Many are the nights once rich in romantic promise that have been swiftly and mercilessly hacked to pieces by the fella - remote control in one hand, gently stroking his beloved with the other - stumbling upon this little beauty, mid-channel surf, and enquiring with all the dizzy intoxication of a kid in a sweet shop: "Oooh, can we just watch this for a bit?" Cut to ~two hours later, the man punches the air with a squeal of vicarious triumph as Arnie dumps that tree trunk on the beasty's head, while the lady - innocent dreams of an evening's light petting and pillow talk now quashed - snoozes a snooze of unimaginable boredom at the far end of the couch.
The absolute antithesis of the 'date night' movie, this stripped-down, stalk-and-slash boy's adventure walks-the-walk of an ultra-macho exercise in adrenaline and testosterone, and yet comes so loaded with subtext it's still, almost twenty-five years later, the thinking-man's actioner. Able to be read as everything from a Vietnam allegory (brute American force negated by a tactically superior foe that literally disappears into the jungle) to a feminist critique of machismo (tell us the unmasked beasty doesn't resemble the kind of thing Georgia O'Keefe daydreamed about, with snapping tusks), it also serves as something of a deconstruction of the absurdly overblown eighties action genre - ironically starring it's poster child. After all, these guys are ridiculous; a pumped-up pack of steroid-gobbling alpha-males, supposedly on a covert-op, who yet light up that tiny guerilla encampment with enough noise, fire, and gung-ho bravado so as to be seen from space. They forever teeter on the brink of parody.
All that, of course, is not to ignore the technical smarts, as McTiernan's unfussy, economical direction is a masterclass in switching gears, deftly blending action, sci-fi, horror, and suspense without ever missing a beast or compromising his overall vision. After all, aside from that teasing opening shot of a jettisoned pod slowly falling down to Earth from space, there is little to suggest in the opening half-hour that this is anything other than straight-up men-on-a-mission fodder, where America's best stick one to the Commies! It's certainly a bait and switch, but McTiernan doesn't waste a second. Taking a leaf from James Cameron's Aliens, the director utilizes this time to allow each and every character to establish a real personality, so that we feel something each and every time one of them gets squished.
Finally, having relentlessly teased us with those odd looking infra-red tracking shots, comes the big reveal; the clawed, four-fingered hand coming to frame, and the soft whisper "...'Anytime'..." as we realize we're in for something very different than we first thought. From there action becomes a tech-infused horror movie, with our cocksure heroes mercilessly picked off one-by-one, the very jungle that surrounds them the haunted house. But the superbly paced script by the brother's Thompson, both of whom would go on to have long and undistinguished careers, added one key ingredient to their invisible assassin that separated this from being just another high-concept creature feature - psychology.
We can't see the foe (at first, anyway), but we do understand it. It has rules, rituals, is meticulous. It has strategy, it adapts, and it's far less interested in sadism than he is in testing it's mettle, personified by the grudging respect given Schwarzenegger, looking him up and down before disarming itself, unmasking, and choosing to settle this mano-a-mano. This is the movie's great gift and the enduring image that we retain - a creature so cool, and so monumentally bad-ass that only Arnie can kill it.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
Of course, the only reason that this re-release exists at this time is to punt the upcoming Predators movie, and so there is a short, sneak peak with some artwork, a little footage, and Rodriguez telling us how awesome it will be. That aside, this is stocked to the gills with everything a Predator fan could dream of. McTiernan's commentary track only makes his fall from grace (Rollerball?!) all the more inexplicable. Also included is a neat subtitled track of anecdotes from film historian Eric Lichtenfeld, which is great for those of us who already know this film inside out. If It Bleeds, We Can Kill It is a detailed making-of, while Evolution of a Species and Inside Predator both deal with concept. Also included are some deleted scenes, outtakes, photo galleries, and trailers.
"Predator: Ultimate Hunter Edition" is on sale June 29, 2010 and is rated R. Action, Horror, Sci-Fi. Directed by John McTiernan. Written by Jim Thomas & John Thomas. Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bill Duke, Carl Weathers, Elpidia Carrillo, Jesse Ventura, Richard Chaves, Shane Black, Sonny Ladham.
