Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (4/5)

It’s been a whole summer since we last saw Harry in his first adventure, The Sorcerer’s Stone. Since that time it appears as if he has spent his time doing the exact opposite of most school children, pining for the school year to begin. This changes when he suddenly discovers that an elf named Dobby has invaded his room. Dobby, a neurotic with a penchant for self inflicted harm, warns Harry that he cannot return to Hogwarts, lest he risks grave misfortune. Since it wouldn’t be a Harry Potter film without Hogwarts, Harry of course does not listen to the diminutive Dobby. Not even Harry’s cruel uncle, who puts bars on his bedroom windows, is able to keep Harry away from school, because soon Ron and his brothers bust their friend out of a permanent grounding with the aid of a vintage flying car.

Already one can tell that the second film will be an improvement over the cumbersome original. Instead of a drawn out introduction that takes place in the world of muggles (those who cannot wield magic), the film moves right along and breezily reintroduces us to the trio of friends, along with a more fleshed out background for each. We get to take a tour of Ron’s magical, but working class, house, and we discover that neither of Hermione’s parents are magical. And, even if most of the big secrets are being saved for latter installments, we learn a little more about Harry’s mysterious background and why he has the ability to talk to snakes.

For Americans, one of the chief appeals of the Harry Potter series is that the British setting is often as bizarre and mystifying as the world of magic: the characters send their children to boarding school, they drink tea socially and they are absolutely incapable of correctly pronouncing the word “schedule.” But perhaps the most interesting aspect of British society that sneaks into world of Hogwarts is the acute sense of class difference. In the last film Draco Malfoy appeared to represent the aristocratic classes, and here that theme is brought to the forefront. We even get to meet Draco’s father, who mocks Ron’s dad for working for what appears to be some sort of magician’s bureaucracy. Likewise, the big bad is also concerned with class purity. We learn that the founder of the Slytherin house once hid a chamber of secrets on the grounds of Hogwart’s, and should the chamber ever be opened it would rid the school of the mudbloods, those whose parents have no magical abilities, leaving Hogwarts to the purebloods.

As is the case with most sequels, the filmmakers pump up the main villain so he is a more menacing threat than in the last film. Following in the footsteps of some of the more famous serial killers, he has a penchant for writing messages on the wall in blood and stringing up cats. And no, the villain isn’t who you think he is. I too thought it might be Charles Manson, but, at the risk of spoiling the ending of the film, I will tell you that is not the case. (Although, if J.K. Rowling ever picks up her pen again, I think people would clamor for Harry Potter Versus the Manson Family). The stakes seem higher this time, and during the climax of the film Harry is now old enough to actually battle the villain rather than, as he did in the first film, relying on the power of his mother’s love, or some such nonsense.

Like all great sequels, The Chamber of Secrets deepens and enriches our understanding of the fantasy world thanks to additions both large and small. We are introduced to a new character, Gilderoy Lockhart, played by Kenneth Branagh, a famous magician and writer whose ego far outpaces his skills. We are keyed in on important moments in the history of Hogwarts, including the reason for the names of each house. Perhaps the coolest addition to the many magical artifacts in Rowling’s universe is a diary full of empty pages that can respond to written questions.

Of all the new magical toys, it is the flying car that speaks to the appeal of the books themselves. The allure of Rowling’s creation is that even though Harry’s a kid, he is still an active agent within the world of adults. Not only must he save the day, but he is often the only one who knows what is really going on in the halls of Hogwarts. For most children, driving a car is the ultimate symbol of the fun and freedom of adulthood, and perhaps the only thing better than driving a car would be driving a flying car. By putting Harry and Ron behind the wheel of the car, Rowling taps into most children’s first temptation to join the world of adults.

The director, Chris Columbus, seems more assured of himself this time around. In the last film the main plot would disappear for whole stretches at a time, as if Columbus had lost it under the couch. But here each random thread and subplot builds into the larger story. The result is that even though The Chamber of Secrets is longer than The Sorcerer’s Stone, it actually feels shorter. The action is also handled more deftly this time around. The quidditch match is much more dynamic, for example. The camera tilts and swoops just like the players themselves, making the game more kinetic. Just as George Lucas watched old footage of WWII dogfights in order to capture the same kind of energy during Star Wars’s space battles, Columbus likely watched Lucas’s Star Wars series in order to liven up his broom flights. The quidditch players are often seen flying in formation like the X-Wings before their assault on the Death Star and their broom chariots give off the humming sound of an engine the speeders in Return of the Jedi.

After watching the first film, I came away wondering what all of the fuss was about. Sure, there were some imaginative ideas, but it lacked the sense of adventure that elevates the greatest of fantasy films. While most of The Sorcerer’s Stone felt like a rigid sketch of the book, The Chamber of Secrets is the first movie in the series that feels as if it can stand on its own without knowledge of the book it’s based on.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (3.5)

Film adaptations must strike a tricky balance between dual demands: fidelity to the source material and obligations of the new medium. If you steer too far from the core ideas of the original story, then you betray those who loved the story long before it was green lit by a studio. But if you chain your film to the source material, then the end product might end up being a rote matter of connecting plot points. Sometimes those who love the original book or story tend to think that all a director needs to do is paste pages up on the big screen, but this ignores that different mediums, by necessity, must tell a story in different ways. Long exposition might be effective in a novel, but ideally a film communicates more concisely through visuals. In fact, one of my favorite adaptations, Blade Runner, not only departs wildly from the original book, but also seems to be arguing against it.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the first film in a very long series of adaptations, never manages to strike an appropriate balance between the book and its new home in cinemas. From the beginning it becomes clear that this film is not for the uninitiated. It starts with several wizards arriving at an English suburb to drop off a young baby. We don’t know who these people are or why they need to drop off this youngster off at someone’s front door. The scene has a nice ambience to it and leaves enough questions to drive the film forward, but for someone who has not read the book, the question of the relationship between the baby in the basket and the family he is being left with becomes somewhat troubling. There is a long tradition in books and films of random babies being dropped off at someone’s door, so we cannot assume there is some relationship between the baby and those he is left with. It turns out they are his aunt and his uncle, but we don’t discover this until almost a half-hour into the film, shortly before Harry leaves for Hogwarts. This is a minor problem but it is indicative of an inability for the film to break from the novels and establish itself as a piece of art that can stand on its own two feet.

We may not know who this family is, but it becomes clear early on that they are not the ideal family for an orphan. They force Harry to live in a small closet under the stairs, and they clearly favor their biological son over the one left on their doorstep. Not only is Harry’s cousin spoiled beyond what is appropriate for a young child, but he also appears to be well on his way to contracting type-2 diabetes. Luckily, when Harry reaches an appropriate age, he is recruited into Hogwarts, a school for young wizards. This is something his aunt and uncle apparently dread, going so far as to move to the middle of nowhere to avoid the onslaught of acceptance letters from Hogwart’s. But this is to no avail, and Harry is recruited by Hagrid, a friendly, if slightly bumbling wizard, who has a difficult time keeping secrets when the plot requires a little more information in order to move forward. Soon Harry learns that both his parents were wizards, but that they were murdered when he was very young, requiring the cadre of wizards from the beginning to deposit Harry at his aunt’s and uncle’s.

Anyone who has read Joseph Campbell’s A Hero with a Thousand Faces, or at least has seen Star Wars, can recognize the hero’s journey in this setup. The hero’s journey is when a seemingly provincial protagonist is plucked from the mundane world in order to cross over into the world of magic and adventure. Normally there is a guide who accompanies the hero as he traverses his way from the mundane to the magical. In Star Wars this guide was Ben Kenobi, and here it’s Hagrid. The appeal of this setup is instantly recognizable. Even if you were from the most well adjusted family, every child has felt persecuted by the seemingly arbitrary rules of adults. And who hasn’t felt as a child that you weren’t destined for some grand adventure in your lifetime?

Along the way to Hogwarts, Harry encounters the sociable Ron and the slightly uptight A-student Hermione. Upon arriving to Hogwarts, all three wind up in the Griffindor House, which means they will be competing against students from other houses for top prize at the end of the year. Hogwarts certainly owes more than a little something to the British private school system, and I would imagine a similar system of competition could feasibly exist in the childhood of many British subjects. Even the villainous student Draco, of the Slytherin House, has a haughty air of aristocracy straight out of George Orwell’s memoir “Such, Such Were the Joys.” (I’m giving little away when I tell you that Griffindor House wins the prize at the end of the year, but not before the headmaster, Dumbledor, lets Slytherin House think they have won. This was a rather cruel move on Dumbledor’s part and I half expected him to say “psych” before revealing that Griffindor won).

In addition to midterms, social cliques and getting to class on time, Harry and the gang must also worry about a mysterious object that is being housed within the deep recesses of Hogwarts. They learn that this magical object has the ability to free the villainous Voldemort (much like Dickens, Rowling likes to twist names so her audience is absolutely certain who is good and who is bad). The students are up against a teacher, Severus Snape, who they believe is planning on stealing the object in order to smuggle it to Voldemort.

There’s much to enjoy about this first installment in the Harry Potter franchise, not the least of which is the filmmaker’s intention of employing just about every great British actor imaginable (in addition to Robbie Coltrane and Hagrid, there’s Richard Harris, Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, John Cleese and John Hurt). While the child actors aren’t always on the same level as their elders, within the spectrum of child acting from bad (Anakin from Phantom Menace) to good (Elliot from E.T.) they’re firmly within the middle. Of the three main characters, however, it’s Hermione who gets the most thankless role. She’s the student at the front of the class with her hand constantly in the air. It’s much easier to role your eyes at the A-student than to empathize.

But the real appeal of a film like this is being able to see the world of J.K. Rowling on film. Since I’ve never read the book, I can only compare this fantasy world to others. Rowling deftly cobbles together time honored fantasy creatures and concepts, but assembles them in such a way that they manage to be both familiar and new. The film paints Hogwarts as an ancient castle, but imbues it with a sense of kinetic energy. It is a place where ghosts roam the halls as leisurely as students, where paintings come to life and where staircases never stay in the same place twiece. Hogwarts, like an M.C. Escher drawing, appears to contain more space within its confines than is physically possible. Rowling has also created a fun, if slightly confusing, game called Quidditch, which is similar to rugby but on flying broomsticks.

Unfortunately, what really holds the film back is the direction. At two and a half hours Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is a lengthy film, which by itself isn’t a problem. I’ve seen enough David Lean films to enjoy immersing myself in a story. And besides, part of the fun of a fantasy film is watching the filmmakers construct an entirely new world brick by brick. The length wouldn’t be a problem if the director was better skilled at creating atmosphere and urgency. The director is Chris Columbus who showed promise in the 80s by directing films like Adventures in Babysitting and writing Goonies and Gremlins. But since then he has become a third rate Spielberg with a higher tolerance for sentimentality. Columbus draws his character with big bright crayons so no one can forget for one second who we are supposed to root against. Harry’s uncle is grossly obese, Draco’s hair is slicked back like Gordon Geco from Wall Street, and even an opposing Quidditch player is given a mouthful of ungainly teeth.

It’s Columbus’s cumbersome direction, which stumbles from one scene in the book to another, that ultimately stifles the film. Instead of bringing the underlining mystery to the forefront of the movie, we are left to sight see in Rowlings world, which isn’t an entirely unpleasant experience, throughout most of the movie. This first installment in the Harry Potter series likely offers more for fans of the book to enjoy than for the uninitiated who wish for nothing more than a new fantasy classic.

An Expedition in Wizarding

In the following months I am going on a journey that will require incredible feats of stamina, strength and fortitude. With the impending arrival of the final two movies (or the one two-parter movie) in the Harry Potter franchise, I’ve decided to make my way through the entire series, hopefully in time to see the finale in theaters. Let me just get this out of the way to begin with: I’ve never seen any of the films before and I have never read any of the books. I won’t play ignorant, however. In this era of pop-culture saturation I’m vaguely familiar with the central concept (a boarding school for budding wizards) and some of the looks and characters from the film. I even know that a guy named Voldemort, played by the great Ralph Fiennes, shows up at some point as the big bad. But as far as the intricacies of this fantasy world, I’m largely in the dark.

Now, I haven’t been avoiding these films because of a kneejerk dislike of the either its popularity or the central conceit. I’ve been known to immerse myself in plenty of sci-fi and fantasy geekery. I’ve merely never gotten around to it. By the time I missed the first two movies in the theaters it seemed like a lot to catch up on, and almost everyone I know either has seen these films and refuses to invest the time in watching them again, or is just not interested. So why now? I’ll admit I was intrigued when I discovered that the third film in the series, The Prisoner of Azkaban, was directed by the great Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron. Cuaron also helmed the obscene Y Tu Mama Tambien and the pessimistic Children of Men. I was curious to see what the creator of a raunchy film about sex and a bleak dystopian film would do with a children’s story.

Furthermore, it is difficult for even detractors not to admit the accomplishment of creating eight (?) films that have a single narrative thread. From what I understand, each film is over two hours long, meaning the entire story, from beginning to end, is probably around twenty hours. Now, there have been both experimental and narrative films that have lasted for 24 hours or more, but I can think of few Hollywood cinematic expeditions that aim for this kind of epic length. Two factors probably made this lengthy series possible: the popularity of the source material and the advent of DVD. The former factor is obvious. The bean counters at the studio obviously saw the revenue from the book sales and knew there was an audience for eight two-plus hour long films featuring a kid wizard. The latter factor is less obvious. DVDs have in many ways changed the way Westerners have looked at narrative. This is especially true of television, where serialized stories like Lost can weave intricate plots without worrying about losing the audience because they can always return to the DVDs. This is also true of film. If a detail from an earlier Harry Potter film is important latter on, then I’m sure the audience is either aware of it thanks to repeat viewings or can return to earlier parts of the story thanks to how easy DVDs have made home viewing. In some ways this long form narrative is nothing new, but rather a return to the form of the serialized novel from authors like Charles Dickens.

So there you have it: essentially all of my knowledge and early impression of the Harry Potter series before I have watched even a single frame of the film. I’m certainly hoping to enjoy these films, because the moment I pop in the first DVD I don’t think there’s any point in stopping.

Wolf Parade - Expo 86

Wolf Parade – Expo 86 (4/5)

Nostalgia is often a profoundly personal kind of wistfulness. A Proustian moment, after all, relies on our senses to stimulate deeply idiosyncratic memories. But there are times where nostalgia becomes a runaway meme, infecting a whole generation for decades at a time, and, as much as we would like to forget, there was a period of time in the early 21st century where we were all nostalgic for the eighties. Not only were we inundated with VH1’s nostalgia porn, but a slew of bands that were aping early eighties new wave (from Futureheads to Interpol to Hot Hot Heat) came out like a stampeding herd. Many of these bands were kind enough to move away from their eighties sound in a gambit for a larger audience which in turn allowed us to forget the indignity of once showing up to a party dressed like Ralph Maccio. Wolf Parade, who initially built their sound on bouncy keyboards, might have been lumped in with the new wave of new wave bands until their sophomore album, At Mount Zoomer, put those associations behind them. It is strange, then, that they have opted to trade in on nostalgia once again for their third album, Expo 86.

The album’s title is a reference to the 1986 World’s Fair held in Wolf Parade’s home country of Canada, and the album art is flanked on the front and back by children mugging for the camera in color washed Transformers-the-cartoon era photographs. This is a great example of how the entire album, from artwork to liner notes to the music itself, impacts how we listen to the music. The themes of nostalgia and childhood might not strike those who bought the mp3 version of the album as heavily as those who own the physical copy. The cover art might prepare the listener for Wolf Parade’s return to some of the aesthetics of their first album. While At Mount Zoomer dispensed with the keyboards filtered through a circuit board in favor of much a cleaner plucking sound of ivories, Expo 86 has brought back a more synthetic sound that harkens back to when the photograph of the front cover were taken.

In addition to an aesthetic return, the lyrics are full of longing for the past. The most obvious song to trade in on nostalgia is the Dan Boeckner penned song “Little Golden Age.” In addition to the song title, the lyrics speak to the pull of the past and the intersection between music and our adolescence: “Then you left town feeling pretty down / With your headphones and your coat and your dirty graduation gown you were / In the bedroom singing radio songs.” Much has been made of the difference between Boeckner and Krug’s songwriting. Often Krug has been represented as the more experimental and abstract artist while Boeckner has been described as the more conventional musician more concerned with traditional pop songs. This dichotomy isn’t accurate exactly, but here Boeckner’s more grounded lyrics become one of the strengths of the album. It’s his songs that thematically guide most of Expo 86. “Ghost Pressure,” a song whose very title invokes the idea of a lingering past, recounts a lover’s kiss on the suitably suburban sounding street of “Orchard road” while the song “Palm Road” (a theme is forming) is propelled by the driving beat of Springsteenian drums to summon the spirit of a teenage road trip. These songs are the bricks that build the foundation of Expo 86 and ensure that, despite the divergent personality of the two principle songwriters, this latest release by Wolf Parade is more than just a collection of disparate songs, but rather a cohesive work of art from start to finish.

If At Mount Zoomer was characterized by songs that took their time getting to their particular destination, then Expo 86 can be described as a work that goes straight for the jugular. The songs have an energy that can be exhaustive. This newfound concern with grabbing the listener by the lapels and yelling in his or her face is reinforced by the production, which, unfortunately, pushes every instrument to the top of the mix. There isn’t even a palate cleanser like “Fine Young Cannibals” or “Dinner Bells.” The result is a lack of dynamics. Fortunately, the strength of Wolf Parade’s songwriting manages to push through these slight problems. Expo 86 is proof that Wolf Parade is more than just some Handsome Furs and Sunset Rubdown songs thrown on a single album. Instead, it is a find example of how two artists can cause an indelible impression on the other.

Predators

Predators (3.5/5)

Predators was tasked with the impossible job of setting a bruised and battered series back on course while reminding people of the great film that christened the endeavor from the beginning. After the Aliens vs. Predator films regulated the predators to bystanders in the sub-hack-and-slash horror genre, it had become evident that it was time for something different. I’m pleased to say that, while hardly the classic of the first film, Predators manages to inject new life into a science fiction concept that is both exceedingly simple but also capable of a myriad amount of variation.

Predators begins with Royce (Adrien Brody) plummeting through the atmosphere, unconscious. He realizes that he has been equipped with a parachute that deploys automatically, saving us from an incredibly short film. Confused and lost, Royce finds himself in the middle of an unknown jungle, but still armed with whatever weapons were, presumably, on him before being whisked away. By starting in media res, the film shows the audience that it is interested in the same sort of lean, no nonsense storytelling of the first film. When Royce comes across several others who have been stranded along with him, including a Yakuza decked out in a full business suit, a wisecracking criminal, a female sniper, and, strangely enough, an ordinary primary care physician, among others, each character is drawn with nothing more than a quick sketch. We don’t need to know these guy’s backgrounds, we merely need to know that the series is going back to the mercenaries versus predators formula that has served it well in the past.

In one of the better scenes of the film, the stranded mercs come to a clearing to discover a series of strange moons and planets midway between waxing and waning in an alien sky. This is the twist that the predator sequels have been looking for ever since Predator 2 way back in 1990. By pushing the film outside of our solar system, the filmmakers have opened up a whole set of possibilities. The castaways not only discover that they are stranded on a game preserve (a twist that more closely allies the film with the short story, “The Most Dangerous Game”), but also suggests that there is some sort of civil war brewing between the predators. While many of these ideas are not fully capitalized on, they still show a sense of imagination and an earnest attempt to show the audience something we haven’t seen in a predator film before. I especially enjoyed the showdown between the katana wielding Yakuza and a predator, a scene that begs the question, did the predators ever visit feudal Japan? Perhaps this can be explored in the sequel, Predatorses.

But even as the film attempts to show us something new, there is also a back to basics mentality in Predators. The events of the first film are even recounted by the sniper, Isabelle, who explains how Dutch managed to defeat a predator. This is a smart maneuver because it avoids unnecessary scenes in which the characters rediscover the strengths and weaknesses of the predators, finally catching up with the audience. It also tells us to ignore most of the sequels, suggesting that this is the true heir McTiernan’s original, a connection the film highlights each time Alan Silvestri’s original score swells. But Predators (plural) never quite matches the storytelling quality of Predator (singular). The tension between the castaways in Predators isn’t used as well as the tension between Dillon and Dutch’s team of mercenaries. The story itself seems somewhat episodic as the humans stumble along from one danger to the next, seemingly without a plan.

The biggest curiosity of the film, however, is perhaps the strange turn by Adrien ‘The Pianist’ Brody. There is a certain amount of logic behind casting the wiry Brody in the role, since Danny Glover was also a step down from the vein popping biceps of Schwarzenegger. I’m pleased to say that Brody handles the role of action hero well. Not only has he trained for the role, but he manages to affect a gravel crusted voice that gives off enough of an I-don’t-care attitude for us to believe that this Polish piano player is now a hardened killer. No, if there is any fault in the film it does not lie with Brody. It is the fact that the film, for all of its ideas, never fully comes together in order to create something greater than the sum of its parts. For many, this means there will be plenty of arguments about which is the true heir to the original film, Predator 2 or Predators.

Batman vs. Predator

Batman vs. Predator (4/5)

The trend in versus comics, much like variant covers, 3D holograms, moving images, sub Mickey Spillane superheroes and titanium embossed pressings, reached its apex in the 1990s, a time when the big comic book publishers were more interested in figuring out how to get people to buy multiple issues of the exact same comic book than they were about telling an exciting story. My guess is that the publishers figured, if they included two popular characters in one comic, then fans of both of those characters would purchase an issue (hopefully one of each different cover) and, assuming there’s little overlap, they could double sales. The creators of Batman vs. Predator, however, must not have received the memo telling them that this was a cynical attempt at boosting sales because they went ahead and created a story that can reasonably be considered both a great Batman and a great Predator story.

Batman vs. Predator is modeled more closely after Predator 2 than the original film. But instead of giving off a whiff of ideas leftover from the movies, BvP manages to improve on the formula of the Predator sequel. Once again, part of the appeal is seeing the predator juxtaposed against an urban skyline, and, once again, the predator first takes aim at the city’s criminal elements. However, instead of goofy voodoo gangs, the predator preys on Gotham’s organized crime. Unlike the cartoonish gangs of Predator 2 (who arguably belong more in comic books than in films), the two opposing gangsters, Alex Yeager and Leo Brodin, are written with the difficult combination of economy and depth. The crime lords have achieved an uneasy truce, and this peace has allowed Yeager to transform himself into a legitimate businessman. Brodin, however, is still mired in his illegal dealings. He is also aided heavily by his overbearing mother who bears more than a slight resemblance to Angela Landsbury’s character in The Manchurian Candidate. These are real characters, not the usual cardboard cutouts horror films prop up in front of the monster to be torn apart.

But what really matters in these sorts of mash ups is whether the title characters work in the same story. The science fiction elements might, at first, seem out of place in a Batman comic. Sure, Batman has teamed up with other, more science fiction oriented superheroes, most notably Superman, but he is almost always at his best as a character when he’s mixing it up with the freaks and weirdoes in the gutters of Gotham. And yet the predator works as a villain. The first film, after all, meshed the man on a mission film with a science fiction story, so the predator creature is no stranger to finding himself comfortable in what should be unfamiliar territory. The writers smartly play up Batman’s detective skills as he attempts to determine what he’s up against, an element that proceeds nicely from the first two films.

Dave Gibbons, of Watchmen fame, wrote the story, and he has managed to make a tense action oriented comic that deftly combines elements from both films. His writing is aided by some masterful artwork by Andy Kubert. Kubert drenches each scene in a blue toned palette, but unlike some color tinting in films that cause a muddled look, here each shade of blue provides so much depth and vibrancy you could have sworn the artist harvested the hues of dusk. The result is a comic book that, strangely enough, is a worthier successor to the original film than some of the more recent “sequels.”

Predator 2

Predator 2 (3/5)

A sequel should do at least two things: 1) respect the established world of the previous installment(s) and 2) contribute to the mythology. Aliens is the obvious example of a film that accomplished both these requirements. The film manages to expand the scope of the original by introducing the space marines and giving us a glimpse of the alien hierarchy while simultaneously exploring themes from the first film, including an interrogation of feminism, rape and the military industrial complex. Predator 2 is no Aliens. However, I am happy to say that for a film that has a bad reputation, this sequel to the Schwarzenegger classic holds up surprisingly well. At the very least, the movie does respect the rules honed in the first film, even if it never manages to truly justify its own existence.

Predator 2’s simple twist on the formula of the first film is that the predator is now in the city. In a clever opening shot, the camera pans along tropical looking flora until we see the skyline of Los Angeles. Supposedly, it was this new setting that turned Schwarzenegger off the project. Normally, when a principal actor turns down a role for the sequel (think Batman Forever and Batman and Robin) this indicates a deeply flawed shift in the series, but in this case Schwarzenegger isn’t missed. The strength of the first movie was the ensemble nature of the cast, not just the central protagonist, and the writers would have been forced to come up with something pretty outlandish in order to keep all the characters from the Predator in the sequel. (Although, Voodoo does play a key part of Predator 2, which likely means we were extremely close to a Predator versus Zombies movie. Hollywood, if you’re listening, I would love to see Predator tangle with a Zombie Blain).

This time, instead of the Governator, Danny Glover steps up as the man who must hunt the hunter. And while he may not have the ‘roided up muscles of Schwarzenegger, he brings an everyman quality to his character that grounds the more ostentatious sci-fi moments of the film. Glover plays Mike Harrigan, a police officer caught in the middle of the sweltering urban heat and an escalating gang war between Columbians and Voodoo practicing Jamaicans (Voodoo is mostly practiced among Haitians, but okay, I’ll bite). We are first introduced to Harrigan when he storms into a firefight between the police and a Columbian gang in order to save two downed officers. Draping two bullet proof vests over a car window, he places himself between the gang members and the wounded police and then manages to outflank several of the whooping and hollering Columbians. The rest of the gang take refuge in a high rise, but when Harrigan and his team attempt to flush them out, instead of entering into another firefight, he finds almost the entire gang slaughtered with their blood and body parts strewn across walls and floors.

Not only must Harrigan deal with a mysterious newcomer on the streets of LA, but he also must struggle with an unknown federal agency that wants to hobble Harrigan’s freewheeling attitude. Shortly after his heroics with the Columbian gang, Harrigan finds himself dressed down by Agent Keyes (Gary Busey) who tells him to play start playing by the rules. In a subplot borrowed from the Alien films, it turns out Keyes belongs to a government agency (that is eerily similar to the same organization shown in the film Repo Man) entrusted with capturing the predator and, more importantly, his technology. Oh, and Harrigan’s team been assigned a new, unproven member, Jerry, played to an obnoxious hilt by Bill Paxton. The film devotes most of its time to Harrigan and his team’s investigation into the predator and how their attempts to piece together who it is that has the gall to murder the most vicious of L.A.’s gangs, as well as more than a few cops.

Predator 2 keenly follows the formula and rules established in the first film. Fans of the original film will likely remember the female prisoner’s monologue about the predator’s predilection for extreme tropical climates, specifically stating that the creature would appear only during the hottest of summers (this is a part of the film that the makers of Alien Vs. Predator apparently forgot). In the sequel, the director has several characters make note of the asphalt melting heat and their uniforms are blotted with sweat stains, a nice allusion to the first film that respects the audience enough to let them make the connection. While the look of the predator stays true to the delineation of the first film, Stan Winston has tweaked the predator design for this film, providing this creature with crowded dreadlocks, an elongated skull and the reptilian designs of a copperhead snake. Towards the end of the film, we are treated with half a dozen or so different predators that both conform to the outlines of the alien from the first film and present a unique take on what a predator can look like.

Furthermore, the predator’s modus operandi isn’t much different, which turns out to be both a strength and a weakness. Once again, he searches for warriors, kills them and smuggles some trophies. This time, however, the predator eschews subtly for wholesale slaughter. Instead of picking enemies off one by one, he prefers to jump into the middle of a group and takes them out en mass. The brash tactics are never explained. Perhaps he’s a much younger predator, used to eating everything in the cookie jar rather than savoring them one by one. Age has a way of making you appreciate a kill. Unfortunately, this tactic makes the predator far less interesting. The first film formed a battle of wits between the predator and the mercenaries, but here the gangs and cops are completely outclassed. If he came to Earth to hunt game, then it hardly seems like a sport—kind of like Dick Cheney driving around in an SUV in order to shoot quails and his friend’s face. If there’s no effort then it’s no fun.

The director does manage to add his own stylized take on the urban predator. There is one particular scene that provides a glimpse of what the film could have been. The predator follows Harrigan to his meeting with King Willie, the leader of the Jamaican Voodoo gang. After Harrigan leaves, the predator plunges from the rooftops and into the alleyway. In a close shot we follow the invisible footsteps of the predator as he approaches King Willie who then brandishes two knives. We cut to an image of his face screaming, which, as the visage moves farther away, is revealed to be a decapitated head in the grasp of the predator. The filmmaker makes use of the indeterminate temporal nature of the cut—that we are never certain how much time has passed when a cut occurs—and what we expect to be an image from the middle of an intense brawl reveals itself as an easy kill for the predator.

It’s the filmmaker’s attempts to broaden the mythology where the film ultimately fails. This time around the predator has some new toys, including a boomerang death discus, a piano wire net and a double sided harpoon, and while the weaponry is fun, it adds little to the overall predator mythos. The filmmakers make another attempt at expanding the universe at the end of the film when Harrigan stumbles into the predator ship and notices a trophy display, containing, most famously, the head of an alien from that other franchise. When he finally kills the predator, one of the creature’s brethren hands Harrigan an 18^th century pistol, suggesting that humans have served as game for the predators for centuries. But the fact that the predators have returned to Earth again and again was already established in the first film. We do discover more about the predator’s ethos when he refuses to kill Harrigan’s female companion because she’s with child, revealing that the predators are pro-life. This, of course, begs the question as to whether or not the predator has a Jesus fish on the back of his spaceship.

Perhaps the most mystifying change to the formula of the first film was the decision to make it take place in the future (or the past depending on whether you start from when I’m writing or when the film was made). Predator 2 takes place in 1997, a whole seven years from when it was made. Of course, it is a 1997 that looks strangely like 1990, but with weirder looking guns and police cars that look like hybrid mini-vans. The futuristic setting only serves to make the movie look older than it really is.

If the film only relied on momentum from the first film with a few new details, then I think it would have a much stronger reputation, but there are unfortunate performances throughout the movie. Bill Paxton, who has turned in strong roles before, is at his guffawing worst. The gangs are mostly cartoonish and are one step removed from Looney Tunes characters. That is, if Bugs Bunny often left mounds of coke lying around and, instead of replacing Rabbit Season signs with Duck Season signs, decided to ritualistically murder Daffy Duck. Shockingly, Gary Busey, who has transformed into a living breathing cartoon character himself, gives a nuanced performance by the standards of the film.

Predator 2 is a mixed bag of some old standbys and half formed ideas. It may not deserve the awful reputation it has garnered over the years, but it is far from the classic of the first. If you haven’t seen the film in a long time, I would recommend a second visit. You might be surprised at how entertaining the film still is.