Blue Monday wrote:I rewatched all three films over the weekend - in reverse chronological order for some reason (
Predators,
Predator 2 and
Predator) - and I know the original is supposed to be the better film and all, but I honestly think the other two are on the same level, if not at least so speaking from a purely entertainment point of view.
Well, entertainment is what it is, so that's of course a legitimate point. I think what really sets the first one apart though is the fact that John McTiernan really gets action movies. He understands the mood and pacing needed to make them really pop, and he knows what he needs from the cast to really sell a concept. Look at the sheer physicality of the cast of the first movie -- they're all musclebound meatheads, which is totally unrealistic for a merc group, but exactly what a film like this needs. This way, at the end, you can totally buy it when Dutch is going toe to toe with the Predator, and when the Predator tosses him around like a rag doll it really underscores his physical superiority. You know he's not just some punk with some fancy toys, but rather a predator on every conceivable level. And that makes it really easy to buy into the film's premise.
In
Predator 2 you don't really have any of this. The cast are all built like normal people, which makes them seem less threatening (and they are, seeing as how they're ordinary cops and crooks rather than highly trained mercs), and it makes that fight at the end seem like an utter farce (which isn't entirely fair to Danny Glover, but at the time we were used to seeing him as Roger Murtaugh from
Lethal Weapon, which made it hard to swallow him following in the steps of Arnold in P2). And, moreover, the Predator this time around is just some young punk who relies far more on gimmicks than his predecessor did. In the abstract that's perfectly believable, of course, but it doesn't really pop the way the first movie did.
So, that's the difference as I see it. The first movie took simple, basic archetypes and polished them to a high shine, marrying them together with perfect mood and pacing to make a rock solid action movie, while the second rose to the level of serviceable and didn't go far beyond. It wasn't
bad, really, but that's all I can really say about it; it had too many gimmicks and too little focus for me to really call it great. It will be interesting to see if Black and Dekker can capture some of what made the first film so great, but I have no idea how they'll do that. That's not to say I don't think it's possible, just that I'm stumped at the moment.
