I agree Harrigan as a character doesn't have much in the way of character development. He begins and end the movie pretty much the same person, albeit losing his subordinates along the way except for María Conchita Alonso's* character "Leona", thanks to the Predator sparing her due her pregnancy.
Another flaw to point out in the movie was the over-the-top non-stop swearing. Almost all the characters in the movie have to say "F*ck" or "Sh*t" every 5 second in the movie. Its like a teenager wrote those dialogue based on his idea of what hardened tough guys talk like. But rather than convey their toughness, the constant profanity makes all the characters sound a bit comical. I can't help but laugh out a loud when that elderly lady tells Harrigan that the Predator "doesn't give a sh*t". Reminds me of how Game of Thrones have to show sex and nudity on screen almost every 5 minutes per episode to maintain viewer attention (yes I know there were
lots of sex and nudity in the novels, but the HBO adaptation sometimes do it
way too much...still an overall good series worth watching except the last season).
Maybe it would have been written off as yet another excessively violent 80's movie if it was the the first Predator movie, a sort of less successful "Robocop" styled movie. But that's not the most important thing for me.
What
really matters is that Predator 2 is a
fun movie I enjoyed watching that also adds to the lore of the Predator franchise. It has a certain...how I should I say...wild energy characteristic of late 80's to early 90's action movies. I mean, its hard to imagine a mainstream Hollywood movie made today that has Jamician voodoo gangs, Colombian drug lords, alien hunter, dubious government agents from a secret agency, insane out-of-control cop and the late Morton Downey Jr. parodying his own "trash tv" persona as the in-your-face TV journalist Bill Pope. But Predator 2 had that all in one movie.
*Speaking of María Conchita Alonso, for some reason whenever I watch her in Predator 2, it reminds me of her character in that 80's Arnie movie "The Running Man". Maybe its because she has a similar hair style in both movies.
