I didn't think it possible but I dislike this movie more than Alien Resurrection.
I always had the idea in my head that Predator 2 was kind of bad but enjoyable.
And in a way that is true, but it's just so mind-numbing dis-interesting.
It's got this police investigation case revolving around ethnically stereotypical gangs in Los Angeles and what can only be described as a completely on the nose metaphor for the riots happening at the time.
Even though this came out slightly before the major LA riots. But then there always other events you can link to when it comes to criminal activity in an American city.
Modestly watching the first few minutes of this movie The only thing that went through my head was this:
"Oh boy I sure do like RoboCop. I'm going to make my own RoboCop movie, only it's going to have slightly more futuristic weapons and even more distraught looking City with crime and destitution.''
Then somebody comes up to the guy and tells him: ''You know we're making a Predator movie right?''
"A predator movie? Oh crap what am I going to do now?''
''Symbol. (says the other guy) Insert a Predator into your weird gang movie and just kind of go with it.
We can turn our evil Corporation into a Federal Division and have them switch from Capital espionage too secret Alien cover up stories; Or something like that.''
And thus Predator 2 was made.
Unfortunately that scenario never happened.
Predator 2 was just a series of different stories that a bunch of guys preach to a major studio and the studio executive said they liked the one involving the Predator in urban Warfare.
And maybe I wouldn't have such an issue with the film but it has the exact same problem as Resurrection.
The Predator is a secondary character in the story.
He's a plot point that moves our people from One Stage to the next. So they can make their investigation more concrete he's not the key component.
The main issue for our protagonist is this Federal group of investigators taking over his case and pushing him out of his own Division.
He only gets interested in the Predator later on when he discovers that the only reason the federals are even here is because of that guy*. It's kind of annoying.
I want to see a Predator movie and watch the Predator interact with a bunch of insane people.
Not watch several different people butt-heads at each other. Over Federal jurisdiction.
There's hundreds of cop movies that do that far better.
It also doesn't help that this film has the same camera techniques, set design and overall atmosphere of that god-awful Mario movie and a bunch of other cheap junk made in the 1990s I feel just a little too cartoony be in the real world.
We get this problem with the Judge Dredd movie as well. But at least that one was set up to be cartoony for a start.
Okay there's one part of this movie that legitimately bothers me.
So our protagonist finds out towards the middle end of the film but the federal bureau it's trying to capture this creature.
And they want to capture it because of Advanced Technology.
'Okay simple enough I think.'
Everybody wants better technology, they want more weapons or whatever the excuse is.
Then they talked about its explosive capability when it commits suicide and dies.
They described it as being able to knock out 300 miles worth of tropical jungle because of what was reference from the first movie.
But if you re-watch the first film you'll notice that Arnold Schwarzenegger only have to run about 40 feet to get out of the blast radius of this creature.
So they've completely misunderstood the blast impact of their own freaking movie.
Which admittedly they kind of underestimate in the original too given they show off of mushroom cloud. But it still wasn't that big.
So why do they think it's so great to acquire the explosive capability now, is beyond me.
Especially given they already haven't H-bomb and a million other missiles far more dangerous than anything the Predator will ever own.
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