Predator (1987)

Bunch of tough guys in a Central American jungle hunt an invisible alien. It’s a bit like a B-movie, but with a bigger than usual budget – and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

A shoddy script offers one-dimensional characters that are hardly fleshed out at all. They issue stupid one-liners to accompany scenes of gratuitous violence. You get to see lot of oiled muscles, almost fetishistically presented. 

The “rules” about the Predator’s invisibility seem to come and go. It’s difficult to take a monster seriously when it is revealed to have boots and dreadlocks. Likewise, why does its hi-tech heat-sensing equipment fail to “see” Arnie when he’s smeared with mud?

I’d heard this film talked about a fair bit over the years, but didn’t realise how disappointingly mediocre it would turn out to be.