Predator's Birthday
On June 12, 1987, the premiere of the film "Predator" took place in the United States. Directed by John McTiernan.
The history of the creation of this film is vividly and in detail described here, there is no point in retelling this post.
John McTiernan's film "Predator" is a prime example of the ambiguous opinions of moviegoers, film critics and cinema community. The film, with a budget of $15 million, grossed nearly $100 million at the box office. But it was not marked by any serious festival achievements. The American Film Academy nominated it in one category - Best Visual Effects, but the film also lost this nomination. And this nomination became the film's only and highest festival achievement.
Estimates of film critics representing American official publications were mostly either sharply negative or condescendingly derogatory. For example, Michael Wilmington of the Los Angeles Times wrote in his review:
"It's arguably one of the emptiest, feeblest, most derivative scripts ever made as a major studio movie. There's no need to do a Mad magazine movie parody of this; it's already on the screen."
Janet Maslin of The New York Times, literally on the day of the film's premiere, wrote:
"Predator," which opens today at the National and other theaters, is alternately grisly and dull, with few surprises, though the creature's face, when finally revealed, has an interesting claw configuration where its mouth ought to be. The habitat is a good deal more interesting than the action, since it contains both floristy-looking palm fronds and large, deciduous trees that have produced some autumn leaves.»
Perhaps such condescendingly derogatory assessments of the film can be explained by the fact that the film has a kind of “second bottom”, which not everyone saw or not everyone wanted to see. For example, Adam Barker of the British publication Sight & Sound noted that:
"As the film progresses, it evinces a mounting pessimism about the efficacy of American military action. The unpromising omen of six skinned Green Berets hanging from the trees is followed by a convincing demonstration of the uselessness of the squad’s firepower against the alien. It is only by abandoning his sophisticated weaponry, and by styling himself as a primitive guerrilla-warrior, that Dutch manages to overcome the alien. »
French film critic Marvin Montes objects to derogatory ratings of McTiernan's film:
"Injustement considéré par les non initiés comme un simple divertissement bourrin bas du front, Predator à bien plus à offrir que ce que l’on y décèle en surface, de sa réalisation électrisante et virtuose à son sous-texte ouvrant à la réflexion sur la nature humaine, et surtout son instinct de prédateur implacable."
The guru of American film criticism, Roger Ebert, gave the film three out of four stars and noted in his review:
"Predator" begins like "Rambo" and ends like "Alien," and in today's Hollywood, that's creativity. Most movies are inspired by only one previous blockbuster. ... "Predator" is filmed very well. It's a slick, high-energy action picture that takes a lot of its strength from its steamy locations in Mexico...."Predator" moves at a breakneck pace, it has strong and simple characterizations, it has good location photography and terrific special effects, and it supplies what it claims to supply: an effective action movie."
Russian film critic Yevgeny Nefyodov, who is able to see the political undertones in the most apolitical film, rated John McTiernan's film "Predator" with seven points out of 10 and in his review drew attention to the
"thin ideological line of the authors, emphasizing the peacekeeping nature of the Dutch's unit, which was highlighted in Berlin, but refused to go to Libya (“We are a rescue team, not killers”), whose members, having arranged a massacre, begin to guess that they are being used by the CIA in the dark, that they have become hostages of a big game between the secret services of opposing superpowers ...»
With all the variety of views and assessments of the film by film critics, the most important thing for FilmGourmand is its assessment by moviegoers, i.e., those for whom the film was created. The high popularity of the picture, expressed in its commercial success, has already been noted above. The second component of the audience evaluation are the ratings given by users of the IMDB and Kinopoisk websites. 67% of users of these sites gave John McTiernan's "Predator" a score of 8 to 10, and 20% of users rated the film with the highest score - "ten". Given this indicator and the above, the film rating of John McTiernan's "Predator" according to FilmGourmand version was 7,847, which allowed it to enter the Golden Thousand and take 926th Rank in it.
