Predator 2 - why the hate?

I don't think a lot of people hate it. It just isn't as good as the original.

I like it. Danny Glover talks to himself the whole time. "HOLY MOSES! Birds. Damn Birds. That's all i need is birds." And Busey's in it.

Once they get past all the Rasta gang nonsense and get down to Glover vs Predator it rolls along nicely. But for most of the first half of the film it's like watching Lethal Weapon 5 with a Predator in it.

I liked it a lot as well. Wouldn't consider the series complete without it.

It loses some of the gravity of the first one, but...it's a city.

(films in release forum.)

I guess I have more than a few beefs with Predator 2:

1. L.A. is a pretty bloody place in the film. I'd actually say it gets less violent per capita once Preddy arrives since he takes the time to hunt his prey, instead of shooting indiscriminantly. Unlike the placid (albeit bloody) jungle, the violence in the city seems redundant.

2. We already know all the shit the predator can do, so waiting around for Danny Glover to get up to speed is kinda boring. However, some of the stuff defies logic. Such as when the predator walks up the subway car - some of the slugs should have got him.

3. One-dimensional cop characters, except Paxton's happily annoying hick.

4. Stupid attempts at humour - the old lady with the broom, Downey's reporter.

5. Hopkins' direction. Can't create tension for shit, as seen here and TG&TD. Thank God this guy stopped getting tossed big stuff. What a waste. The only admiration I have for this guy is getting Naomi Watts to shack up with him. He even screwed up that character piece with Hackman, Freeman, Belluci, and Thomas Jane,

6. Wasted Busey.

7. Fucking dumb break-dancing predator on the DVD.

On the plus side, it was one of Glover's few lead roles - looking forward to him playing a cop again in Saw.

Predator 2 is awesome. So many great moments.

- Gary Busey getting cut in half.

- The shot of King Willie pulling out his sword, and then a millisecond later we see his severed head with the scream sound effect. Fabulous.

- Anything and everything Paxton..."LET'S DANCE!!!"

- The Predator medkit is always a pleasure to observe. I love the old lady because I imagine living in that apartment and hearing those inhuman fucking howls coming from your bathroom. Hilarious.

- Glover getting the respect (and antique gat) of the other predators after taking out one. Always loved that moment.

- The trophy case. Those other skulls are so cool, and the first time I saw this when I was a wee lad the xenomorph skull had me in geek nirvana.

I liked how BUSEY says "THIS IS BETWEEN ME AND HIIIIIM!" and is cut in half 2 seconds later.

"Lions, Tigers, Bears. Oh MY!"

Am I remembering incorrectly, or was this film set in the futuristic world of 1995?

Tension then. Scare factor.

The first felt a lot like survival horror. The second felt more like "Preddy Takes Manhattan".

The jump from a real jungle to concrete jungle was great, but it was the little things, like the old woman, the hilarious sex scene, and the little kid with the toy that made the situation feel less scary. Too much background noise.

Made perfect sense and it was entertaining, but it took the Predator a bit too much out of the spotlight.

It was Futuristic 1997, a time when everyone had gigantic laser sights on their guns.

I group Predator 2 and Robocop 2 in the same boat of sequels that are pretty cool in their own right but seem diminished due to the greatness and awesome-tude of the first films.

See, if you want to talk up Predator 2, that's fine. But don't throw bullshit insults at the first one to try and make your case. Predator is a classic hunter/prey action film, and I'll not stand by and let you just dismiss it like that.

Predator 2. It's a good sequel, but I always thought the city setting caused the 'hunter' vibe to be drowned out a little. Big action fun, anyway.

So do I...I just didn't think it was as scary.



On a related note, are there any sci-fi sound effects as well-done or well-known as the Predator's vision-changing and gurgling sounds?

I'm thinking Darth Vader's breathing...but that's all I'm coming up with.

It's Paul Revere's gun that Glover receives at the end, right? One of the movies better moments.

Teaser poster would be much better if it didn't look like he ripped the head off of some poor kid. Perhaps the kid deserved it though.

I'm not sure about gravity, but it seemed to me that (within the outrageous premise, of course) the first film was a bit more 'realistic' (in the sense of a confident special forces team get their hats handed to them in a jungle), and it tapped into our subconcious a bit more than the second (that old built-in fear of jungles, and creatures therein).



Yeah, which I think is a bit of a problem. The first film, Blain, Dillon, Mac, Billy, Poncho, Hawkins, even Anna, all classic characters we can picture in our heads easily.

Its a good but flawed sequel. I use to have the 10 ft poster of this on my wall. Blew everyone away seeing the Predator like that. Btw I like Hopkins and think he did rather well here considering. You're not going to top the greatness of the first film so have a little fun with it and they did. The opening is still well paced and throws you into the action nicely. Something Jenuet could learn from. Its a good sequel.

" Too small "

" You fucking bendajos!!!!!! "

" Come and get it! El Scorpio is ready! "

" Don't worry asshole. You'll get another chance. "

No hate from me...saw it ata festival before it was released and it went down very well, esp the 'unvailing' near the end after the showdown.

A different film from the original, with "The Predator" taking centre stage. And some GREAT one on one 'manly chest beating' between Glover and the always welcome Busey!

What did you want? Another rehash of an Arnie vehicle? As much as i love the first one, he should have died in it, and had a great, 'worthy warrior' skull placement in the Predator's trophy cabinet end sequence...when Arnie outruns a nuclear explosion, the film dropped down a few notches.

Both are good films, with the original just pipping the sequel due to some bad end matte work and the very choppy and messy way the 2nd half of "P 2" plays out...esp where Paxton's fate and the baby revelation are played out...production trouble stood out a mile there.

I can't like predator 2, because I am one of those people who believe Predator 1 to be one of the few examples of perfection in cinema. I won't get into the gory details as to why predator 1 rules, but Danny Glover was playing Lt. Murtaugh in this picture and fighting a predator, against which he really had no shot.

I didn't like much about this movie. There were some good predator moments, but to imagine what arnold could have done in a predator sequel is much more entertaining than anything that showed up on screen in predator 2.

i think the backlash P2 gets comes from the absence of arnold.. to this day i have friends who have this knee-jerk reaction to P2, because when they were kids, they went into the theatre expecting arnold.. and they came out feeling cheated and disappointed.

consequently, the hate it gets from people that havent viewed it since kindergarten always pisses me off.

ill always maintain its one of the most under-rated action /sci-fi flicks of the 90s. I'll even go so far as to say its a better film than the first.
glover was great.. paxton, busey.. both great. and contrary to waht seems to be popular opinion.. Hopkin's direction was second-to-none.

But arnold is arnold..

I'm not a HUGE fan of this film but I really enjoyed the ending. It had some real nice touches.

I just find Predator 2 rather pointless. There's nothing wrong with the film, per se, but there's also nothing there that really makes me want to watch it. I rented the DVD a few weeks ago to sit it again and it took three sittings to make it through the whole thing.

it is a very badly made film.
the first had the 'group of fighters picked off one by one' plot that has been recycled endlessly, but for good reason.
the second has no plot. Predator kills, police investigate crime scene, find another piece of the puzzle, repeat until Gary Busey gets chopped in half when it becomes mano a preddo.
why was paxton and the lady even on the subway? It's not an awful set-piece but there is NO narrative reason for it. therefore: no plot. none at all. not even a narrative thread.
the meat fridge scene with the commandos and the predator who 'can't see' is a carbon copy of the aliens scene when the soldiers first fight the aliens. IT IS THE SAME. only not as good.
Also Danny Glover's 'cop on the edge' schtick feels like a parody, but it seems like it was done straight. Also: for the baddest cop on the beat Danny sure moves slowly. Also: i'm willing to bet he was about 10th on the producer's wish-list.
Thus predator 2 has a general feeling of knock-off product. cobbled together from a check-list of what they thought should be in a predator film, mixed in with some deeply cack-handed attempts at 'the city is a jungle' commentary.
the first one told a very simple story extremely well, the second one is just simple.
It's impossible to be offended by it - it's a stupid 80's sci-fi action cross-over but it isn't even in the same class as the first. I'm not sure it's even in the same medium.
I saw it recently and i laughed for hte 1st half hour. then the badness made me feel bad.
Thems my reasons.

I've nothing against the ending as it is but I love your idea. I find it amazing actually...

The film made the biggest mistake you can make: I didn't care about anyone. Not Harrigan, not Paxton, not Alonso. It was cool that it showed more of the Pred's culture, but at the end of the day he's the villain of the piece, and the moment you don't feel for the characters that are being taken apart by him, the film becomes a failure (or JASON X).

Love Pred 2. I think it's nearly equal to the original. Alan Silvestri's score fucking rocks, too. The only points off is the blatant "Aliens" knockoff scene in the meat locker.

I love this film. I think it's better than the first. But I'm just not an Arnold fan.

If there's anything wrong with it, it's A) the reason the Predator hunts Lt. Harrigan isn't totally clear unless you're familiar with the Predator (pulling a gun on him in the beginning and not shooting - that's like flipping him the bird while sodomizing his mother, to such an honor/combat-based culture) and B) the meat locker scene with the government agents was a bit of a rip-off of the hive slaughter from ALIENS (but that's not a bad thing... I still liked it, and I felt it was done well).

The film is so gratuitously over-the-top and quotable. It's fun. Maybe Glover wasn't the best choice for the role of Harrigan, but I think he was fine.

Here's a What If...? scenario for you... would you have liked it more if Sylvester Stallone were Harrigan? I think that would've been made it a classic.

Yes, I'm serious. Stop looking at me like that.

The Gary Busey character seems to know alot about the predators. Yet, when we get to AVP, no one says "Hey, one of these guys attacked LA in 1997". At least Predator 2 had continuity with the franchise. I love this film, but I agree that Glover was wrong for the role. He was just playing Roger from Lethal Weapon.

I am a big fan of this since I was a youngling...

Busy's oust is freaking great, love the gallons of blood that drops out of his torso.

It's because Predator is such a kick ass ride that anything you put out is hard to match it..

Die Hard sequels emote the same repsopnse usally (Sequels are good but cant live up to the first) and McTiernan did that movie too.

Good call fella.

I like this, but still think the original is far superior.

There are just some lines here that are really out of place, and the direction and cinematography could've been much better, in my opinion.

I loved the original, in part due to latent homosexual tendencies on my part. But over time I've come to appreciate Pred II more. Danny Glover's bottom lip deserves an Oscar all its own. And Gary Busey rocks. I've always imagined if I had a real life run-in with Busey, he'd talk to me about the aliens he was tracking down and give me that shark tooth grin. Then I'd have to run away and get a restraining order.

Anyway. Good flick.

Brilliant post seriously. You stated your case perfectly. I liked it despite its flaws the first film is amazing the second a fun hoot of a ride.

As someone once said about Busey in this movie, that wasn't acting. HE BELIEVED, DAMN IT.

Voodoo fucking magik mon

I always loved this film.
The Rastas, Busey, Paxton, Glover, the pistol at the end, the ship the xeno skull the heatwave feel of it all.
Great stuff.
The Aliens rip off sucked but who cares.
I never understood why every hated it so much either...

I liked it alot. Almost as good as the first. It was bloody.

Unlike the useless children shit that comes out today like Van Helsing.

Late 80s early 90s were the golden age of action movies.

Where did all the fucking gore go in action movies?????? (Kill Bill excluded)

Oh yah I forgot lets make everything PG13 to break the bank...

I too am a sucker for all things Predator or Alien based.

I'd say the first film is superior but Pred2 is definately a fun ride. It has a completely different tone for me tho'...more of a fun rollercoaster whereas the original ( despite all the homo-erotic images ) was definately darker in tone and excecution. There is too much comedy in Predator 2 for me to take it as seriously as the first film. The comment about throwaway characters is also dead on.
Having said that Predator 2 has a ton of action and blood with some well excecuted sequences. It also has Gary Busey going totally insane with his performance....a plus point not to be underestimated! I was a little disgruntled with the chioce of Danny at first but over the years I've come to appreciate his performance.

The Predator score is indeed iconic. It was also my favourite score, second only to StarWars while growing up "Daaaaaaaaa, Daaa,Da,Da, Daaaaaaa, Daa, Da, Da, Daaaa,DADAAAAA!!" *ahem*

As to the question referring to iconic sound effects, here's a few more I can think of.

The Terminator Infra-red vision.
Lightsabres igniting.
The Tie Fighter ( my personal favourite sound effect of all time )

Good call on Darths breathing and the Alien hiss.

Yeah, the targetting mode rocks too =)

On a side note my mate can do a pretty good Predator "clicking" impression. he once did it by the side of his g'friends bed in the dark, while she was sleeping.....he nearly lost the top of his head with a bedside alarm clock.....she didn't take it too well.

A break-dancing Predator? Tell me more.

Predator 2 for all its shortcomings was still miles above the horribly executed AvP. Of course that's still not saying much. I actually liked it a lot. It expanded on the existing mythos and looked at it from a different perspective with different characters. It was a brave move in a time of carbon-copy sequels. I never understood why AvP was made instead of Predator 3. The movie makes absolutely no sense from a story continuity standpoint and tarnished the Predator creature's image. The Predators in the film somehow looked worse than the Predators that were used in both of the predecessors over ten years earlier (my buddy jokingly referred to the "hero" Predator in AvP as Corky because of his mongloid appearance). It also made them look like utterly inept warriors with two of them being killed by a single xenomorph. It was made purely for the profitability potential instead of artistic merit. But the last thing that Fox considers these movies is art. They think of them as cash cows that can be bled dry until every last ounce of freshness is drained from them.