With the new Predators film in theatres now trying to reboot the franchise and bring the series into a more respectable light after the AVP failure, we are given the film that started it all on Blu-ray. Does it hold up well after all these years or do we need to wait for Predators to come out in order to see our favorite Stan Winston monster in all its Blu-ray glory?

Film

The film is definitely one of the prime examples of a true Action-Horror genre mash-up, I remember watching the film when I was younger and romanticized the experience. Who wouldn’t love watching Arnold in his hay day taking on his most worthy opponent? An extraterrestrial game hunter with a massive arsenal of hi-tech weaponry and gadgets at his disposal; an active invisibility cloak, thermal imaging, a shoulder mounted laser gun vs. an Austrian body builder… Seems like a pretty fair match-up.

As we’re introduced to a team of guerilla soldiers in Central America who are apparently on a mission to lay waste to rebel forces by destroying as many huts and watch towers as they possibly can, we’re led to believe that this is your average action film set-up. However in this film the real antagonist emerges and the team gets targeted by a hunter from a place far, far away.

The film then becomes a game of survival as the team gets picked off one by one. The film is able to juggle the thrills of a horror film and still have enough bullets being shot off to keep the spirit of action genre alive, albeit some of the action is a bit silly. In an interview with the storyboard artist, Paul Power, apparently the creative team was running out of ideas on what should happen during the final act and Paul, who recently was watching Wile E Coyote cartoons, was inspired by the elaborate traps the coyote would set to try and kill Roadrunner. He suggested some ideas which ended up being used and afterwards he mentioned to everybody where he got the ideas from and apparently Mctiernan didn’t wasn’t amused that he just filmed a live action reenactment of a Roadrunner episode.

Mctiernan who’s responsible for some great action films, such as Die Hard, may not like the fact the ending of his sci-fi slasher flick was inspired by the road runner, but regardless he still knows how to make a film that’s fun and exciting. The aforementioned tongue-in-cheek opening is a good example of that because if you were someone who never heard of Predator and came across it on TV one day, you might be just as surprised as the team of soldiers thrown into the chaos. This film, in my opinion, is a classic and I think everyone should at least see it once. I still remember watching this film when I was younger and having the living crap scared out of me, of course watching an ‘edited for tv’ version of the film sort of has a weird effect on a movie, for example when I first saw the theatrical version on VHS all those years later and I heard the first few swears I was immediately caught off guard.

Although the film feels a bit dated it is definitely still one of the better action/sci-fi mash-ups and one of Arnold’s best performances. Unfortunately in comparison to the classics in the action/horror genre, such as Aliens, this film does lose its thunder.. Perhaps this is why the Predator is so mad at the Aliens in AVP… perhaps.

Video

Predator’s video is displayed using the AVC MPEG-4 codec in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. It is probably the clearest version of the film I’ve seen, from owning the VHS and the DVD I was definitely happy to see that the Blu-ray did look a lot sharper, however when dealing with higher resolution and a sharper image we obviously have to deal with the fact that grain issues are a lot clearer. With Predator the grain issues are pretty apparent, especially in the night shots, but the jungle environment comes through really well, as we see lots of detail in the mud and foliage so the pros definitely outweigh the cons.

The colours of the film are less muted than previous releases, they’re not insanely vivid to the point where it looks like an LSD trip, but the film’s muted colour pallet is lightened up a bit. I found that the black levels remain fairly deep and that the contrast is in a good spot, which allows details to come through nicely. Skin tones are also pretty natural, there were a few times where I thought they looked a bit orange and at other times they looks washed out, but those were few and far between.

Audio

Predator’s audio comes at us using the DTS-HD codec and is a bit lacking overall. This Blu-ray isn’t the cause of the issues, but rather the original mix of the film itself. There’s little to no surround presence, which I’d expect in a film that takes place in the jungle, with a simple addition of some atmospheric background noise, the mix would’ve sounded a lot more authentic.

The low frequencies of the mix fall short as well, especially in the scenes where there are a lot of explosions, however instead we’re given some fairly canned sound effects which cut off before we can the resonance out of them. The mix isn’t dynamic and I found myself critiquing more so than getting lost within it, but like I mentioned before, it’s the source not this specific release. This may be the best representation of the original movie without having to make a new mix.

Special Features

The great thing about this Blu-ray is the amount of special features to chew on, unfortunately if you have the special edition DVD, then you’re only getting a few new extras. The commentary track is a little dry with Mctiernan, there’s some moments where little is said and overall nothing ground-breaking or overly entertaining comes from it. However if you ever wanted to know something about the Predator films then the featurette section is for you such as a half hour retrospective on the making of the film.

There’s also a few minutes worth of deleted scenes, trailers for both Predator movies and some Blu-ray exclusive features such as a sneak peek at Predators and a featurette from the point of view of Robert Rodriguez and Nimród Antal, which is mostly hype for the new film, but also covers a bit about the original.

Final Thoughts

If you haven’t seen the film then I’d suggest a blind rental, fans of the movie may be let down from the lack of new special features over the special edition DVD and the underwhelming audio and video presentation, but considering the improvement over the first blu-ray release of the film then this may be a worthwhile double dip to fans who may not have gotten the special edition DVD. Check it out and see Arnold fight an alien… what else can you ask for in a movie?