--- title: "Predator 2" year: 1990 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/predator-2" fi1m_score: 63 critics_score: 53 critics_reviews: 11 published: "2026-09-19T16:58:18.827936+00:00" updated: "2026-09-19T16:58:34.609567+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Predator 2 (1990) Directed by Stephen Hopkins · 1h 48m · MPA R · Science Fiction, Action, Thriller **Fi1m score: 63** · Critics 53 from 11 reviews *In a sentence:* An eight-foot hunter comes to Los Angeles and finds the locals already armed and louder than he is > Stephen Hopkins takes the hunter out of the jungle and into a sweating, shouting Los Angeles, and the noise is the point. It is cruder than the original, but Danny Glover and a subway car full of armed commuters make it worth an evening. ## Synopsis Los Angeles, 1997, in a heatwave. Colombian and Jamaican gangs are shooting it out, and Lieutenant Mike Harrigan (Danny Glover) drives his detectives, Danny Archuleta (Rubén Blades) and Leona Cantrell (María Conchita Alonso), into the middle of a gun battle outside a Colombian stronghold, against orders, and is shouted at afterwards by Captain Phil Heinemann (Robert Davi). When the shooting stops, the gunmen upstairs are already dead, hung and skinned by something nobody saw. A federal agent, Peter Keyes (Gary Busey), arrives with a team of his own and orders Harrigan off the case. Harrigan does not take orders well. With a new detective, Jerry Lambert (Bill Paxton), and a television reporter, Tony Pope (Morton Downey, Jr.), broadcasting the bodies, he goes looking for whoever is killing the killers. ## Review The first [*Predator*](https://film.one/film/predator), in 1987, was a jungle picture. John McTiernan put Arnold Schwarzenegger and a squad of large men in the undergrowth, let something they could not see pick them off one at a time, and got most of his effect from waiting. Jim Thomas and John Thomas, who wrote that film, have brought the creature to Los Angeles in 1997, in a heatwave, in the middle of a gang war, and handed it to Stephen Hopkins to direct. Nobody waits for anything. The result is cruder than the original and a good deal louder, and it is also, for about half of its 108 minutes, a decent, sweaty action picture that deserves more than the shrug it has mostly had. Hopkins opens with a street gun battle that seems to last a quarter of an hour, and it is the weakest stretch of the film. Peter Levy shoots the city in orange haze, every window flaring, every face slick, and Mark Goldblatt and Bert Lovitt cut it so fast that we often could not tell who was firing at whom. Alan Silvestri brings back his jungle drums and lays them under sirens and helicopters. We were worn out before the plot had started, and we began to fear the whole film would be like this. It is not, quite. Danny Glover is the main reason it is not. His Lieutenant Mike Harrigan is not a hero in the Schwarzenegger sense; he is a middle-aged detective who sweats through his shirt, argues with his captain and runs as if it hurts. Some of the reviews call him miscast. We think they have it backwards: the film needs a man the creature might reasonably kill, and Glover supplies one. Marilyn Vance keeps him in a tie through all of it, which tells you what sort of policeman he is before he opens his mouth. Around him Rubén Blades plays Danny Archuleta as the partner who keeps him upright, María Conchita Alonso gives Leona Cantrell more steel than the script does, and Bill Paxton, as the new man Jerry Lambert, talks without pause and is a pleasure each time. Gary Busey’s Peter Keyes arrives with a federal task force, a pair of sunglasses and no intention of explaining himself, and Busey plays him as a man who enjoys knowing things other people do not. Robert Davi’s Captain Phil Heinemann shouts at Harrigan; Morton Downey, Jr.’s Tony Pope, a television reporter, shouts at everybody. Calvin Lockhart gets a scene as the Jamaican gang leader King Willie, in an alley at night, that is the best-written thing in the film, quiet and strange and a little frightening. The film has no idea what to do with it. Its Jamaican gang is otherwise a cartoon of dreadlocks and ritual, lazy in 1990 and worse now. Then comes the subway car, and we sat up. A carriage of night commuters, a few young thugs, a detective on his way home, and something drops in through the roof. The lights go, and half the passengers turn out to be carrying guns, which they all draw at once. Hopkins holds the carriage in a strobe of muzzle flash while Kevin Peter Hall, inside the suit, moves through the crowd, and Lawrence G. Paull’s design gives the creature a low, rattling box to work in. It is frightening in a way nothing before it has been, and it is the one place where the film’s idea, that a hunter would come to a city because a city is already armed, is shown rather than said. The rest is a chain of massacres joined by arguments. Keyes explains his plan in a lecture over a bank of monitors, and the creature’s new weapons are brought out one at a time like a salesman’s samples. The last half hour goes somewhere we will not describe, except to say that it is dark, long and repetitive. The 18 certificate is earned; bodies are skinned and hung, and the camera does not look away. McTiernan’s film built dread from stillness, and Hopkins has no stillness in him. That is the whole difference between them, and the reason the reviews split down the middle, four for, four against, the rest shrugging. We are a little warmer than most. The film knows exactly how much noise it is selling, and it never pretends otherwise. Watch it at home on a hot night with the windows open, which is roughly the condition it was made in, and keep the volume down for the first quarter of an hour. *Fi1m score 63, published 19 September 2026.* ## What the critics say The reviews split almost evenly, and the divide runs along a line of time. Critics writing at release are cooler; those returning years later find more to like, and several call it underrated. Where there is praise, it lands on the relocation to a sweltering, gang-ridden Los Angeles, on the relentless pace of the set-pieces, and on the cast: Danny Glover, Gary Busey and Bill Paxton are named repeatedly, along with the subway sequence. The reservations cluster on what the film lacks: the original’s suspense and claustrophobia, Schwarzenegger, and any real expansion of the creature’s mythology. Characters are called functional or faceless. The spread is wide. The New York Times finds it mindless and mean-spirited, and Roger Ebert calls the creature ugly and uncreative. HeyUGuys dissents from the later warmth, judging Glover miscast and the sequel lazy, while Eye for Film sits at the far end, arguing it deserves more respect than it got. ### Reviews we read (11) - **Empire**, Ian Nathan (75/100, inferred): The critic finds this sequel surprisingly good despite the absence of Schwarzenegger and McTiernan. It relocates the action to a sweltering, gang-ridden future Los Angeles and delivers plenty of gory action with strong characters and a memorable Alien in-joke. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/predator-2-review/) - **Los Angeles Times**, Kevin Thomas (65/100, inferred): Thomas praises the relentless pacing, first-rate actors, and pure action thrills while noting it is derivative and cannot match the original's suspense. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-11-21-ca-4467-story.html) - **Radio Times**, John Ferguson (3/5): The sequel shifts the action to a futuristic Los Angeles where Danny Glover plays a maverick cop hunting the alien predator amid drug lords and government agents. Action sequences are competently handled but the film lacks the original's tension and claustrophobic atmosphere. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-dgnavm/predator-2/) - **Variety** (55/100, inferred): The review notes it generates start-to-finish hysteria and strong design but falls short of the original's thrills in the final act and skimps on character development. [Read](https://variety.com/1989/film/reviews/predator-2-1200428284/) - **Time Out** (40/100, inferred): The sequel shows little of the original's flair and lacks a suspenseful plot or Schwarzenegger. It attempts an uneasy mix of genres in a futuristic LA setting but ends up rudderless with functional characters. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/predator-2) - **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (20/100, inferred): Ebert finds the film a sad failure of imagination and spirit, with an ugly, uncreative alien creature that offers nothing new or wondrous about the universe. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/predator-2-1990) - **The New York Times**, Janet Maslin (15/100, inferred): Maslin calls it the most mindless and mean-spirited action film of the season, with frantic direction, uninteresting effects, and actors better off elsewhere. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/21/movies/review-film-the-quarry-humans.html) - **Eye for Film**, Gator MacReady (90/100, inferred): The critic calls Predator 2 a brash, unsubtle, in-your-face wall-to-wall action classic that holds up better than the AVP films and deserves more respect than it got upon release for its pulp detective novel-meets-Twilight Zone vibe. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/reviews.php?film_id=10733) - **Collider**, Andrew Taylor (75/100, inferred): The critic praises the film's bold shift to a semi-futuristic Los Angeles setting and its B-movie energy, calling it underrated and worth seeking out despite comparisons to the original. Glover's lead performance and the urban jungle action stand out as highlights. [Read](https://collider.com/predator-2-danny-glover-underrated-sequel/) - **Den of Geek**, Bernard Boo (70/100, inferred): The critic notes that time has been kind to the film, which departs from the original in setting and tone but preserves its core formula of a mysterious alien preying on humans. Performances by Danny Glover, Gary Busey, and Bill Paxton, along with standout sequences like the subway car scene, are highlighted as strengths. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/predator-movies-ranked-from-worst-to-best/) - **HeyUGuys**, Dave Roper (40/100, inferred): The review finds the film a lazy sequel with exciting set-pieces and new weapons but a miscast lead in Danny Glover, faceless characters, and little mythology expansion, making it ultimately unsatisfying compared to the original. [Read](https://www.heyuguys.com/video-vault-predator-2-1990/) ## Details - **Director:** Stephen Hopkins - **Director:** Stephen Hopkins - **Writer:** Jim Thomas, John Thomas - **Cinematography:** Peter Levy - **Editor:** Mark Goldblatt, Bert Lovitt - **Music:** Alan Silvestri - **Production design:** Lawrence G. Paull - **Costume design:** Marilyn Vance - **Producer:** John Davis, Lawrence Gordon, Joel Silver - **Cast:** Danny Glover as Lieutenant Mike Harrigan; Gary Busey as Peter Keyes; Rubén Blades as Danny Archuleta; María Conchita Alonso as Leona Cantrell; Bill Paxton as Jerry Lambert; Robert Davi as Captain Phil Heinemann; Adam Baldwin as Garber; Kevin Peter Hall as The Predator - **Runtime:** 1h 48m - **Certificate (MPA):** R - **Release (the US):** 21 November 1990 - **Genres:** Science Fiction, Action, Thriller - **Budget:** $35 million - **Box office:** $57 million ## Where to watch in the US Not streaming, renting or buying in the US at the last check. Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, IE, IL, IS, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, TR, UA, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Predator* (1987), Fi1m 84: The jungle original, where the waiting does the work this sequel cannot be bothered with — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/predator.md) - *The Hidden* (1987): Los Angeles cops chase a body-hopping alien; lean, quick and pleasingly odd - *Attack the Block* (2011), Fi1m 84: Aliens land on a south London estate and the locals are already armed and unimpressed — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/attack-the-block.md) - *Assault on Precinct 13* (1976): Carpenter’s siege picture: one police station, one long night, no fat on it - *The Host* (2006): A Korean family against a river monster, and the family is the interesting part --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/predator-2