Philadelphia Daily News from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 50

PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS Friday, June 12. 1987 Page 50 nn i 1 UlW what's happening. "The jungle she postulates. "It came alive and took him." Soldier Billy (Sonny Landham) begs to differ. "There's something out there waiting for us," he says pessimistically, "and it ain't no man.

We're all gonna die." "Only in the hottest years this happens," Anna continues, a real blabbermouth by this film's standards. "We find them sometimes without their skins. And sometimes much worse." Strangely, nobody thinks to ask her. "Much worse? Much worse than without their skins? Are you kidding or what?" Although it could stand to lose a few pounds from its mid-section, "Predator" benefits greatly from a strong cast and an exceptional monster. Designed by Stan Winston the Predator spends some of its time as a prismatic creature of light, reflecting the jungle itself.

As the film continues, it transforms itself into flesh and bone and finally reveals its face. Jt looks tike a wart hog that never flosses. We're not even going to talk about breath. Schwarzenegger, who is not allowed to show as much warmth and humor in this film as he did in "Commando" (my personal Arnold fave), turns in a clean, understated performance that generously allows his more flamboyant supporting players to shine particularly retired pro wrestler Jesse "The Body" Ventura as a tobacco-spitting soldier of fortune and Carl "Apollo Creed" Weathers as a devious CIA man with a heart of guilt. Sad-eyed Bill Duke contributes a neurotic rendition of Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally" that turns out to be the movie's most affecting special effect.

Parental guide: Rated for large doses of violence and enough exposed internal body parts to make a medical student queasy. Jack Nicholson with help from the devil in "Witches of Eastwick" THE DEVIL IN JACK NICHOLSON LAAJ SCHWARZENEGGER "Predator," a sci-fi male-action thriller starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers. Written by Jim Thomas and John Thomas. Directed by John McTiernan. Produced by Lawrence Gordon, Joel Silver and John Davis.

Creature created by Stan Winston. Running time: 114 minu tes.A 20th Century-Fox release. At area theaters. By DAN GERINGER Daily News Staff Writer JL redator," the new Arnold Schwarzenegger macho-action adventure, is a shot gun marriage of two very different popcorn-movie formulas. On the one hand, you got your Tough Guys On A Deadly Military Mission In The Hostile Jungle scenario in which your stubble and your big cigars and your sweaty biceps and your frequent machine gunnings figure prominently.

On the other hand, you got your Incredibly Hostile Alien From Outer Space scenario in which your Incredibly Hostile Alien is, like, impossible to stop and cannot provide you with a motive for why it kills because, one, it only talks Neptunese or something and, two, the whole subject of why it kills is, like, so boring to anyone except movie critics that, like, why bother? Besides, it never told Sigourney Arnold Schwarzenegger (third from i I MEETS BIGFOOT Weaver so why should it tell you? "Predator'' starts out as the Deadly Military Mission movie. Schwarzenegger is feeling fine and looking, like, totally Arnold with his dark shades and his unshaven chin and his fat cigar and his black gloves with the fingers cut off and his terse morality: "We're a rescue team. Not assassins." His name is Dutch and his specialty is leading his five cohorts Mac, Blain, Billy, Poncho and Hawkins on covert rescue missions. Call them The Dirty Half Dozen. Call them The Magnificent Six.

But dont call them anytime soon because while they are stalking guerrillas in the Central American jungle, the Predator from outer space is stalking them. We know something's wrong long before they do because we are alternately on the ground with them and up in the treetops watching them through the Predator's heat-sensitive vision. Then the Predator starts skinning people and blowing their heads up and spreading their insides all over the jungle floor. (Doing lunch is not a good idea either immediately preceding or following this film.) After one of his guys has been Predatorized, Schwarzenegger asks Anna (Elpidia Carrillo), the beautiful-but-difficult captured guerrilla woman, if she has any theories as to the left) stalks a creature from verse, woman-hating, spoiled brat possessed of bestial sexual appetites and the worst taste in clothes this side of an Atlantic City lounge act Capable of causing pain, suffering and death during his temper tantrums, he simply cannot understand why the women he is hurting have stopped accepting his dinner invitations. "You gals," he whines to Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer.

"We're a family." He puts a curse on Pfeiffer that almost kills her, then asks her pal Cher for "a little affection, a tittle trust All I know is, we were friends and the next minute I was shut out Everything I did, I did for you." He nouts. He sulks. He wears his haiiKin a butchered ponytail and his heart on his sleazy satin sleeve. He slinks around his mansion in cheap red slippers with thin crepe soles. His ties are bad, his come-ons worse.

"My," he tells Pfeiffer, a suburban mother of six, upon first meeting her, "you are a fertile creature, aren't you?" Pfeiffer, Cher and Sarandon play three sexually frustrated, small town New Englanders who eat too many Cheez Whiz on Wheat Thins sandwiches and drink too many martinis one rainy night and begin yearning for "a foreign prince on a big black horse." Instead, they get the Prince of Darkness in a big black Mercedes. He seduces them all. They move into his mansion, eat his elaborate fruit salads, play in his roomful of pink balloons. Then he starts hurting them and they discover that, united, they are possessed of unearthly powers of their own. Eventually, all hell breaks loose.

"Eastwick" is blessed with an unusually well-written screenplay by Michael 'The Shadow Box" Cristofer and strong supporting performances by all three of its witches, especially Sarandon whose seduction while playing the cello is a small masterpiece of comic invention. Nicholson, however, is the reason to go. In a film that occasionally trips over its supernatural technical tricks, Nicholson proves to be the greatest special effect of them all. Parental Guide: Rated for four-letter language and macabre effects that will frighten children. The Witches of Eastwick," a supernatural comedy-drama starring Jack Nicholson, Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer.

Directed by George Miller. Produced by Neil Canton, Peter Guber and Jon Peters. Screenplay by Michael Cristofer, Based on John Updike's novel. Running Time 121 minutes. Presented by Warner Bros, at area theaters.

By DAN GERINGER Daily News Staff Writer ttired in a quilt-like shirt of AJ brilliant reds, blues and myX greens, Australian director George "Mad Max Trilogy" Miller sat in a posh Park Avenue hotel suite recently, attempting to put into words his feelings about Jack Nicholson satanic star of Miller's supernatural comedy-drama, "The Witches of Eastwick." "When you think about a man dressed in a pink cape," Miller said, "with feathers all over him, bursting into a New England church in the middle of a service, ranting and raving about the devil and women while occasionally vomiting cherry pits on members of the congregation, well Miller shook his curly head, fingered his slate gray bowtie, laughed nervously. "I mean," he continued, "it takes someone who is totally fearless to pull off something like that." Fearless doesnt begin to describe the hilarious, schizophrenic, horrific-yet-somehow-lovable Satan that Nicholson delivers in "The Witches of Eastwick." In his finest efforts "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," "Five Easy Pieces," "Chinatown," "Terms of Endearment" and "Prizzi's Honor" Nicholson has perfected his portrayal of the smart-mouthed, devoutly cynical burnout still capable of being a sap for a dame. In "Eastwick," whiclTopens today at area theaters, he takes that character further than he has ever taken it before. His eyebrows alone, which he works like snakes in a carnie sideshow, deserve an Oscar nomination and billing above the title. In a movie that is occasionally interrupted by needless Ghostbuster-ish special effects crazed tennis balls, flying co-stars, latex ghouls Nicholson evokes sympathy for the devil by portraying him as a per wjv ifev, mix another planet In ''Predator".