For It Is Man's Number: prey

Showing posts with label prey. Show all posts

Tuesday, 9 August 2022

Prey (2022)

Here we are then, with the latest film in the Predator series and the latest film that everyone and their cousin seemed to prioritise as a viewing over the weekend. It is also the latest film to come along on a wave of hyperbole from people who saw it first and seemingly wanted their reaction to be the most positive one that helps promote it. Because this isn’t as good as either the first or second movie, despite what many were saying, but it’s very good, and easily takes the third spot in my personal ranking of the main Predator movies.

It’s 1719 and Naru (Amber Midthunder) is a young Comanche woman who wants to pass a trial that will allow her to be recognised as a great hunter, just like her brother (Taabe, played by Dakota Beavers). With a great skillset, but also a few major tricks to learn, Naru, and her dog (Sarii), soon finds that she is the one about to be hunted. But can she turn the tables on the predator?

There’s plenty to enjoy here, not least of which is the gorgeous visual style throughout (with a number of scenes slowing the camera to pull back and show the full beauty of certain moments). Director Dan Trachtenberg, who also worked on the story with writer Patrick Aison, does a great job of establishing a strong main character, an interesting environment, and a number of situations that feel different to what we have seen previously, yet boil down to some very similar key points.

The special effects are generally of a high standard (although some poorly-executed animals were a bit off-putting, especially when it felt unnecessary to dwell on some of them for so long), the kills are decent, and there are a good few nods to other films in the series. Just be willing to forgive the dire delivery of the iconic “if it bleeds, we can kill it” line.

What works against it? Well, a lack of originality for one thing. The time period and setting are well-used, but this once again boils down to a predator hunting humans in a jungle, which is the main premise for the majority of the films in this series. It also feels strangely neutered at times, with the gore and bloodshed often just cut away from in a way that feels a bit clumsy, and gives me the impression that there is a stronger cut out there somewhere. And then we have Chekhov’s assortment of plot accessories, all just a bit too obvious, which leaves viewers one or two steps ahead of the main character for most of the runtime. Most movies do this, it’s not the biggest cinematic sin, but two main features here had me rolling my eyes and counting the minutes until they made a significant reappearance. And I am yet to receive a satisfactory answer to why the Predator would stumble across a group of armed men who could have very easily been perceived as a threat . . . but he chooses to just leave that encounter without them even knowing he was there. Answers on a postcard please, and you cannot just say “plotting”.

Bonus points for the cast though, with the Native American people (I BELIEVE the majority of the cast were Comanche) represented in a way that showcases their community and strength. Beavers may not be the best secondary player, but this movie belongs to Midthunder anyway, and she holds your attention for every minute that she’s onscreen. There are other people doing decent work, including Dane DiLiegro as the Predator, but the other star of the show in the dog. If this film featured only Midthunder, the Predator, and that talented doggo then I probably would have enjoyed it just as much. In fact, it might have been a better film, because there are a bunch of French Trappers introduced into the plot in a way that feels like an obvious route to increasing the bodycount.

I have only gone out of my way to list some of the negatives here to show some balance. The fact is that none of these things were bad enough to ruin the film for me. They were there though, small things to nitpick over once I started to mull over what I had just watched. Overall, however, what I had just watched was a superior entry in a movie series that hasn’t ever really let me down. Some are a bit worse than others, I think we can all agree that The Predator was a weak entry (although a rewatch might be in order), but this easily belongs alongside the better instalments.

P.S. be sure to watch all of the end credits, which are a nice treat.

P. P. S. The “Comanche cut” is available on Disney+ if you press the button that takes you to Extras before pressing play on the movie.

P. P. P. S. I may as well link to my review of Predators here (ignore any spelling or grammar errors I can no longer edit).

8/10

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Wednesday, 27 October 2021

Prime Time: Prey (2016)

Having delivered a wide variety of movies over the past four or five decades, writer-director Dick Maas is someone who certainly likes to create stories around high concepts. He's done a killer lift movie, which he also remade into one of my favourite "bad" movies (Down), Amsterdamned is a late eighties slasher set amongst the canals of Amsterdam, Sint shows a bad side of St. Nicholas, and here we have Prey, a film all about a large lion that has decided to pad around Amsterdam and eat some of the citizens.

The plot to this one is covered in that last sentence. Seriously. That's it. Sophie van Winden plays Lizzy, an expert called in to help the investigation. Mark Frost is a wheelchair-bound hunter who may be able to help. And there are some other people who are on hand to try trapping the dangerous big cat. This isn't a film about anything else though. In the way that Mark Kermode argues that Jaws is not about the shark, Prey is about nothing more than the man-eating lion. And, also unlike that classic shark movie, Maas isn't ever really coy about showing the central creature, not after a decent bit of teasing for most of the first act. That doesn't mean that the special effects stand up to such exposure.

First of all, it is worth noting that the only version of this I could find to watch was dubbed. Unless it is an animated movie or a martial arts movie from the ‘60s, ‘70s or ‘80s, dubbing is never the way I like to watch any non-English movies. It definitely works against Prey, with no characters able to deliver any emotion or nuance in their vocal deliveries, but that wouldn’t be so harmful to the film if the rest of it was consistently silly and entertaining.

It’s certainly silly, but it’s never as entertaining as it could be. The opening third of the movie, where the main characters are a few more steps behind the lion, which we see taking down prey with a mix of audio cues and sudden sprays of blood, ends up being the best part. A chase that shows a food delivery driver being hunted marks the end of that particularly fun portion of the film, to me, and shows the lion in all its glory, but also shows up the imperfect fakery of it.

Van Winden isn’t a bad lead, and she does an admirable job of trying to sell the terrible dialogue and character interactions. Frost gets to barge into the film and be a much bigger personality than anyone else onscreen, which makes him a welcome presence. Julian Looman is the third main character, and he’s one of those people who ends up with a much better fate than he deserves.

Maas certainly tries to have fun with the core idea, and that’s clear in a couple of main set-pieces, but he doesn’t have enough fuel in the tank to get much further than the halfway point. The third act, which should be tense and fun and more entertaining, is just surprisingly dull. Although there’s a final few minutes before the end credits roll that are better than anything else in the entire second half.

Not unwatchable, and I can imagine it being much better in a subtitled version, but Prey is a lot less simple fun than I expected it to be. And I can be very easily pleased.

4/10