The opening scene of Predator 2 is awesome!
The opening of a movie can make or break it. Too fast or show too much and the rest of the movie will struggle to match it. Too slow or not have a hook in the audience and you lose them permanently before the really good stuff hits. A sequel should have an easier time with it because when released theatrically anyway, it should have a bigger budget and know what the first movie did in the first place to be successful let alone be able to mimic some of the better scenes. One of the best to ever do it is a shocking choice, but the first 16 minutes of Stephen Hopkins Predator 2 are some of the best and most draw you in 16 minutes you’ll find. While the movie wasn’t nearly the smash success that its predecessor was with box office, critical reception, or even the fanbase for a while, it’s a great example of what a sequel should do without completely retreading the same ground. Let’s watch the opening of Predator 2 and see how it’s done, shall we?
Director John McTiernan was out and in stepped Stephen Hopkins, who the producers liked after what they had seen on A Nightmare on Elm Street 5. Before they had a director though, 20th Century Fox approached the screenwriting siblings of Jim and John Thomas about writing a sequel to their hit film. They already had things in mind and of the 6 ideas they threw out, a future Los Angeles in the grips of an awful heatwave and a murderous gang drug war was chosen. Originally, they wouldn’t just have someone step into Arnold Schwarzenegger’s giant shoes but work along side him and his character Dutch. For a partner the studio looked at Patrick Swayze which could have worked and Steven Seagal which good god would that have not before Joel Silver brought in someone he had worked with on another franchise: Danny Glover, who shows he is absolutely not too old for this shit.
The movie opens very abruptly with a shot of what looks like a jungle not quite reminiscent of the first movie before it opens up into another kind of jungle; an urban one. This works incredibly well, so much that a whole video game was made of it with Concrete Jungle on the Xbox and PS2. While the execution may not have worked out, the idea is incredible. The movie came out in 1990, but the story takes place in a not so far off future of 1997 which is 10 years after the first. Couldn’t be that different, right? Wrong. LA is a warzone that is hot from gunfights and miserable weather that is sitting at 109 degrees when we are whisked into the action. That heat is perfect when it switches to the predator’s heat vision, something that is instantly recognizable after the first movie and the absolute war that is taking place is something we just know will peak the predator’s interest. The music is key too and somehow isn’t completely lost in a hail of gunfire and crashing and talking. Alan Silvestri came back as well and mixes up the music to start the film to better play off the Jamaican and Columbian gangs that control the city.
While seemingly nobody on the ground, either the police force, reporters, civilians, or gang members, are military, that doesn’t stop the movie from having guns as big or bigger from the first movie. And really, that’s kind of the theme to Predator 2. Bigger stakes, bigger body count, bigger everything. Watching the movie this time around so close after watching the RoboCop series made me yearn for a RoboCop and Predator mash up movie which somehow never happened. It looks like maybe their was some concept art but we never got a true version of Old Detroit vs New (at the time) Los Angeles. Anyway, the cops are out gunned and out manned as goofy looking reporter Tony Pope played by Morton Downey Jr gleefully explains before Danny Glover, who I cannot stress enough, is not too old for this shit, rolls up in his car and completely changes the complexion of the fight. He shows us and the Predator that he is a more than capable bounty with his brains to fix up his car with bullet proof vests as well as his courage, leadership, and fighting ability when he takes out 5 of the gang members on his own. Well on his own with the help of the coolest shotgun I ever saw as a kid on film.
He leads a small group who, while not actual military, seems to act like a small platoon and even the predator can see what a badass he is. The gang heads inside and Mike Harrigan is forbidden to go inside. He does anyway because he is Danny Glover, and the Sergeant has obviously worked with him before in another timeline. God bless actor Steve Kahan and all the police leadership roles he has held. The team move into the building because of explosions that aren’t seemingly caused by the or the gang members. That’s because the Predator is ready to shoot his shot and take some trophies. He kills all of them except Scorpio who shoots his way out, shoots the door, and then shoots some more now that he has seen, or not seen, an invisible enemy, and makes his way to the roof.
He is so terrified that he doesn’t see a perfectly good Danny Glover holding a ridiculous weapon and when he shoots at the ghost like creature on the tip top of the building, he is blasted off of it. It’s here where everything finally stops. Music, chatter, gunfire, it all stops and leaves Mike a tad confused by what he may or may not have seen as well as what the hell happened. We, the audience, get some of our answers when we see some of the battle damage the gang received as well as a whole hung up body that the cops have no clue got there. We do though, movie, we do. The Predator takes its trophy, and the standoff has set the table. The gangs clearly stand no chance against the predator but what about Mike and his mini platoon? Robert Davi comes into the scene as if we didn’t have enough cool 80s and 90s actors walking around with Glover and Ruben Blades too and he is super pissed at Harrigan for disobeying his orders. Mike doesn’t care as he has gangs and invisible hunters to deal with and then the movie hits us.
A helicopter lands carrying Garey effing Busey which is also accompanied by the music from the first one and it’s on. The first scene is 16 minutes long and a whole damn story has been told in that time. Characters, action, setting. It’s all there and we haven’t even met Bill Paxton yet or seen some of the better set pieces the movie has to offer. Just as a comparison, and please don’t light me up here, but this is 16 minutes of ridiculous action, and we don’t even SEE the guerilla camp in the first movie until nearly the 21 minute mark. The Thomas brothers and director Stephen Hopkins worked together closely on the script and story they wanted, and it shows. Predator 2 may be uneven throughout its runtime and split between the fan base but whether you saw the heavily edited for TV version growing up or were lucky enough to witness it in theaters, the opening to Predator 2 is hotter than fake Los Angeles in fictional 1997 and is certainly a killer scene.
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