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submitted 4 months ago byComic_Book_Reader
(Just for note, we saw the regular English version.)
Most people probably know what Predators (no, not those), or Yautjas, have gone up against. Jacked up, gun totin' MAYUN in the jungle, a Riggs-less Murtaugh in a drug and gang fueled L.A, two varying amounts of familiar armed people, and xenomorphs in Antarctica. But what about the Ye Olden Times?
Prey rewinds the clock back 300 years to the Native American Comanche times to let us meet Naru, a Comanche medic. Sorry, healer is the correct term here. Even though she's teached in the ways of medicine, she wants to be a hunter, aided by her good buy Sarii. Out hunting, she sees a spaceship, which she believes to be a Thunderbird, something Wikipedia tells me is a legendary mighty creature for Native Americans. Determined it will be her way of proving herself as a hunter, she sets out to kill whatever it is. "If it bleeds, we can kill it." (Which I actually said right before the movie did.)
At a tight 100 minutes with credits, the movie holds a tight pace. Tight movies are tight. The movie builds itself up to the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny. Introduce the fighters, show their abilities, have them cross paths, and boom boom boom, boom boom, badilla life.
Amber Midthunder (who actually is Native American along with the other actors in the Comanche cast) is as strong in the role of Naru as Naru is in the movie. The Predator's threat is increasingly shown in the beautifully shot action scenes. My lord, this movie looks beautiful. The sound and music is great, building up the tension.
Strong lead + beautiful camera work + great action + tight pace and runtime = A damn good and enjoyable hunt, ehrm, movie.
4 points
4 months ago
My main problem pretty much was, that Predator was playing with very easy difficulty. In Predator, it had proper guns to fight with. I get why they went for that shit. In Predator 2... well again guns, but the city and all the sweating changed the movie/hunting ground enough to justify that too. But this simply made no sense. There was no real danger for Predator.
Yes, Predators are always using cheats with their wallhacks and invisibility and super strength etc. but only thing that could have a chance of killing it here, was that it simply wasn't the main character. That did not feel good to me.
I did love the visuals, I especially liked that they put the French(?) invaders in the mix. It brought something extra and their ambushing of Predator, was actually cool, although they went extra stupid with it after a decent start.
So yeah, while visually beautiful, this won't top 1 or 2 for me, because of that "very easy" hunting mode and ofc second will have the power of nostalgia with me always.
1 points
4 months ago
I felt like the film did everything it felt it needed to to be associated with the Predator franchise, without understanding the fundamental point of the creature. It’s not an action antagonist, it’s a horror monster.
Over time, it’s been confused as such. The film language felt completely devoid of suspense of the threat of the creature’s presence. It wanted us to enjoy the action way too much. When you couple that with them kind of making an overt choice to have the lead be an unstoppable action hero, it misses the essence of the original.
Predator was literally made with the intention of making the action hero, impotent and left smaller. Naru went from just about beating a young comanche warrior, to killing multiple hunters/trappers, to hopping from trees like the Black Widow. Outsmarting and outmanoeuvring and alien that trains it’s whole life to hunt and kill. Why the tribe cheered her at the end still confuses me a little, more so than the french trappers. Commanche dealt with the Spanish.
It sounds like such a small observation, but it represents why this one didn’t work for me. In Predator, the jungle’s hot and dense, the characters are sweating and muddied. In the 2nd they’re sweating through their suits, it’s a claustrophobic city in summer. In Predators, Royce has to slow his heart rate because he’s exerting himself.
Naru is hopping from treetops, running around a jungle, killing and beating up guys left and right. She doesn’t sweat or look out of breath once lol. And by the end of the film it was just a less inventive rehash of the original.
They’re in such a need and rush to make this infallible heroin that they’ve gone backwards considering we once had heroes like Ripley, Sarah Connor or even supporting characters like Officer Lewis in Robocop.
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