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"He's in town with a few days to kill."
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Predator 2 is the sequel to Predator, released in 1990.

Ten years after the events of the first movie, Los Angeles is suffering under a Heat Wave, and a war between Jamaican and Colombian drug cartels is running wild. LAPD Lt. Mike Harrigan (Danny Glover) and his team find that something is killing members of both factions — and after meeting a fake DEA task force led by Special Agent Peter Keyes (Gary Busey), Harrigan discovers that said something is an alien, and the "task force" have been waiting for one to reappear since previous events in Central America (and apparently they know how to dance).


This film provides examples of:

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  • 20 Minutes into the Future: The film was released in 1990, and set in 1997. It does correctly predict the Los Angeles subway system would be in operation by that time, which was not the case at the initial release date.
  • Actually Pretty Funny: Despite blowing him off otherwise, Leona ends up laughing at one of Jerry's jokes.
  • Action Prologue: The film starts off with a 'Predator-eye' view of a very heated (figuratively and literally) gun battle between the LAPD and a Colombian street gang. This battle is interrupted when the Predator kills and 'cleans' the surviving gangsters.
  • Actor Allusion: Morton Downey, Jr. is essentially playing himself as Tony Pope.
  • Admiring the Abomination: Keyes.
    Harrigan: You admire the son of a bitch.
    Keyes: Not for what he does, Harrigan. For what he is. For what he can give us. A new era of scientific technology!
  • Alas, Poor Scrappy: An In-Universe version, as Harrigan's crew are sad that the new, abrasive member Jerry got offed.
  • Aliens Speaking English: The City Hunter and the Elder Predator. Justified, as the Predators have been monitoring Earth for centuries as well as tapping into local transmissions and radio broadcasts. However, they seem to struggle a bit with enunciation due to the alien structure of their mouths.
  • Aliens Steal Cable: The movie opens with the Predator using its sensors (thermal imaging, radio frequency scanning, and directional microphones) to scan the city for potential targets. It soon zeroes in on a massive shootout between the police and a Colombian gang that's being covered live by media camera crews.
  • Aliens Steal Cattle: The government team sets up an ambush in a meatpacking plant, where they know the alien will be going because it needs to eat. Justified, since the Predator is undoubtedly carving beef from cattle carcasses, and almost certainly is not paying for what he takes.
  • Ambiguous Situation; The circumstances surrounding Danny's death. Did the City Hunter see him as prey, and stopped his fall because it would be an unsportsmanlike victory? Did he try saving him, and only killed him when Danny panicked and started shooting? Did the Hunter leave the necklace for Harrigan as a threat, or as a gesture of respect from one warrior to another, or even as an apology?
  • Ammunition Backpack: Peter Keyes' team is armed with "nitrogen guns" (liquid nitrogen backpacks attached to sprayers), which they plan to use to freeze (and thereby capture) the City Predator.
  • Anti-Hero: Mike Harrigan. He's violence-prone, short-tempered, and possesses a rich history of employing excessive physical force. However, he is fiercely loyal to his fellow officers, has the best felony arrest record on the force, numerous bravery awards and vows to avenge his best friend's death. He succeeds.
  • Anti-True Sight: DEA uses actual heat-blocking suits, though in the end, the predator's True Sight is revealed to be a little bit "too true" for the good of the agents, since it has a whole lot of vision modes to choose from besides infrared.
  • Anti-Villain: Compared to the Jungle Hunter from the first film, the City Hunter comes across as far more honourable. It even spares an armed police officer when it discovers that she is pregnant. It does employ the same self destruct device as the Jungle Hunter when about to be captured but it could be argued this is a case of "Death before dishonour" or simply to avoid humans such as Keyes recovering and exploiting its' advanced alien technology, interfering with humanity's development.
  • Applied Phlebotinum: Glowing blue jello made with a primary ingredient of drywall (since this is Earth) can apparently heal the most dire of wounds. The Predator has weapons beyond our understanding, so why not medicine too? This is also a case of Clarke's Third Law.
  • Arbitrary Maximum Range: Jerry positions himself at one end of the train, shooting at the Predator to prevent him from going after the passengers. Somehow none of his shots strike neither the retreating passengers nor Leona despite firing in their direction.
  • Armor Is Useless: Averted. Harrigan's bulletproof vest/metal plate combination saves his life when the Predator lands a shot from its wrist-mounted flechette launcher directly on his chest.
  • Artistic License – Medicine: The Colombians patching their gun wounds with cocaine powder.
  • Artistic License – Religion: The "Voodoo" gang appear to be Rastafari stereotypes in all but name. In fact, they were originally written specifically to be Rastafari, but the studio forced them to change the gang to nominal voodoo stereotypes because it feared people wouldn't know what Rastafarianism was.
  • Artistic License – Law: It fits him being an Anti-Hero, but in Real Life the moment Harrigan assaulted Keyes — a DEA agent, the DEA having FEDERAL jurisdiction — twice and threatened him in plain view of several onlookers, his career as a cop would have been over.
  • Asshole Victim: Most of the gang members the Predator kills. Pope's speechifying about how bad L.A. has become thanks to the gangs even has him saying that it's good that they are getting slaughtered.
  • Astonishingly Appropriate Interruption: Harrigan removes the unconscious Predator's helmet to reveal its alien features, and starts to repeat Dutch's line from the first movie, "You are one ugly—." Just before he delivers the final word, the Predator wakes up and grabs Harrigan by the throat, snarling "Motherfucker!"
  • Audience Surrogate: Harrigan, for anyone who hasn't seen the first movie. He has no idea what's really going on at first, and eventually receives a full, spoken explanation of everything known by viewers who did see the first one.
  • Bait-and-Switch: The opening begins with a shot of a forest, suggesting that the setting will be similar to that of the first movie, but as the camera keeps moving, the forest is revealed to be an urban forest close to the city of Los Angeles.
  • Battle Discretion Shot: King Willy, voodoo drug lord of L.A., squares off against the titular Predator. He draws his Cane Sword as the cloaked Predator approaches, becoming more and more visible with every step... and then it cuts to the Predator carrying his severed head.
  • Beat Them at Their Own Game: Harrigan lops the Predator's arm off, chases/hunts it down, and then proceeds to kill it with its own "smart disc" weapon.
  • Blatant Lies:
    Harrigan: Co-operation is my middle name.
  • Big "WHAT?!": Leona screams this in frustration as Jerry hounds her with one of his many long jokes.
  • Black Helicopter: A notable aversion, considering that the first film played it straight. The Men in Black use an all-silver Alouette helicopter, perhaps a visual reference to the silver thermal suits they wear to hunt the alien Predator.
  • Boogie Knights: This behind-the-scenes clip from the set of the film is dripping with this trope.
  • Bowdlerise: Naturally, more family-friendly channels will tone down the swearing, violence, and partial nudity, but there's at least one version where this crosses over with *Bleep*-dammit!. When the City Hunter is taking out the Voodoo Posse — who are in the middle of eliminating the leadership of the Scorpions — and are brought down to the last man, the last survivor clearly and timidly says "Shit happens..." due to an oversight; the captions are what's actually censored, however.
  • Boyfriend Bluff: Played with. Jerry Lambert (Bill Paxton) is at a bar. He goes over to a man talking to a woman.
    Jerry: Hey, do you mind? It's my sister. [man leaves] Oh, you're not my sister.
  • Bulletproof Vest: In the beginning of the movie, Harrigan armors his car by hanging Kevlar vests over the side windows.
  • Bring It: Danny Glover's character, after killing a Predator inside its own ship, asks "Alright, who's next?" when he realizes he's surrounded by the Predator's buddies. It's a subversion in that he clearly knows he stands no chance if they decide to off him. Fortunately for him, they recognize him as a Worthy Opponent and leave peaceably.
  • Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: At the end of the movie, Harrigan kills the Predator, only to immediately face several more Predators that appear in front of him. However, the trope is averted in that the others don't want revenge; on the contrary, they give Harrigan a gift and send him on his way.
  • Bulletproof Vest: In the beginning of the movie, Danny Glover armors his car by hanging kevlar vests over the side windows. During a later Lock-and-Load Montage, he puts a metal plate insert into his vest that saves his life when the Predator shoots his plasma caster at it — in this case the "tearing off the vest afterwards" is justified as the explosive impact sets the vest on fire.
  • The Cameo: A Xenomorph skull can be seen in the Predator ship.
  • Catchphrase Interruptus: More of a Phrase Catcher Interruptus: the title alien gets downed by Harrigan, who takes a moment to remove his mask and see who he was fighting. He has the same reaction as Dutch from the first film, but doesn't get the chance to finish the line.
    Harrigan: You are one... ugly... mother
    [the Predator jerks awake with a roar and grabs Harrigan by the throat]
    Predator: Muh-tha-fuh-kha!
  • Cat Scare: "Birds. Damn birds."
  • The Cavalry: Just when it appears Keyes is on his own against the Predator (and his heat-dampening tech isn't working), Harrigan blows the slaughterhouse door open and runs in, daring the Predator to face him.
  • Character Catchphrase:
  • Chekhov's Armoury: The trunk of Harrigan's car is a literal one, containing all the guns and equipment he'll use in trying to take down the Predator in the climax.
  • Chekhov's Gun: In particular, Harrigan uses a Benelli 12-gauge shotgun with pistol grip and shortened barrel in the opening shootout, wielding it as a literal Hand Cannon to take out the Scorpio gang members. Towards the end of the film, he puts it to good use against the Predator.
  • Clifftop Caterwauling: The Predator does this while standing on top of a building, with lightning striking its metal spear to no apparent effect on the alien.
  • Collateral Damage: The gang member who gets trapped by the Net Gun gets shot by his trigger-happy comrades as they spray bullets in all directions.
  • Color Wash: The cemetery is filmed in rich but soft green to contrast with the intense sunbaked cityscape. It says a lot about this world when the last peaceful place is a graveyard.
  • Combat Breakdown: As Harrigan and the Predator square off in their final battle, they start as Walking Arsenals and gradually lose their weapons to each other. Harrigan loads up with guns and a bulletproof vest with metal insert from the trunk of his car, the Predator has all its formidable hunting tools and weapons. Harrigan damages the Predator's plasma cannon with his assault rifle, the Predator wrecks Harrigan's armor vest and assault rifle with a projectile fired from its gauntlet. Harrigan blasts the Predator with his shotgun, stunning it and taking off its mask, the Predator smashes the shotgun. The Predator throws its spear at Harrigan, Harrigan takes it and tries to impale the Predator, and they both fall off the edge of a building, losing the spear. The Predator loses its grip on the razor disc, which Harrigan uses to cut its left gauntlet (and arm) off, disabling the self-destruct and cloaking device. Harrigan drops his last gun, his pistol, climbing after the Predator again. By the time they have their final showdown, they're down to one weapon apiece: the Predator's wrist blades and Harrigan using its Smart Disc.
  • Concealment Equals Cover: Mike Harrigan gets it. Knowing perfectly well his car door doesn't provide cover, he hangs ballistic vests over it before driving his car into the mass of bad guys shooting at him while leaning out of the driver's seat to avail himself of the vests' cover.
  • Continuity Nod:
    • The classic line:
      Harrigan: [unmasks the fallen Predator] You are one ugly...
      Predator: [grabs his neck] Motherfucker!
    • A character drawing a knife and making a Last Stand with it, shrieking and all. Twice. The first happens as soon as the hero leaves, albeit not to make a Heroic Sacrifice.
    • There is also an Outrun the Fireball moment that mirrors the end of the first film.
    • The music that played as Mac mourned Blain in the previous film plays as Mike visits Danny's grave, before he finds Danny's necklace.
    • Similarly, the music when Jerry takes on the Predator is almost identical to the one heard when Billy did the same in the first film.
  • Contrasting Sequel Setting: Lampshaded by the opening which transitions from a view of an urban forest to a shot of downtown Los Angeles. This movie essentially swaps out the Central American jungle of the first film for the crime-ridden streets of 1990s Los Angeles. Not only does this change the setting's aesthetics, but it also changes the role of the protagonist (from an elite commando with a bodybuilder physique to a fairly average cop), the secondary human antagonists (from guerrilla fighters to drug gangs embroiled in a turf war), as well as raising the stakes for the final showdown: now, when the Predator threatens to use its Self-Destruct Mechanism, it's in the middle of a densely-populated city.
  • Cop Killer: Aside from the gang members at the beginning who openly fight the police, the Predator itself has no compunctions towards killing police officers, and kills Danny and Jerry to goad Harrigan into fighting him. However, these kills were not in violation of the City Hunter's code of honor, given both of them were armed and tried to shoot him. It's not like the City Hunter particularly knows or cares what a cop is, though. They have weapons, and they're fighting back, so they're fair game.
  • Cowboy Cop:
    • Lieutenant Harrigan, who ignores orders whenever he feels like it to get the job done. It's gotten him in a fair bit of trouble, which probably would have got him canned anywhere else.
    • Jerry Lambert too — at his old precinct he was even nicknamed "The Lone Ranger", apparently for his reputation for getting partners killed (if Leona is to be believed).
  • Crapsack World: Much like Demolition Man released a few years later, the then future 90's Los Angeles is presented as a polluted, lawless and crowded Urban Hellscape (Much like the real deal but dialed up a notch or two). Gangs are armed to the teeth with military grade weapons and wage brutal war for control of the streets, the LAPD are undermanned and overextended and apparently things have gotten so bad that the local Pompous Political Pundit is calling for the mayor to declare martial law. And this is all before the Predator shows up...
  • Creepy Souvenir: The Predator collects skulls from its prey, including intelligent ones. We get to see a very impressive display at the end of the movie, including the elongated skull of a Xenomorph, laying down the foundation for the Alien vs. Predator franchise, and the surviving Predators give Harrigan a flintlock pistol to congratulate him for killing one of their number.
  • Crooks Are Better Armed: The Action Prologue sets up the situation regarding the drug gangs on the city. They are so much better-armed (with machine guns and, in the opening shootout, even grenade launchers) that nothing the L.A.P.D. can field, not even S.W.A.T., can take them head-on. When the Predator starts doing its business and slaughtering gang members in droves, the press (but not the cops) is quick to call them a bunch of Asshole Victims getting their due. Additionally, a cop on the scene mentions that S.W.A.T. is having its' ass kicked in a similar shootout on the other side of town where the Jamaicans have shot down one of the LAPD's helicopters. During the opening firefight, the cops are wearing body armour and some are armed with MP5s and G3s. At first glance, this could mean they are S.W.A.T. operatives but then Danny mentions that the actual S.W.A.T. team is engaged elsewhere. Things have gotten so bad on the streets that body armour and automatic weapons have become standard issue for LAPD patrol officers, and it's still not enough to keep up.
  • Curbstomp Battle: While practically everyone except Harrigan ends up on the receiving end of this by the Predator, special mention goes to Keyes' team, who specifically prepared for a confrontation with the Predator and get destroyed anyways.
  • Curse Cut Short: Amusingly played with, where the titular alien cuts Harrigan's assessment of its looks short by choking him, then finishes it off anyway.
  • Deadline News: A female reporter is covering live a shoot-out between the police and Colombian drug dealers. She barely avoids getting caught by the line of fire.
    Reporter: While Los Angeles swelters in agonizing heat, drug lords wage bloody warfare in the streets. Yet another open conflict— [bullets ricochet near her] Oh, fuck this, get me out of here!
  • Deadly Disc: The Predator is shown to use a disc which can slice clean through multiple targets and return to the wielder. The respective eponymous antagonists of later Predator films follow suit.
  • Defiant to the End: King Willie does not run when the Predator comes for him; he draws his Sword Cane to fight. It doesn't do him any good, but it's still admirable.
  • Destruction Equals Off-Switch: The Predator's wrist-nuke is disarmed by slicing it in half, taking the Predator's hand with it.
  • The Determinator:
    • Harrigan makes this trope his bitch and then some. The man gets thrown around like a ragdoll, falls down an elevator shaft, gets slashed up by pointy things about a hundred times, and still has the guts to get back up for more.
    • The Predator. Even after it gets pumped full of shotgun shells and loses its left arm, it is still fierce enough to confront Harrigan again (although it does flee to the Predator ship first to try and level the playing field). It does lose points, though, because earlier, when things turned against it, it went straight for the self-destruct button instead of even trying to fight.
  • Didn't See That Coming: The feds' plan to capture the Predator is fairly well-thought-out. The dust in the slaughterhouse nullifies its cloak, and the lighting and suits make it impossible for the Predator to see them. They didn't anticipate that it would be able to see in other spectrums, however.
  • Didn't Think This Through: The other part of the plan Keyes forgot to consider is that even though it couldn't see them, it could still hear them. Not only that, it's pretty damn suspicious that cloak-nullifying dust would just show up in a place it's been before.
  • Dreadlock Rasta: Subverted. King Willie and his group are voodoo, not Rastafarian. They do fit the trope in every other way than their nominal religious beliefs, though.
  • Dying Smirk: The Predator's successor attempts a Taking You with Me while laughing, until it is... cut off.
  • Dystopia: Gangs running amok in the streets. Crime is so rampant civilians have to carry guns. The L.A.P.D. is frequently outmanned and outgunned. Then the Predator shows up...
  • "Eureka!" Moment: Harrigan looks at a trophy display, and suddenly has a realization.
  • Even Evil Has Standards:
    • While the Predator is still Hunting the Most Dangerous Game, it targets drug dealers and goes after other types of criminals during its hunt. It also doesn't harm a kid when it sees that the kid only has a toy gun. And even though Cantrell both has a gun and tries to fire it at him, it leaves her alone upon realizing that she's pregnant. However, it does leave Archuleta's necklace for Harrigan, suggesting it is taunting a Worthy Opponent. However, this also shows the creature holds some respect for Harrigan.
    • After Harrigan defeats the Predator in its space ship, the other Predators decloak themselves and respectfully take the body away, while the lead Predator rewards Harrigan with a trophy (since they're keeping the body), suggesting that they were watching the whole time, but did not want to interfere in a battle between two warriors, and that the leader felt Harrigan deserved some kind of reward for his victory.
  • Everyone Is Armed: Several people in a subway car draw guns in response to an attempted robbery, including the two cops who happen to be there at the time. Unfortunately, since this happens at the same time the Predator is stalking the subway car, all this achieves is adding more potential targets for him to hunt. Still, at least no-one was robbed.
  • Exploitation Film: Wall-to-wall violence, gratuitous nudity, cheesy over the top acting, Gary Busey? The evidence is all there.
  • Face Death with Dignity: When King Willie realizes the creature "not of this earth" has found him, does he flee for his life? No, he draws his Cane Sword and prepares for a Last Stand against the alien butcher. He presumably dies pretty easily, but his skull certainly earned its place on the Predator's trophy rack.
  • "Facing the Bullets" One-Liner: Having finally defeated the Predator after a grueling battle, Harrigan finds himself surrounded by nine more. His reaction is a resigned "Okay, who's next?" Subverted when the Predators instead acknowledge him as a Worthy Opponent and let him leave.
  • Fakeout Opening: The movie opens on what appears to be a jungle like in the first movie, before the viewpoint climbs over a ridge to reveal an entirely different kind of jungle: the skyline of Los Angeles.
  • Failed Future Forecast: The movie predicted that by 1997, Los Angeles would decay into a dystopian Crapsack World with drug gangs in open war with the police and themselves, using military-grade hardware and body counts seemingly in the thousands. The police themselves show elements of being an occupying force in their own city, and Harrigan himself refers to his beat as "the war." Based on the high crime rates of L.A. in the late 1980s and early 1990s, this didn't seem too far-fetched circa 1990, but fast forward to the second decade of the 21st century and we see that Los Angeles, while still not a utopia, has far lower crime rates than it did at the time the film was made.
  • False Dichotomy: Keyes knows the Predator has infrared vision, but apparently forgot the alien has ears. When it gets suspicious, it starts cycling through other vision modes (before settling on ultraviolet and seeing the team and their lights clear as day).
  • Fanservice Extra: Teri Weigel (who went on to be a prominent porn star) spends 90% of her small screen time completely naked. Her role in the film consists of being seen having sex with her Colombian drug lord boyfriend, being heavily implied to be gang-raped by the Jamaicans who attack him in his penthouse, running around screaming in terror as the Predator kills the Jamaicans, then being discovered by Harrigan's team, having Leona wrap her in a coat, and telling Leona in Spanish that "the devil came for them."
  • Fearsome Foot: The shot of the monster approaching a doomed gang leader is taken from behind its (invisible) feet.
  • Five-Second Foreshadowing: After Harrigan removes its mask, the Predator's mouth can be seen twitching, indicating it's Not Quite Dead right before it grabs him for a Jump Scare.
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus:
    • The flayed corpse that Jerry bumps into has cubed-shaped scarring on his head, indicating he was the gang member who was caught in the Net Gun.
    • If you look closely after Harrigan takes the Predator's mask off, you can see part of its mouth twitching, leading up to the reveal that it isn't dead yet.
  • Freeze Ray: Keyes has his team load up with liquid nitrogen sprayers in an attempt to freeze the Predator for later study. It mostly just pisses the Predator off, since Keyes and his team can never pin the thing down long enough to actually do some damage.
  • From Bad to Worse: Los Angeles is already plagued by out-of-control gang violence, pollution, and a heat wave... then the Predator shows up.
  • Generic Ethnic Crime Gang: The movie features Jamaican gangsters who use voodoo rituals in their dealings and are in the middle of a war with Colombians. Voodoo is traditionally a Haitian religion and the gangsters were originally planned to be Rastafarians, but executives were worried audiences wouldn't know what Rastafarians are.
  • Good Guns, Bad Guns:
    • The LAPD unit under Lt. Harrigan primarily uses a selection of a advanced semi-auto handguns with modifications like laser sights and underbarrel flashlights that would normally come across as "bad" weapons, especially Harrigan's brushed chrome Desert Eagle. Justified, however, as the movie (released in 1990) is set in a 1997 where LA has devolved into an Urban Hellscape dominated by warring gangs, and the police need the extra firepower to keep up. Late in the movie, when Harrigan goes after the titular alien, he upgrades to two classically "good" guns — a CAR-15 (a shorter barreled AR-15) fitted with an M203 grenade launcher and a shotgun.
    • The various gangs shown throughout the movie use just about every kind of "bad" gun there is at one point or another. Machine pistols and submachine guns are the most common, but "advanced" guns like the Steyr AUG and heavy machine guns like the M60 are also used. Colombian gang leader El Scorpio uses a pair of Micro Uzis and then a Grenade Launcher. Jamaican gang leader "Gold Tooth" has a high-caliber revolver with gold plating and ivory grips.
    • The government agents under Keyes, perhaps as a clue that they aren't exactly "good", as they're trying to capture the Predator alive despite knowing about its explosive self-destruct mechanism, are seen carrying "advanced" Muzzlelite bullpup-style guns and a modified M60.
  • Gory Discretion Shot:
    • When Danny is killed off-screen by the Predator, blood drips down to the floor beneath him.
    • King Willie senses the Predator coming, draws his Cane Sword, and prepares for his end. Cut to the Predator walking off with his severed head.
    • Shadows hide the worst of Jerry Lambert's head and spine being taken as trophies, but it's obvious what's happening.
    • When Keyes gets sliced in half by the City Hunter's razor disc, the shot is obscured by the hanging slabs of meat.
  • Graceful Loser: When the Predator is slain, its fellows emerge, carry away their fallen comrade... and give Harrigan an antique pistol as a reward for his victory before leaving. A gift from one master hunter to another.
  • Groin Attack: A female cop seemingly knees a criminal in the crotch when he won't cooperate, Leona grabs the crotch of fellow cop Jerry Lambert when he won't leave her alone, and Harrigan does it to one of Keyes' men.
  • Gun Porn: The Columbian gangsters retreat from the police into their headquarters, in which there are enough weapons to arm an infantry company.
  • Half the Man He Used to Be: Keyes' death.
  • Harmless Electrocution: The Hunter climbs a building, his prey's skull and spine in hand, and he bellows into the air while hoisting his spear and his trophy. Lightning strikes him directly through his spear, sparks flowing all over his body, and he doesn't even react to it.
  • Harmless Freezing: Keyes' plan to capture the Predator with liquid nitrogen doesn't seem to affect it at all. If anything, it just pisses the Predator off. Then again, it's never stated one way or the other if they expected the Predator to survive the freezing; they just wanted to make sure it didn't blow itself up.
  • Hazmat Suit: The special forces team hunting the Predator wear thermal suits so they won't show up on infra-red, also to shield them from the radioactive dust they intend to use to See the Invisible alien, and the liquid nitrogen sprays to freeze it. When the Predator becomes aware of their presence, the suits inhibit the soldiers from seeing it and fighting properly.
  • Heat Wave: The Predator stalks the streets of Los Angeles during a heat wave. Possibly justified in that yautja usually wear a bodysuit made of thermal netting, meaning they might be ectothermic and would feel more comfortable in hot environments.
  • Hellish L.A.: Los Angeles has become such an Urban Hellscape that a Predator decided that it would make a great hunting ground.
  • Heroic Bystander: When a man on the subway is getting mugged, several people on the subway pull out their own weapons in the man's defense.
  • Heroic Sacrifice:
    • Jerry Lambert blocks the Predator from following the fleeing subway passengers, and pays for it with his life.
    • During the fight with the Predator in the slaughterhouse, Harrigan is about to be attacked by the Predator. Keyes intervenes and attacks the Predator, saving Harrigan's life. Shortly thereafter, the Predator kills Keyes with its flying energy disc.
  • Hidden Army Reveal: Just after Harrigan kills the City Hunter, a entire squad of other Yautja de-cloak around him.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Harrigan kills the Predator with its own disc weapon.
  • Hollywood Voodoo: King Willie is a voodoo practicing Jamaican drug lord. Downplayed, in that while he believes the Predator is a supernatural demon, he's not shown or implied to have any magic powers himself.
  • Human Head on the Wall: The Predator returns to its spaceship after decapitating King Willie, cleans and polishes his skull, and mounts it on a spike in his trophy rack.
  • Hungry Jungle: The movie describes the city setting as a "concrete jungle" portraying the dangerous city in much the same manner of the harsh jungle.
  • I Come in Peace: The Predator nearly shoots a child before recognizing the boy's plastic gun is only a toy. The boy's response? "Want some candy?"
  • If I Can Only Move: Lieutenant Harrigan is on a ledge on the side of a building with the Predator hanging onto him. The Predator has activated his Self-Destruct Mechanism, which will destroy a large area and kill thousands of people. The Predator's cutting disk is embedded in the wall just out of Harrigan's reach.
  • Imperiled in Pregnancy: Cantrell is spared by the Predator when his scanner reveals a fetus in her womb (the novelization states that killing pregnant prey is against the rules of the hunt). It's left unstated whether Cantrell herself knew she was pregnant beforehand.
  • Implacable Man: Nothing can stop the Predator when it wants you really, really dead. Late in the film, Harrigan himself becomes this to the Predator, who is hell-bent on fleeing when it realizes that it cannot stop or defeat its human adversary.
  • Implied Rape: In the novelization, it's implied that Vega's mistress was gangraped by the group King Willie sent to kill Vega before they did their job.
  • Improbable Infant Survival: The eponymous alien bounty hunter spares a pregnant cop, and later lowers his sights on a child with a plastic gun after realising the harmless nature of the kid's "weapon". This is justified by the creature's personality as an honour-bound warrior; there's no challenge or sport in killing unarmed children.
  • Improvised Lightning Rod: After the titular Predator concludes its rampage at the Columbian drug lord's penthouse, it climbs atop a tall building and holds its metal spear in the air, causing lightning to strike it with no ill-effects to the alien. Somewhat downplayed in that it does not appear to serve any purpose other than looking cool.
  • Infrared X-Ray Camera: The Predator is able to see a fetus inside a pregnant woman's womb, making him spare her life.
  • Ironic Echo:
    • "Shit happens!"
    • Harrigan grabs a soldier by the throat and orders him to open a door, only to get a reply of "Go fuck yourself!" After persuading him otherwise, Harrigan is warned not to intervene, only to reply likewise.
    • Harrigan is warned You Have No Idea Who You're Dealing With by Keyes, who later repeats the line during the Internal Reveal that Harrigan really does have no idea who he's dealing with.
  • Irony: Leona explains that Jerry Lambert is a lone wolf with a reputation for recklessness that gets his partners killed. His actions get himself killed, and Leona survives.
  • It's Personal: Invoked by Harrigan, as he was starting to joke about letting the City Hunter wipe out crime until the Predator began targeting and eliminating his close friends/fellow officers. Keyes later does the same in a "Not So Different" Remark with Harrigan.
  • I Warned You:
    Keyes: I've told you, you don't know what you're dealing with.
  • I Work Alone: Defied by Harrigan when he warns Jerry that the latter's "lone wolf" days are over with his team. Everyone works together.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Jerry Lambert is a womanizing, hot-headed, occasionally obnoxious rookie cop, but he takes his job seriously, shows Harrigan the proper respect, and gives his life distracting the Predator so the other passengers on the metro can escape.
  • Jerkass Has a Point:
    • Keyes is a dick, but he is correct when he points out to Harrigan that he's in way over his head. Funnily enough, despite his preparations and arrogance, so was he. Keyes and his team are ultimately amongst the good guys and want to stop the Predator as much as Harrigan does but to capture rather than just kill it and in order to exploit its' technology. In fact Keyes and his team actually save Harrigan's life on several occasions, intervening in the slaughterhouse battle, warning him of the self destruct mechanism etc.
    • Tony Pope is a total slimeball, but he makes a pretty solid point about the mayor of LA being on vacation in Lake Tahoe while his city is basically turning into an all-out warzone, with cops getting wasted left and right. This is shown at the beginning of the film when SWAT can't help out the rest of the police in the opening scene's firefight because they're too busy fighting another battle in a different part of the city at the same time.
    • Deputy Chief Heiniemman twice warns Harrigan to not interfere with Keyes' investigation and Harrigan ignores him, getting one of his men badly wounded in the armoury shootout and getting Danny killed. To his credit Heiniemman keeps Harrigan in the investigation despite all this.
  • Jump Scare: Pigeons just love playing around with Harrigan and the audience, don't they?
    • It's hardly unreasonable for Garber in the final scene to want to know from Harrigan what exactly went on? The arrival of responding LAPD units to the scene means he doesn't get an answer, withdrawing rather than risking open public confrontation.
  • Jurisdiction Friction: During the first half of the movie, Lieutenant Harrigan of the LAPD has an ongoing feud with Peter Keyes of the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) over the investigation of a war between Los Angeles drug gangs. It turns out to be worse than that: Keyes is actually a federal agent of an enigmatic unnamed agency hunting for an extraterrestrial killer.
  • Just Think of the Potential!: Keyes wants to capture the titular alien alive to put its advanced alien technology to use improving humans' weaponry.
  • Just Train Wrong: The movie is set in Los Angeles, except the subway train fight clearly takes place on a BART train, which is from San Francisco, and the distinctive "Ba" logo can be seen on the front of the train in one shot.note 
  • Large Ham:
    • Keyes. What did you expect from a character played by Gary Busey?
    • Glover also has some majestically hammy moments as well, matching if not trumping Busey's performance in that category.
    • King Willie is a noteworthy cold ham, and his subordinate Gold Tooth is magnificently hammy for the short time that he's around.
    Gold Tooth: King Willie says, not only do I have to kill you, but I have to take your soul. Voodoo magic. Fucking voodoo magic, man! [laughs] But you know what? I tell you what I believe –- shit happens.
  • Late to the Tragedy: Harrigan gets to the site of the subway massacre several minutes after it actually occurs, only finding the wounded Leona on his way. However, he's not too late to see the Predator skinning and tearing Jerry's spine out, in a slight subversion of this trope.
  • Let's Dance: When police officer Jerry Lambert confronts the title creature in the subway car, his last words are "Let's dance!"
  • Lock-and-Load Montage: Harrigan suits up and arms himself to the teeth in order to rescue Keyes and confront the Predator.

    M-Z 
  • Made of Iron: It's to be expected from the Predator, but Harrigan takes a fair amount of punishment himself, including getting shot with the beast's plasma weapon (a bulletproof vest/steel plate combo keeps him alive, but it still knocks the wind out of him) and a long drop down an elevator shaft, but he's relentless in chasing the Predator.
  • Match Cut: A rather spectacular one, in which King Willie confronts the Predator for the first time. The next shot has his battle scream as it focuses on his face, but a slow pull back reveals his severed head being carried by the Predator. And his "battle scream" may have been a scream of agony as the Predator killed him.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: King Willie. He certainly believes in magic, and his divination says that what's after him is not of this Earth, but he thinks it's a demon, and his spells don't even slow it down.
  • The Men in Black: Keyes and his team, sent by some enigmatic unspecified government agency to track down the Predator and capture its' technology under the guise of being from a different government agency, namely the DEA. They are at least partially successful recovering the Predator's spear, mask, energy weapon, spear tip and half of its' self destruct device.
  • Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: The movie starts with an investigation into a gang war between rival drug gangs, complete with Jurisdiction Friction between the LAPD cops and the DEA. It eventually becomes a hunt for an extraterrestrial killer who's slaughtering both cops and gang members alike.
  • Mob War: The movie is set in Los Angeles during a Heat Wave and a gang war between Colombian and Jamaican drug cartels. Which makes it the perfect safari destination for an alien Hunting the Most Dangerous Game.
  • Money Is Not Power: The second Predator slaughter we see on-screen is prefaced with a Jamaican hit squad entering a Colombian gang leader's apartment (while he's having sex with his girlfriend) and getting ready to cut his heart out as a Voodoo ritual (and to intimidate his fellow gang members). The Colombian tries to buy his way out of being killed by offering two million dollars he has stashed, but...
    Jamaican thug: This is not about money, this is about power! There's a new king in the streets. This is a message he has for your people: "You are history!" [starts cutting the Colombian's chest open)]
  • Monster Delay: Like in the first movie, only the view of the soldiers from the Yautja's eye-view is visible at first, then a shot of its own hand through its visor revealing that it has claws, then a view of the cloaked Yautja with his glowing yellow eyes, then close-ups of him patching up his wound, then a full-body view, and finally the infamous unmasking moment that reveals just what his "real face" looks like. Unlike in the first movie, however, the corresponding moments each happen significantly earlier within the runtime than in the first film, and on top of that, we also even get to see nine other Yautjas near the end of the film just following the main one's death.
  • More Dakka: At the start of the movie, Harrigan goes through his trunkful of weapons, rejects a .45 automatic as "Too small...", then grabs a shotgun strapped to the lid instead. Meanwhile, the Colombians are tooling up from a room full of firearms that turns out to be not enough to handle the Predator. Later, when fighting the Predator himself, Harrigan goes to his trunk again and reveals he's got an M16/M203 in there.
  • My Secret Pregnancy: Good thing for Leona, since the Predator doesn't kill pregnant women, even if they have guns.
  • Neck Lift: The Predator does this to Leona when confronting her in the subway, lifting her to just the right height for it to realize she is pregnant. It lets her live.
  • Noodle Incident: According to the automated voice detailing his career, Harrigan is responsible for the destruction of not only eleven police patrol cars, but also a city bus and a street-sweeper. How he managed the latter two are left to the viewer's imagination.
  • Not of This Earth: Harrigan and Jerry get the projectile from the sleargun analysed and are told it doesn't match anything on the periodic table.
  • Novelization: The film was novelised by Simon Hawke. More details here.
  • Offhand Backhand: After the Predator has killed all of the initial government squad but Keyes and is called out by Harrigan, it shoots at Keyes with its plasma caster without looking. This actually saves Keyes' life, as it evidently didn't score a direct hit.
  • Office Golf: A variation. In the middle of a chaotic police station, Detective Jerry Lambert is introduced demonstrating to a female officer the correct way to swing a golf club, without actually having a club at the time.
  • Oh, Crap!:
    • From the face King Willie makes when the Predator jumps down into the alley and begins walking towards him, he definitely knows he's completely screwed.
    • Harrigan when it turns out there are more. He's completely exhausted and can't muster much of a reaction, but the way he flinches when the targeting laser appears and his resigned sarcasm over the situation say it all. In this case, of course, it turns out it's not a necessary reaction, because he's in no danger after all.
    • The Predator itself has a fantastic one right before Harrigan uses its disc to slice its arm off, destroying the self-destruct bomb.It has another minor one just before that when hearing noise in the meat storage plant, and after cycling through several vision modes, suddenly seeing an entire team of government agents hunting it.
  • Outrun the Fireball: Harrigan somehow isn't burnt to a crisp while running away from the fiery exhaust of the departing Predator ship.
  • Outside-Context Problem: As in the previous film, a gang-ridden warzone becomes the safari grounds of an interstellar race of hunters. This is minimized by audience familiarity with the premise and the arrival of interested parties.
  • Outside-Genre Foe: The movie opens like a late-'80s Dirty Harry-style crime-action film, with rival gangs shooting up the streets of Los Angeles and the LAPD struggling to handle them. Then an alien hunter shows up and becomes a bigger problem. Even the alien-hunter hunters aren't fully prepared for what they're up against.
  • Pay Evil unto Evil: The City Hunters kill the group sent to kill Ramon Vega after the completed their task and captured his girlfriend. In the novel, it's implied because of the fact that Vega was defenseless at the time and before they killed him, they raped his mistress.
  • Pet the Dog: The Predator prepares to attack a child who points a toy gun at it, then relents when it realizes the weapon is fake. It later spares Leona when it sees she's pregnant, despite having massacred the rest of her squad and her being armed.
    • Keyes saves Harrigan from the Predator. He's still a prick about it, but keep in mind Keyes doesn't even like Harrigan (and actually even threatened to kill him himself earlier).
    • Tony Pope is an abrasive asshole who harasses and mocks the ineffectiveness of the police, but on reporting Danny's death, he goes out of his way to call him a "good cop, one of the best on our force!"
  • Pocket Protector: Before going in to fight the Predator, Harrigan puts on a Bulletproof Vest.
  • Precision-Guided Boomerang: The eponymous alien's disk and shuriken weapons are a high-tech version, though occasionally they won't come back due to being lodged in a wall. Or somebody's chest.
  • Pregnant Badass: Leona Cantrell. It's ambiguous whether or not she herself is aware of this.
  • Proportional Aging: The Predator is an adolescent by yautja standards, little more than an excitable, glory-hungry teenager.
  • Proud Warrior Race: This movie introduced the concept of Predators belonging to such a culture.
  • Razor Floss: One of the Predator's weapons, the net, is made of thin wire and it tightens, cubing the person it captures.
  • Remember That You Trust Me: Lambert hits Harrigan with the "door swings both ways" part of the speech Harrigan gives early on when Harrigan tries to leave him and Cantrell behind in his hunt for the Predator, presumably for their own safety after Archuleta's death. Harrigan comes around and decides they'll do it together. Not long after, while the Predator is following Lambert around, it turns out he actually took Harrigan's attempt to lie to them fairly hard.
  • Retractable Weapon: In addition to having retractable wrist blades like its fellow from the first film, the Predator also adds a retractable staff/spear to the species' arsenal.
  • The Reveal: Played with. Like in the first movie, we get only fleeting glimpses of the Predator early on, it sometimes gives an Imminent Danger Clue with its targeting laser or cloak, and it's not until the climax begins that it stays on screen for any length of time. However, here, these glimpses start much earlier and are more numerous, confirming what a viewer who has seen the original already knows, but still preserving the reveal of what exactly is going on until later for a viewer who hasn't.
  • Rock Beats Laser: The Predator trophy room contains, among other things (like the skull of an alien from the Alien franchise), a flintlock pistol... implying that not only did a human attempt to challenge a Predator with this weapon, but this individual put up enough of a fight to be considered a worthy opponent!
  • Rooftop Confrontation: Lieutenant Harrigan fights the Predator on the roof of a building as part of a running battle with it.
  • Ruthless Foreign Gangsters: Both the Colombians and the Jamaicans are showcased as two gangs completely willing and able to turn (and are in the middle of turning) the whole of Los Angeles into a Beirut-style warzone for the sake of seeing which will rule the local underground. The Predator ends up trumping the both of them, however.
  • Scare Chord: A very loud one plays on the cut to King Willie's decapitated head.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: One of the reporters in the beginning.
    Reporter: As drought-ridden Los Angeles swelters in agonizing heat, drug lords wage bloody warfare in the streets. Yet another open conflict— [bullet ricochets] Oh, fuck this, get me out of here!
  • Selective Slaughter: The eponymous creature attacks a subway train full of people and kills only those who were armed except for the policewoman, whom was spared because he could see that she was pregnant.
  • Self-Destructive Charge: The last thing Jerry is seen doing alive is leaping at the Predator with a machete in hand.
  • Sensor Suspense: While the capture team is in the warehouse, the support team outside keeps track of the team and the Predator inside the warehouse using symbols on a screen. The suspense increases when the creature's movements indicate it can see the capture team and is about to attack them.
  • Sequel Hook: After the Predator ship leaves, Harrigan tells Garber "Don't worry, asshole. You'll get another chance". Doubles as a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, because Predators are attracted to heat and violent conflict.
  • Sex Signals Death: The Colombian drug lord shown having sex with his girlfriend has his penthouse broken into by the rival Jamaican gang, ending with him being killed with a knife.
  • Shoo Out the Clowns: Jerry Lambert, the movie's primary provider of comic relief, is killed by the Predator just before the climax starts.
  • Shoot Him, He Has a Wallet!: Subverted. Rather than immediately open fire when it sees a child holding a gun, the Predator takes a moment to scan both boy and weapon, determines the gun is a fake (a plastic toy) and leaves the child alone.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Before the Aliens vs. Predator films, this film showed a rack of trophy skulls in the Predator ship, including one from a Xenomorph.
    • Keeping with the Alien mythos, Lambert has the same surname as Joan Lambert from the first Alien movie, suggesting Jerry might have been an ancestor.
    • A rather obvious one from Keyes:
    • The scene where Keyes and his team confront the Predator in the slaughterhouse is practically an Homage to the scene in Aliens where the Marines first encounter the Xenomorphs.
  • Sinister Subway: You do not want to be alone in the dark LA subway tunnels at night. Of course, knowing that a vicious alien manhunter is lurking down there too doesn't improve the situation one bit.
  • Slaughterhouse Fight: Keyes and his DEA team plan to capture the Predator in a slaughterhouse, filling the air with dust to foil its Invisibility Cloak, while the low temperatures and some special suits will render his team invisible to thermal vision. Unfortunately for the feds, the Predator still has ears, and its Cool Mask comes with additional vision modes.
  • Sleek High Rise Apartment: The titular Predator murders a bunch of folks inside of one, following a raid by Jamaican gangsters on a Colombian drug lord mid-coitus. Said high rise also overlooks downtown Los Angeles.
  • Snowy Screen of Death: The Predator massacres the special forces team sent to capture him, but when this trope is shown in Mission Control (where they naturally conclude that everyone is dead) it turns out the last member of the team had merely pulled off his Hazmat Suit helmet (with attached camera) so he could see better.
  • So Much for Stealth: The plan to capture the Predator goes pear-shaped thanks to a creaky staircase, tipping off the Predator that someone else is in the warehouse with it.
  • Space Whale Aesop: The subway massacre scene was actually conceived as a Take That! to vigilantism, which explains why the man the gang members are accosting resembles real-life subway vigilante Bernard Goetz. So the moral of the story is, don't plan to take the law into your own hands, otherwise intergalactic hunters will slaughter you. Wait, what? To be fair, the Aesop is that said gang members may also be armed, likely moreso than you. Also, don't worry about being disarmed, because you'll be no sport to a Predator and thus live to tell the tale.
    Gang member 1: Mine's bigger than yours! [points a larger gun at the commuter and laughs maniacally]
    Gang member 2: I'll take that! [snatches commuter's gun while pointing a second gun at him]
  • Staring Down Cthulhu: Harrigan begins a Staring Contest with Keyes, and is a little taken aback when Keyes gives the stare right back. Harrigan then realizes Keyes is more dangerous than he looks, and eventually lets him go.note 
  • Subways Suck: The Los Angeles subway is so bad, almost everyone on board is armed. Unfortunately, a train with armed passengers draws the attention of the City Hunter tracking our heroes on board.
  • Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: This trope factors into battle with The City Hunter and works as a blessing and curse.
    • Lt. Harrigan finds surprising success fighting The City Hunter as the villain is an adolescent going through a rite of passage and isn't as experienced as the Jungle Hunter that Dutch fought. Still, Harrigan finds his battles far from easy.
    • Keyes eventually settles on potentially recruiting Harrigan into his secret department as making him "go missing" would be a Revealing Cover Up and he'd be much more valuable as a battle-worn ally having shown his sheer will and determination to track down The City Hunter and doing so with much more limited resources. We don't see this development due to Keyes and most of his team getting wiped out, but Garber does let Harrigan go free at the end of the film.
    • Keyes thinks he has everything planned out, but like many missions, you still have to plan on something going wrong like your target figuring out your trap and doing something you didn't predict. Something like this sends the operation into disarray.
    • The City Hunter may be too resilient for most people to handle, but multiple shotgun blasts to the torso still leaves him incapacitated temporarily and puts him on the defensive. Add in further injury on top of that, and things get even easier for Harrigan. Additionally, as with many organisms, dealing with an amputation and treating the gaping wound is still extremely painful.
  • Sword Cane: During his confrontation with the Predator, the Jamaican drug lord King Willie draws a sword out of his cane and prepares to fight. It does him no good at all.
  • Technologically Advanced Foe: The LA police think they're dealing with gang war between rival drug gangs. However, the federal task force sent in turns out to know they're dealing with an alien, they just refuse to tell anyone about it.
  • Tempting Fate:
    • Just before the Predator's first appearance, one of the Colombians — tooled up and high on coke — brags that he's ready for anything. He's not.
    • Keyes — boasting about saving Harrigan's ass — is effortlessly killed by the City Hunter's Smart Disc when it bisects him.
  • That Came Out Wrong: Harrigan, crawling on a ledge high above the ground, mutters, "You can do it. Like falling off a log." He quickly realizes those weren't the words he was looking for.
  • Title Drop: Keyes says, "Well, we've prepared a trap for this predator."
  • Too Dumb to Live: On a subway train, a small gang of punks try to rob a man who looks like a weak and easy mark. They should really know better as everyone on the train is armed, and aim their hand guns at the punks to make them lower their weapons, rendering the idea of public robbery pointless if not suicidal. However, this is the least of their worries when The City Hunter breaks into the train and starts hunting the armed passengers.
  • Trashy True Crime: Tony Pope (played by Real Life trash-talk show host Morton Downey Jr.) is a "journalist" for the blood-and-guts crime show Hard Core. He slithers around the edges of the story, sensationalizing the brutal deaths in a drug war tearing Los Angeles apart, criticizing the police, and even trespassing into active crime scenes for footage of dead gang members. He gets on Lt. Harrigan's bad side one too many times at the climax, and ends up getting his lights punched out by Harrigan for his troubles.
  • Trophy Room: The Predator has one on his ship, where it cleans and mounts King Willie's skull.
  • Truth in Television: Real human hunters avoid hunting pregnant animals, regardless of their offensive capability.
  • Turn Off the Camera: When Keyes catches shock journalist Pope filming the Predator's latest crime scene, he has one of his mooks confiscate his camera. As Pope is lead off amid loud protests, you can see him secretly brace a smaller handheld camera against the back of the man holding him, getting some shots that he later uses in a report.
  • Urban Hellscape: The film portrays 1997 Los Angeles as a war zone between two rival gangs which are portrayed as foreign (particularly Jamaican) stereotypes, including constant drug use, barbaric forms of violence, and voodoo. The protagonist Mike Harrigan is, naturally, a renegade cop who gets results but is constantly chewed out by his superior officer.
  • Vagina Dentata: The Predator's mouth. Harrigan even insults it by calling it "pussyface".
  • Vice City: This movie really puts the 'LA is a hellhole' theme to the forefront, making really dystopian predictions in a RoboCop-type commentary on society.
  • Villain of Another Story: The Colombian and Jamaican mobs were the police's initial primary enemies before the City Hunter came into town.
  • Villain Respect: After Harrigan has killed the City Hunter, its fellow Predators arrive to collect its body. Instead of killing Harrigan, the leader instead acknowledges his skill and courage, giving him an antiquated pistol acquired in the early 1700s before departing.
  • Vocal Dissonance: The Predator says "Want some candy?" in the voice of the child it encountered at the graveyard when it confronts Jerry on the subway.
  • Waterlogged Warzone: When Lt. Harrigan uses a grenade to blow open the door to the slaughterhouse, the resulting fire sets off the ceiling sprinklers, causing the floor to become covered in water. The Predator's invisibility shield is shorted out by water, making it visible and much more vulnerable to Harrigan's gunfire during their battle.
  • Weaksauce Weakness:
    • Water has been shown to short out Predator cloaking tech, but apparently even walking in a puddle of water starts to disrupt the electrical signals. Also, the Predator's reflection being wholly visible while it's still partially cloaked is ascribable to the Rule of Cool.
    • The unstoppable Harrigan is nearly reduced to the mental state of a frightened child when confronted with heights, but he does manage to overcome it by the end of the film.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Keyes wants the Predator for its technology in order to bring on a new age.
  • Within Arm's Reach: During their battle at the top of a building, the Predator has a death-grip on Harrigan's arm. When the Predator activates its Self-Destruct Mechanism, Harrigan reaches out and grabs the Predator's flying energy disc, then uses it to cut through the mechanism and the Predator's forearm.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Harrigan has a fear of heights; the Predator jumps around a lot of rooftops. He even lampshades this by wondering aloud to himself why the Predator never simply stays on the ground.
  • Within Arm's Reach: During their battle at the top of a building, the Predator has a death-grip on Harrigan's arm. When the Predator activates its Self-Destruct Mechanism, Harrigan reaches out and grabs the Predator's flying energy disc, then uses it to cut through the mechanism and the Predator's forearm. Watch the scene here.
  • World of Ham: Nothing is subtle in this movie, and that goes double for the acting; the cast are clearly having a ball going completely over the top.
  • The World's Expert (on Getting Killed): The movie has an excusable case, as the expert does manage to survive one meeting with the Predator, and though he knew about its behavior and senses, he did not have reason to doubt his trap wouldn't keep it subdued.
  • Worthy Opponent:
    • The Predator quickly clocks Harrigan as a fellow warrior, which is cemented when Harrigan senses it on a rooftop while the Predator is cloaked. Meanwhile, it doesn't seem to know (or care) who the hell Keyes even is.
    • After killing King Willie, it goes to the extra effort to take his head back and mount it on its trophy rack, presumably because he stood and fought to the death hand-to-hand, despite being badly outmatched. It takes Jerry Lambert's head as well for standing up to it on the subway.
  • Would Not Shoot a Civilian: A Predator refrains from killing an armed female police officer when he sees that she is pregnant, nor a child when he realizes that the gun the kid is pointing at him is just a toy.
  • Wouldn't Hurt a Child: The Predator spares a child upon realizing that the latter is only aiming with a toy gun.
  • Wounded Gazelle Gambit: How Harrigan defeats the City Hunter, by pretending a wound inflicted on him with its wristblades was far more damaging then it actually was, leaving itself exposed for Harrigan to shove the Smart Disc into its chest and kill it.
  • Wretched Hive: Los Angeles in this film's grim portrait of 1997.
  • The Yardies: King Willie and his Jamaican Voodoo Posse.
  • You Have No Idea Who You're Dealing With: This speech is given by Harrigan, but it's not meant as a Badass Boast but a statement that the hero really doesn't know what he's dealing with, because aliens are involved.
  • You Shall Not Pass!: While police officer Leona ushers the passengers on a subway car to safety, her partner Jerry Lambert tries to hold off the title alien monster by shooting at it. He is killed by the Predator, but his Heroic Sacrifice saves many of the passengers from being killed.
  • You Will Be Spared: The Predators have Harrigan dead-to-rights aboard their space ship, but they clearly think it would be dishonorable to harm him after he won his duel fair and square. They still leave him to find his own way out as they take off, though.
  • Zeerust:
    • Much like the Ford Taurus in RoboCop (1987), this film attempts to show off its futuristic cred by showing police using the then-new Chevy Luminas for patrol vehicles.
    • In 1997, police still use low-resolution MCGA monitors.

"You can't see the eyes of the demon, until him come callin'."

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