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Predator
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Before it became a franchise, Predator was just another lean, fast-paced action movie from 1980s blockbuster titans John McTiernan and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger stars alongside fellow action heroes Carl Weathers and Jesse Ventura as operatives on a mission into a Central American jungle to rescue a U.S. diplomat. What they find instead is a dangerous alien who hunts them for sport, and Schwarzenegger’s Dutch must outsmart the Predator in order to survive and escape the jungle.
Predator is streaming on HBO Max ($9.99+ per month).
Predator 2
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Drastically switching gears from the first movie, Predator 2 is set in the near future (the far-flung year of 1997) in crime-ridden Los Angeles. It trades the dense jungle for dangerous city streets, where once again the Predator comes to Earth to hunt humans. This time, the Predator’s main human adversary is LAPD Lt. Mike Harrigan (Danny Glover), who investigates a series of murders that connect both to the Predator and the local crime syndicates. This movie first hints at a larger mythology, briefly glimpsing into the Predator’s spacecraft.
Predator 2 is streaming on HBO Max ($9.99+ per month).
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Alien vs. Predator
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The first of two movies combining the creatures from the Predator series and the Alien series takes place in the remote Antarctic region, where some Predators have arrived for their latest hunt. Lance Henriksen plays a rich, dying businessman who leads a team to unearth a mysterious ancient structure. Of course, that structure is full of alien xenomorphs that have been frozen for millennia, and when they awake, the two deadly alien races are set for a showdown, with the humans caught in the middle.
Alien vs. Predator is streaming on Starz ($8.99 per month after a seven-day free trial).
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem
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The second pairing of the Predators and the alien xenomorphs takes place in a placid American suburb, where the Predator ship from the previous movie crash-lands. This time, there’s a Predator-xenomorph hybrid known as a predalien, and a Predator is dispatched to hunt the predalien and its spawn. Once again, humans are caught in the crossfire, this time with a whole town full of people as potential victims. The movie leans into its slasher-style structure, building up a hefty body count as the deadly alien races wreak havoc.
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Predators
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Twenty years after its last installment, the Predator series returns as a standalone franchise with Predators. This time, it’s the humans who travel to an alien planet, with a group of strangers waking up to find themselves on an unfamiliar world. They soon realize they’ve been placed in a sort of game preserve, where a group of Predators is hunting them. They band together to fight back, attempting to turn the tables on their captors. Adrien Brody leads the cast as a former mercenary who rallies his fellow captives to survive the hunt and find an escape.
The Predator
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Shane Black, who played a supporting role in the original Predator, returns to the franchise as the director and co-writer of this semi-reboot. Like Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, it’s mainly set in a quiet American town, where a Predator flees after escaping government captivity. Government officials order the Predator recaptured for further study, while a group of rogue soldiers and scientists just want to protect innocent people from getting killed. Black brings his trademark sense of humor to the story, while setting up a potential new direction for the franchise.
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Prey
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The Predator franchise returns to the basic set-up of the Predator taking on a small band of human fighters out in the wilderness. For the first time, Prey sends the series into the past, as a Predator lands in 18th-century North America, where it faces off against a formidable Native American warrior played by Amber Midthunder. Director Dan Trachtenberg delivers lean, minimalist action, making the Predator into a mysterious, dangerous monster again. It’s a largely standalone story with brief nods to the previous movies.
Prey is streaming on Hulu ($7.99+ per month after a 30-day free trial).
