I had heard a lot of good buzz around Prey; the latest film in the Predator series of sci-fi/horror films. I can't say I really paid it too much attention, I assumed this was coming out at the cinema, a place I don't really visit anymore. It was a nice surprise then to see this was streaming on Disney+, seeing it there I just knew I had to check it out.
Prey takes place in 1719 and follows Naru (Amber Midthunder - Legion TV series), a member of the Comanche tribe. She yearns to be a hunter like her older brother, Taabe (Dakota Beavers) and the other men, yet she is expected to do the same jobs the females of the tribe are expected to do. Because of this, Naru is always out in the wilds practising, and it is while she is away that she witnesses a strange sight which she equates to a mythical creature called a thunderbird. In actuality it is a predator arriving in its spaceship (Dane DiLiegro - American Horror Stories TV series), an alien whose species exist only to hunt, and pride themselves on this fact. With the hunters of her tribe not believing her about this new deadly foe, Naru sets out alone to hunt down and destroy this threat to her people.
There have been so many bad entries in the Predator series that it isn't hard to argue that there had never been a decent film after 1987's Predator (entries such as Predators and The Predator were both shadows compared to the original). Prey finally breaks that trend thankfully and does so in a simple way, by stripping things back to basics. Maybe more so, the original had a squad of heavily armed soldiers out in a jungle, eventually coming down to a battle between Arnold Swarchenegger's character and the alien. Here you instead have an otherwise unremarkable young woman battling it out, instead of guns the character is armed with a flint axe and bow and arrows. This film not only goes against the increasingly outdated views of women as weak, but also tells an entertaining 'David vs Goliath' story. Of course, that also means the story is fairly bog standard, there isn't anywhere this goes that really surprised me, even if it did elicit some emotion out of me.
Despite this being about the Comanche tribe the characters all speak in English. Apparently there is a dub where they speak their native language with subtitles, I think I would have much preferred that. The English language does work however, mainly as there are no actual English speaking characters in the film. In addition to the alien itself there are a band of French speaking soldiers, they don't get subtitles which was a good thing, given the viewer the same perspective of them and their actions as the heroine (assuming you can't understand French). For a good portion of the film the Predator is cloaked, the effects used for this were always good, as they always have been. Leads to some fun chase sequences and fight scenes. There are plenty of people killed over the course of the film, in quite violent ways. There are no end of decapitations, and a nice sequence in a burnt clearing where the Predator gets to show off all its toys. The alien of course looks the part, all the sound effects you associate with it are present.
When I first saw the trailer I initially thought it was Predator vs cavemen which would have been great. Predator vs the people of the early 18th century was also a good shout though, showing that you don't need modern day or sci-fi settings to tell a good Predator tale (just got reminded me of a darkly comedic scene in here in which midfight the Predator patiently waits for a trio of soldiers to painstakingly reload their rifles before continuing the slaughter). The story may be basic, but it is well directed by Dan Trachtenberg (Black Mirror 'Playtest', 10 Cloverfield Lane) and gives us a compelling lead with the well chosen and likeable Midthunder. Prey can currently be streamed on Disney+.
SCORE:
No comments:
Post a Comment