Aliens, released the year before, was one of the two types of alien fight movies produced by Twentieth Century Fox. The other is this. The Predators are pretty cool, I must say, but we'll see if the A- earned by Aliens is matched, or even beaten by Predator, with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chubbs from Happy Gilmore.
We begin with Dutch, a gung-ho army man who is assigned special rescue missions. He recently denied a job because it was an assassination, and has been criticized for it. He meets with General Phillips who assigns him a mission of taking back a cabinet minister who was abducted by guerrilla forces. He is joined by Dillon, an old friend who works for the CIA, who says he is joining them for this mission.
As Dutch's team goes in to find and take back the minister, we are introduced to his team, including Mac, Billy, and Poncho. Only a few minutes into their mission they find a crashed helicopter and several skinned bodies. Dutch knows the men and wonders why they were there unauthorized.
The group moves on and finds the guerrilla camp. They kill everyone except a prisoner named Anna, and find that there is no cabinet minister. Dillon confesses that the group was there to find two kidnapped CIA agents who have died and that the group they found dead were the first strike force trying to find them. As the group leaves, they are stalked by an invisible thermal heat seeking creature.
They take Anna with them as they head back to get back to the US. Anna escapes at one point and is chased by a group member. He is killed by this creature. Billy, meanwhile, has been noticing strange signs. Another member is killed while looking for the killer. They set up a trap for it, but Poncho is injured.
As they try to escape, Mac and Dillon are killed. Billy makes a stand to try to kill the creature, but he is also murdered. The injured Poncho is killed as well. Anna escapes and heads for safety. Dutch runs for it and ends up corned by the monster, but he is spared because his skin is covered by mud.
Dutch sets up one last trap to try to kill the creature. The creature narrowly escapes the trap but decides to fight Dutch hand to hand. At this point he is visible, takes off his helmet and fights. A last second trap installment crushes the creature, mortally wounding him. But he sets up a bomb that will almost level the jungle. Dutch manages to escape, but just barely.
Dutch is rescused by Anna, who found "the choppa!" and the two head back for the States.
Now for the grading scale:
Acting: 5 out of 10. Not bad.
Entertainment: 9 out of 10. Really good.
Screenplay: 7 out of 10. Just a little above basic.
Directing: 8 out of 10. John McTiernan does well for a first time.
Technical Credits: 10 out of 10. Nice job on the visuals, design, and cinematography.
Genre Fit: 7 out of 10. Mostly action with some horror.
MPAA Rating: 9 out of 10. An R rated flick that sometimes goes a little far but not way too bad.
Stupid Scenes: 9 out of 10. A few rediculous Arnie moments, as expected.
Deeper Message: 1 out of 10. Pretty much none outside of what you can't see can be just as bad as what you can't see.
Beginning: 28 out of 30. A pretty great start.
Middle: 18 out of 30. Kind of gets boring.
Ending: 25 out of 30. Pretty good ending.
Final Rating: 136/180 or 76%. A B+, which means it's pretty good.
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