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Mark Bubien reviews
20th Century Fox
- Cert: R
- Cat.no: 2001085
- Running time: 107 minutes
- Year: 1987
- Chapters: 25
- Pressing: 2000
- Region(s): 1, NTSC
- Sound: DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Surround
- Languages: English, French
- Subtitles: English for the hearing impaired, Spanish
- Widescreen: 1.85:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: $24.99
- Extras: Theatrical Trailers
Director:
- John McTiernan
Cast:
- Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Jesse Ventura
Writer:
- Jim Thomas and John Thomas
The new Predator DTS DVD comes as part of the first batch of 20th Century Fox’s re-releases. Beside the DTS track, it also includes a new anamorphic widescreen transfer. And if ever there were a sign that Fox is taking DVD very seriously, this quality disc is it!
As stories go, Predator ain’t brain surgery. An invisible alien (the space kind) terrorizes an elite group of Green Berets (the military kind) as they infiltrate a foreign country (the South American kind) on a covert rescue mission.
Take a plot like that, toss in actors like Jesse “The Body” Ventura (pro wrestler extraordinaire), and lines like “Youh seht ahs up!” (that’s Arnold-speak), you’re not really battin’ a thousand here. Or even a one.
But dang it, I love this movie anyway! And I’ll even go so far as to say it’s the best alien movie beside, er, Alien, Great action sequences, an invisible monster, and the fact that they actually reveal our bad boy in the last fight sequence… well it just plain works. And I guess seeing Jesse “The Body’s” body imploded doesn’t hurt none either.
Other plusses here are the great sound and image quality. Both are simply awesome. While Laserdiscs are a good medium on their own, older recycled LD transfers that were put on some of the early DVDs left a lot wanting (kudos to Fox for realizing this). But The new transfer of Predator is phenomenal. And hearing it in DTS surround is just one treat thrown on top of another! Clear and crisp – and that’s both image and sound!
I highly recommend this DVD, and hope that Fox does as well with their future reissues as they did here.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL Check out Mark’s homepage: www.storybytes.com.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.