Welcome back to Dark Corners Streaming.
Streaming on Disney and Hulu, Prey, the latest instalment of the Predator franchise has a great premise,
putting the deadly alien hunter on the Northern Great Plains of America in the18th century
and pitting it against the Comanche.
I’d seen a lot of positive comments on this, I’m a big fan of the original, so I was looking forward to watching it,
but I have to admit to being disappointed.
Not that it’s a bad film and I did enjoy it for the most part.
It looks great.
Amber Midthunder as Naru has fantastic screen presence
and the action sequences are well-executed.
But it’s not what I want from a Predator film, specifically; it’s not tense.
What made the original Predator was that something unseen, unknown, stalking the characters, hunting them.
Prey blows the unknown angle really early on,
we see so much of the Predator, and not just us, Naru sees what she is up against so earlier and so clearly.
And while the inversion of the title and the play on who is the predator, who is the prey is clever,
it also reduces the direct threat.
Naru seldom feels in real danger.
Now, just to be clear, none of this is a mistake, they set out to make a horror action film,
and they’ve made a perfectly good one,
but I wanted an edge of the seat thriller – maybe that’s why it’s worked better for others than me.
Horror action movies are ten a penny,
films like Predator that exude tension from every pore are rare.
‘If it bleeds we can kill it’
I don’t want to sound excessively negative because this isn’t a bad film,
probably is the best Predator sequel but that’s because most of them are just bad and could never have been anything else,
this could, and the disappointment is almost worse than bad,
cos the film I wanted is right there, but all the edges have been taken off.
In a weird way, especially with its coming of age story, it does feel like the Disney Predator,
which is an odd thing to say cos it’s definitely not for kids,
but while there is violence, it doesn’t have a lot of impact.
People are hurt but it doesn’t affect them much, some characters are surprisingly blasé about losing a limb.
It feels smoothed over for a mass audience, which is rather summed up by the language.
‘I need to get me a horse’
It’s not just that they speak English,
they speak in a modern manner, and occasionally switch to Comanche
which makes you wonder what they’re speaking the rest of the time.
For my money they should have been speaking Comanche throughout,
and yes I know there is a Comanche dub, but it wasn't shot that way.
I don’t think it should have been subtitled, partly because, where is the point in this period, this setting if you don’t exploit it?
Mainly because, there is barely a line of this that could not be cut.
‘You have to find that cat now’
'I will.'
'I know, because you have to.'
Credit to director Dan Trachtenberg, the visuals tell the story beautifully,
it’s just a shame he didn’t let them.
But there’s also barely a line that should not be cut.
‘But there’s only one reason – to survive’
every theme is spelled out
‘Why do you want to hunt?’
‘Because you all think I can’t’
Every thought spoken aloud.
‘You killed the buffalo’
characters in immediate danger tell metaphorical stories to illustrate their point.
There are things I like about this film, and things that didn’t work for me personally but may for others.
The dialogue is just bad.
‘You really think you’re ready, you want to hunt something that’s hunting you’
Overall Prey is fine. But with that premise, it could have been great,
and I think they lacked the guts to push it.
Thanks for watching. I know I’m in the minority on this one so feel free to give us your feelings on the film in the comments below.