Alasdair Stuart heads across the pond to track the Yaujta’s second recorded Earthfall as we prepare for the next movie in the Predator franchise…

On the war-torn dystopian streets of 1997 Los Angeles (hush now), Detective Mike Harrigan and his squad find themselves caught in a drug war between the Jamaicans, the Colombians and a familiar hunter from out of town…

I’m just going to say it; this was my favourite of the franchise for a long time. Danny Glover is a massive improvement over Schwarzenegger, playing against type and making Harrigan a grounded, human protagonist and opponent for the returning Kevin Peter Hall. He’s also, to be fair, a completely off the peg ’90s Cop-on-the-Edge but you work with what you’ve got sometimes. He’s the centre of a cast that mimics the engagingly doomed fire team of the original too, with future Fear the Walking Dead MVP Rubén Blades, all-time great Bill Paxton and the always excellent rarely utilised Maria Conchita Alonso all doing fun work. They feel like a pressed not-quite cyberpunk LAPD unit and the Predator arriving in the middle of their worst day is an enormously fun subversion of genre. It also feels like the boundary of a shift in genre fiction, the tacit acknowledgement of climate change mixed with a slightly too pleased with itself ‘INNER CITIES ARE WAR ZONES NOW!’ tub thumping moment that played well in 1997 but now feels tired at best and borderline racist at worst. Your mileage will vary. Your patience too.

But where Predator 2 really works is in the expansion of the world. This Predator is a more considered, measured hunter than the original (see if you can spot the metal dumpling steamer basket in their med kit. I love stuff like that.) and it’s also been spotted. Gary Busey, often fun and very good here, plays a government agent tracking the Predator who is far more confident in his abilities than he should be. That idea, that they’ve been coming here for centuries, would become central to the series and lead to the best two movies in the franchise. Interestingly the government surveillance of Predators would lead to the worst, but we’ll get to that.

Verdict: Predator 2 is driving, fun, extremely stereotypical in spots but remains a series highlight. 8/10