows of Predator 2 but succeeding in a kind of pleasing consistency. The alien jungle setting is interesting, and the cast makes the most of their one-dimensional characters — especially Goggins, showing glimmers of the smug-bastard charisma he’d carry on into Justified, Vice Principals, and The Righteous Gemstones.
The character types are broad and suitably juvenile (and frankly, too numerous), the premise something a blinkered teenage Redditor would think of. But it’s hard to argue against the sheer lizard-brain delight of a katana swordfight with a predator in a field of reeds. Plus, “action hero Adrien Brody” is such a bizarrely novel thing that I just can’t turn away. There are scenes from Predator 2 I like more than this whole movie, but eventually Predators‘ decent action and commitment to the bit wins out.
02. Prey (2022)
Director: Dan Trachtenberg
The Hunter(s): A primitive, more primal version of the Predator (former Italian/Israeli basketball player Dane DiLiegro), with earlier versions of the weapons we’ve come to expect. His cloak is more imperfect and prone to failure, his mask is a bony skull rather than sleek metal, and he carries a retractable wrist shield to protect from any small bore weapons his early-colonial Earth quarry might throw at him.
The Prey: Naru (Amber Midthunder), a Comanche woman who’s been raised as a healer but yearns to be a hunter like her older brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers). Plus, a host of other Comanche warriors who follow the siblings into the plains to track down a mountain lion that harmed one of their hunters. And don’t forget the group of sleazy French voyageurs who are chasing after the beast for their own purposes.
The Game: After the franchise-spinning possibilities of The Predator fell flat, it was smart for the series to go back to its roots and try something more intimate and high-concept. With Prey, we certainly got it, director Dan Trachtenberg throwing us into the past for a simple, effective man-vs-alien game of wits, with no modern-day weaponry to speak of. The 1700s setting is a great spin on the material, pitting an intergalactic hunter against, arguably, its greatest match yet: A Comanche warrior who knows her home turf better than any alien creature.
And on top of its excellent command of suspense and surprising narrative agility, it treats its Native characters with grace and authenticity, accentuating their cultural practices without lapsing into exoticism. Midthunder’s Naru is easily one of the series’ best protagonists, and her quest for survival and respect among her people gives Prey more emotional oomph than any convoluted alien lore and sci-fi politicking ever could.
1. Predator (1987)
Director: John McTiernan
The Hunter(s): The OG Predator, a curious but cunning warrior who stalks his prey with as much curiosity as bloodlust (not to mention more firepower than a Michigan game hunter bringing his AR-15 to a duck hunt). Kevin Peter Hall’s depiction is surely the definitive portrayal of ol’ Preddy, blending a hint of perverse humor amongst its craven, homicidal instincts.
The Prey: A group of Special Forces commandos, led by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Dutch” Schaefer, who’ve been led by CIA fixer Dillon (Carl Weathers) into a bait-and-switch mission in Central America, only to run afoul of the titular creature in the jungle. Also along for the ride is their mission’s sole survivor, a guerilla named Anna (Elpidia Carillo).
The Game: There’s a reason Predator is a franchise, even though most of the resulting entries (Prey aside) have never risen above the level of middling outside of diehard fans: The first one is a masterclass in ’80s action and suspense, McTiernan’s grimy, atmospheric direction soaking us in the dewey jungle arena where our hunt takes place.
It’s also Peak Arnold, his “Dutch” feeling like an extension of Commando’s John Matrix, but with a hint of world-weary pathos as he susses out the doom and gloom of their situation. (There’s still plenty of room for corny Arnold one-liners like “Stick around” and “Get to da choppah!”, though.)
More than that, all the elegantly-staged action (set to Alan Silvestri’s inimitable fanfare) play into a nifty deconstruction of American military might, in a cultural landscape that was finally ready to accept the failings of Vietnam and the folly of the drug wars in Central America. A thick cloak of despair sets in amongst our characters, all played to a tee by stalwart players like Bill Duke, Jesse Ventura, and Sonny Landham, as the hypermasculine G.I. Joes we typically idolized in ’80s cinema get knocked off one at a time by an unseen force they’re helpless against.
Every Predator Movie Ranked From Worst to Best
Clint Worthington
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