Lieutenant Michael Harrigan (Danny Glover) and his fellow cops are battling both an oppressive heat wave and warring Colombian and Jamaican drug gangs. Into the midst of this chaos comes a Predator (Kevin Peter Hall), who views this urban jungle as perfect hunting ground. Shortly after the Predator first strikes, an off-his-rocker government agent named Keyes (Gary Busey) arrives, ostensibly to help Harrigan’s team take down the gangs. But Keyes and his team are actually on a mission to capture the alien, having been altered to the species’ existence ten years earlier. The Predator, however, refuses to be captured, leaving a trail of mutilated corpses across Los Angeles as it engages in its favorite sport.

CRITIQUE

If nothing else gets it a place in the history books, Predator 2 is notable for being the best movie starring both Teri Wiegel and Morton Downey, Jr. (Depending on your age, there’s a chance those names won’t mean jack to you, but so be it.) Sure, it’s the only movie to star both Teri Wiegel and Morton Downey, Jr. (who are typecast), but that’s just a minor technicality. Such a confluence of talent could only have been arranged by the gods themselves. Too bad the gods couldn’t cough up a better script. Predator 2 isn’t a bad movie, mind you, but it’s nowhere near as good as the original.

Writers Jim and John Thomas, who also penned the first movie, deserve some credit for not simply rehashing the plot of the original, but they clearly didn’t tax themselves too much while concocting this script, as it’s awfully (and perhaps shamelessly) derivative of several classic ‘80s action flicks. At times this flick seems like little more than a cross between Robocop and Aliens (if you’re going to steal, steal from the best), but this is the second trip around the block for a franchise about a species that is capable of interstellar travel but still has nothing better to do than pick on lower life forms (and I still say that hunting humans with a plasma cannon doesn’t seem like much of a sport; it’s kind of using a tactical nuke to hunt deer), so what are you going to do?

The Jaws-to-Jaws 2 corollary can be used here. Predator was a surprisingly great movie, turning out far better than anyone could have foreseen. Predator 2 is pretty much what you expect it to be--and really all it needs to be--but it lacks the input of a truly talented filmmaker (although at this point John McTiernan appears to no longer be truly talented), the singular guiding force it needed to push it out of the norm and make it memorable.

The movie is often very funny (most of the laughs come courtesy of Bill Paxton), director Stephen Hopkins (who would go on to helm such clunkers as Lost in Space and The Reaping) cranks the pace into overdrive and never lets it slow down, and the rampant profanity and gore (the movie was originally slapped with an NC-17 rating) provide some fun for the faithful. But Glover is a poor substitute for Ah-nuld, and watching a guy who’s always armed to the teeth in a showdown with a bloodthirsty alien invader is nowhere near as compelling as watching a guy who’s constantly forced to improvise in a showdown with a bloodthirsty alien invader (level the playing field and what’s the point?).

No one works quotes from this movie into everyday conversation, guys of a certain age don’t get together on weekends to watch it, and if anyone ever plays the “Remember that scene where...?” game with you, they’re likely only going to mention two moments, but Predator 2 gets the job done. Not a spectacular job, mind you, but it’s, as the saying goes, close enough for government work.

THE VIDEO

The 1.85:1/1080p transfer--encoded with AVC onto a 50BG disc--brings out the best in the movie’s cinematography, which resembles most action flicks of the era. There’s an orange push in the visuals, undoubtedly intended to further the feeling of the heat wave, and contrast runs a little hot.

Colors, as skewed as they can be at times, often look very good; blacks, on the other hand, aren’t as solid as they should be. I was afraid Fox was going to drop the ball on this one (wouldn’t be the first time they botched a catalog title), but this is a very nice--and at times great--transfer.

THE AUDIO

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is surprisingly good and surprisingly active; the mix here sounds like an actual surround mix, not a thoughtlessly repurposed stereo track (perhaps it was based on the 6-track magnetic mix created for the movie’s 70mm showings). The low end doesn’t push as deep as it would in a modern mix, and some of the dialogue has an uneven, ADR-type quality.

Optional English Dolby 2.0 Surround, French Dolby Digital 5.1, and Spanish stereo tracks are also included. Subtitles in English SDH and Spanish are available.

THE EXTRAS

I don’t get it. A little over a year ago Fox released the original Predator on Blu-ray, dumping virtually all of the extras from the 2004 Collector’s Edition DVD, encoding the transfer with MPEG-2 and slapping the whole thing on a single-layer disc (and severely compromising the quality in the process).

This sequel, however, gets encoded with a next-gen codec, is spread across a dual-layer disc, and contains all of the extras from its Collector’s Edition disc (although they dropped that release’s cool cover art in favor of something that would be more appropriate for a straight-to-DVD flick). What the hell is up with that? The last thing I want to do is encourage a studio to engage in double-dipping, but I think I speak for a lot of fans when I say we want to see the original movie given its high-def due.

Anyway, here’s what you’ll find in terms of bonus content (all of which is presented in standard definition video):  

First up are two commentaries, one by director Stephen Hopkins, the other by writers Jim Thomas and John Thomas. Both are rather spotty; it would have been better to splice them into one or get the participants into the room together. For what it’s worth, the latter is the better of the two, delving into both the initial concept for the Predator and the numerous changes the script for this movie underwent.  

The Hunters and the Hunted: The Making of Predator 2 (36 minutes) is a rather odd making-of piece. It combines old promotional interviews (I still don’t know what to make of the sight of Hall dressed as if he’s just come from a shoot for a C&C Music Factory video), behind-the-scenes clips, and new footage of Hopkins (who’s gained weight and lost hair), thereby giving you a chance to hear Hopkins talk about what he would now like to change and everyone else talk about how great the movie is going to be. (Fans of Busey at his weirdest will find much to enjoy here, as this was the first movie he made after recovering from his motorcycle accident; the signs of the man he would eventually become are more than evident in his interview segments.)

Evolutions (8 minutes) explores the creation of four sequences from the movie.

Weapons of Choice (7 minutes) provides an overview of the Predator’s weaponry.

Hard-Core Segments (7 minutes) is a couple of extended pieces from the show Downey hosts in the movie.

A Promotional Gallery contains a mixture of theatrical trailers, TV spots, and promotional featurettes created for foreign markets.

FINAL THOUGHT

The term “enjoyable junk” was created for movies such as this.