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Jaeger 2(released in North America as
Predator 2) is a 1995 German-American film and sequel to the wildly acclaimed
Jaeger. The film is the result of a partnership between the Steiner Brothers and Westmont Pictures, the American Federation‘s premier filmmaking institute. Martin McKee, a mid level executive at Westmont, was the driving force behind the partnership; back in 1991 following the release of the original film he’d met Johann Steiner’s nephew Kurt at a party being held in Ottawa to celebrate
Jaeger breaking the record for German films in North America on opening weekend. Kurt had recently been discharged from the Fallschirmjaeger-Division of the German Army while McKee had served in the 101st “Screaming Eagles” Airborne Division during his national service tour; the two young men had therefore hit it off immediately. McKee was a huge fan of
Jaeger, and he and Kurt spent much of the night bouncing ideas for a sequel off of each other. Westmont Pictures at the time had— and still has— one of the largest collections of demilitarized surplus military equipment in the world, and Kurt soon promised to get McKee in touch with his uncles. McKee pitched the idea of a sequel set in North America in order to cash in on the huge market the first film had generated; Johann and Franz Steiner were interested but had just committed to film
Ragnarok, a war film chronicling the last days of the Mosley regime in the Union of Britain, and thus the project was put onto the back burner until the spring of 1995.
Set during the “Scarlet Summer” of 1985 in the city of Chicago,
Jaeger 2 stars Darryl Graham as Detective Joseph Warren, a veteran and highly decorated detective desperately trying to stem the tide of violence in the city. Forty years after the Combined Syndicates of America had been crushed, remnant syndicalist terrorists had begun a new campaign of bombings and assassinations through Chicago and much of the Midwest. The summer of 1985 saw the worst of the carnage, with seemingly a new bombing every day. The film begins with a police raid on an apartment building thought to contain bomb making materials; the officers are met by a barrage of heavy gunfire as members of the New People’s Army insurgent group open fire; several police officers are killed and one is badly wounded and left out in the open, with a sniper firing from the top floor of the apartment building and pinning the police down as the insurgents retreat into their lair. An unseen figure watches as Detective Warren braves the sniper fire to successfully pull the wounded officer to safety; it then leaps from roof to roof in order to approach the target building. It pauses on top of a building next door to where Warren has taken cover with the wounded officer; he spots the strange glimmer from the hunter‘s active camouflage, but dismisses it as a trick of the light.
Suddenly, the sniper is hurled through a window and comes crashing down, minus his head, on top of a police cruiser; Warren organizes a second team consisting of himself and Detectives Sergio Gonzalez(Adam Martinez) Emily Brandt(Grace Bell) and Sean McCarthy(Owen Engels) to attempt a second push into the building as the sounds of intense gunfire and screams begin to emanate from the building; storming the apartment complex they find the New People’s Army insurgents slaughtered. A single survivor, missing an arm, hurls himself out a window in a blind panic after shrieking about a “demon from hell” attacking them as they‘d retreated through the building. The raid team discovers odd markings carved into one of the doors leading towards the roof, however, before they can investigate further, the rest of the CPD storms the building; Captain O’Rourke(Jim Tanner), the unit’s commanding officer, chews Warren out for taking an ”unnecessary risk“ by storming the building with only three other officers; he also announces that a group of agents from Washington DC are arriving to take over the crime scene and that therefore it is now off limits to local personnel. The order, unsurprisingly, doesn’t go over well with Warren or his team.
That night, the Hunter attacks a group of drug runners conducting a business deal in a warehouse; the gangsters prove to be no match for the Hunter and are slaughtered. Warren and his team arrive on the scene only to find their access blocked by a group of federal agents led by Agent Szymanski(Casmir Kowalski). The agents are seen dressed in biohazard suits and wielding radiation detectors; they are clearly searching for something. The refusal to allow the detectives onto the scene angers Warren— he gets into a scuffle with the arrogant Szymanski and gets sent back to station headquarters to calm down by Captain O’Rourke. Gonzalez, who hadn’t been with the main group, slips away and returns hours later, after the federal agents have left, to continue searching for clues. He discovers a bizarre spearpoint style object buried in part of the wall fifteen feet off the ground as well as additional markings carved into the rafters; however, the Hunter returns to the warehouse and begins to stalk him. After a several minute long cat and mouse sequence, the creature strikes, killing Gonzalez with its wristblades.
O’Rourke breaks the bad news the next morning to an angry Warren, introducing him to rookie Detective David Larson(Greg Mitchell) who was scheduled to be assigned to Warren’s special unit that day; Warren sees it as an attempt to replace Gonzalez and reacts poorly at first, while McCarthy and Brandt reassure Larson that it is nothing personal. Warren receives a lead from forsenics that Gonzalez’s killer had been in a warehouse at the dockyards; he heads down to the site along with Larson, with Warren asking Brandt and McCarthy to meet them there. The Hunter intervenes when a trio of men try to rob passengers on a L train car; several of the passengers pulls their own guns, and in the confusion everyone in the car is killed, either by the Hunter or by stray gunfire. A lucky shot from one of the dying robbers damages the Hunter’s active camouflage unit, causing the creature to remain at least mostly visible for the rest of the film.
Down at the dockyards Warren and Larson discover numerous federal agents setting a trap for the Hunter; Szymanski angrily orders Warren and Larson disarmed and taken prisoner. Meanwhile, McCarthy and Brandt, en route to the docks, are ambushed by a New People’s Army hit squad; McCarthy is hit multiple times while covering Brandt. Just as Brandt runs out of ammunition and it looks like they will be overrun, the Hunter intercedes, slaughtering the surviving New People‘s Army hitmen and sparing Brandt and the badly wounded McCarthy. It then disappears as Captain O’Rourke and numerous police and medical personnel arrive; Brandt informs them about Warren‘s planned trip to the docks and leads them there.
Down at the docks, the Hunter uses its wristblades to damage the warehouse’s heating/cooling system, causing a dense mist to fill the building; the creature uses this for cover and slaughters the federal agents, including Szymanski. Warren and Larson manage to break free and, using assault rifles taken from dead agents, pursue the creature; they manage to wound it several times as they chase it into the network of scaffolding that makes up the building‘s upper levels. The Hunter manages to turn the tables, however, ambushing and beheading Larson as the two officers he split up. It then uses Larson’s voice to try and lure Warren into a trap; however, he manages to avoid the Hunter’s attack and engages it in brutal hand to hand combat. Ultimately Warren manages to knock the creature off the scaffolding ledge to the ground below, where it is impaled on a piece of pipe which had been damaged in its earlier fight with the federal agents; the creature eerily mimics human laughter as it dies. Warren notices a piece of gear on the Hunter’s body begin to glow, and numbers start flashing across it, almost like a countdown; he flees from the warehouse just in time as a massive explosion consumes the entire building, reducing everything inside to ash, just as the police and medical reinforcements arrive outside. Captain O’Rourke asks what happened there but Warren is unable to answer; helped by Brandt, he limps over to a medical vehicle to be treated for his injuries.
In an epilogue scene, Warren is drinking at a bar when Major Hans Gruber(Ernst Schwarzenegger) walks into the place and buys him another round of drinks; the conversation turns to the events of the past few days, and Gruber reveals that several years earlier he’d had a similar encounter in Sumatra. He tells Warren he knows he’s been suspended from the police force for violating orders and not being able to give Captain O’Rourke a clear answer on what happened at the dockyards, and offers him a job as part of a brand new organization dedicated to hunting down the Hunters. Gruber leaves a business card emblazoned with a stylized spear on the table as he leaves, and the movie ends with Warren picking it up and contemplating it.
Jaeger 2 wouldn’t quite match the success of the original, but it would become a popular movie in its own right, and it made a great deal of money at the box office for Westmont and the Steiner Brothers. The film is well liked amongst the fan community for largely establishing much of the lore surrounding the Hunters, as well as introducing interesting new plot elements. Ernst Schwarzenegger had been unable to appear in anything other than a cameo role due to scheduling conflicts, but many fans felt Darryl Graham more than pulled his own weight as the movie‘s lead. The film proved that the Jaeger franchise had lasting public interest and was not a “one hit wonder“.