Prey Fan Reviews

[Xenomrph]

Just watched the movie. Non-spoiler review: it's good, I liked it.

Spoiler

It was a slow burn at first but I was largely okay with it. I'm not sure how necessary it was because unlike the slow(ish) burn in 'Predator' before the Predator starts murdering people, that burn is full of the characters interacting with each other and building personalities and relationships. In 'Prey' it was kind of a lot of either the Predator doing random stuff or Naru by herself doing random stuff, and most of Naru's stuff didn't feel super necessary because we got the point pretty quickly that she's capable and innovative. I was hoping we'd get some character development and we got hints of it with the interactions with her brother and mother, but then all of the other characters were nameless, faceless cannon fodder who barely had personalities. Kind of a waste - as all over the place as 'The Predator' was, even that one took the time to have the characters interact with each other and play off each other and even have names.

The Predator was a COLOSSAL badass, when he goes apeshit on the French trappers it was pretty f**king bananas.

REALLY not a fan of the Predator's face design. Like I mean I guess you can make the case that Predators don't all look the same (and 'The Predator' even intended to demonstrate that with the two Emissary Predators, who looked pretty different) but the one in this movie just looked.... weird. Like the only thing that made it look like a Predator were the mandibles and the dreadlocks, everything else was different and I don't think it needed to be. Even the Super Predators from 'Predators' looked more in-line with mainline Predators, and they were pretty different.

[close]

Not my favorite Predator movie, not better than the first two, I'd probably rank it alongside 'Predators' (caveat: I like 'Prey' and 'Predators' for different reasons, they are very different movies).

[SuperiorIronman]

Spoiler

I'm going to have to sit with this but for now, I liked it. I just don't love it.

A lot of my dislike of it is tied up with how much Feral sucks as a villain. Amber is fantastic, but this is a horror movie that keeps trying to be a monster movie. We need to see Feral less. We need to build suspense with him before we show him off as simply revealing him in cloak is still too much as worse the CGI seldom looks good. Like it's not bad, it's passable. But when the cloak isn't being goofy the visual doesn't work and we can still see too much of him. And yeah the face sucks. It's the only face I'd genuinely call bad since it looks like a Boov morphed with a Predator and I don't know who to blame for that. ADI for not being able to make that look scary, or Dan Tracthenberg for wanting it in the first place.

The masked head I like a lot. That looks intimidating but when it comes off, no. I think had he gone the whole film with it on he'd have looked better. It's just a creepier visual with the mask on that's ruined by the goofy bastard underneath.

But otherwise his armament is just weird alien shit to be weird alien shit. The entire fight with the "white men" is pretty much to be toyetic. Like why does he have these? The spear gun is cool if not completely f**king stupid in practice but I think it's cool. The spear doubling for a two-handed weapon is cool (no complaints there, that was genuinely a neat idea). I like the usage of the shield. It's really all the good things I can say about them. But frankly while it works for the ending.., why did he fire the spear gun? Like he knows how that thing works right? He'd been using it the whole hunt right? Knowing his mask is off and that the laser will send the spear at what it's aiming at, why did he think he could hit Naru? Even if the mask wasn't aiming at him, why did he think that'd work? That gun is a f**king liability.

Feral's body language is something. Like for the character design just casually striding doesn't work. But when Feral is CGI (cloak or jumping through trees) its good. Dane either didn't know how to do it, or Dan was not able to direct him. Hell, they both could be at fault. And if Dane was doing the CGI Feral, well he should've been doing that while visible. I admit this one might require a second viewing for me to properly appreciate, but I do think past-performers did better.

_____________________________________

Otherwise why is Adolini here? Oh right, he's here because they wanted a named white guy. That's it. The pistol could've been given by anybody, but it's only here to make a connection to a movie from thirty years ago and to suggest Naru after all that is about to get her shit pushed in given the credits say they met more immediately following this. The "white men" are here to be gross, push a body count, and make a wholly unsatisfying retcon to the lore. Not that it changes the pirate origin, but because Adolini is kind of here. Like they know about Feral but he showed up like a day or two ago meaning Feral had an eventful evening. But otherwise they serve little purpose. I think something more unique is if they found the remains of the camp, and that's where they got the pistol. You can still have the fight with them but there's no reason to have Adolini here beyond it simply being where Naru gets the gun. After thirty years of speculation and that comic, Adolini is like, some guy. He gets stepped on by a Predator and immediately gutted. So it's not satisfying for lore, nor does it need to be here as it's only here to be body count for the trailer. Yay?

_______________________________-

This is not a bad movie, it's just a flawed movie with a villain whose not even as scary or cool as any of the ones that preceded it.

B- purely on the grounds that it's story is good, it's villain just sucks. C+ coming into it with the expectation the lore changes would be as good if not better than what came before and it it's not.

[close]

[SiL]

There's a lot to love in the film, but also a lot to be underwhelmed by, which is why it sits squarely at Predators territory for me. For everything I didn't like there's something I enjoyed and vice versa.

[St_Eddie]

Boring first act, excellent middle act and terrible last act. The callback lines ("If it bleeds, we can kill it" and "Come on! Do it!") were eye rolling. Also, it made zero sense how Naru figured certain things out, such as the fact that the predator uses heat vision to see its targets and that the predator's helmet uses a homing targeting system. The ending was abrupt and anti-climatic.

It was a very well directed movie though and there were a few very good scenes during the middle act. For what it's worth, I'd rate this as the third best predator movie (after Predator and Predator 2) but there's a sizeable gulf between those movies and this one. Overall, I rate the movie as a 6/10.

[Crazy Rich]

I really enjoyed this movie overall, it has it's flaws but in this case I feel like the good points outweigh the bad points so I didn't notice the latter as much and had a consistently enjoyable experience. Considering how downhill the movies were going prior PREY is a breath of fresh air.

[SiL]

Also, it made zero sense how Naru figured certain things out, such as the fact that the predator uses heat vision to see its targets and that the predator's helmet uses a homing targeting system. The ending was abrupt and anti-climatic.

She gives Adolini the drug that cools his blood and realises the Predator can't see him afterwards. She takes the same drug later to the same effect.

[SuperiorIronman]

Spoiler

I feel like the targeting system made sense for her to know. She was there when Feral shot the guy earlier in the film and at the camp. Informed guess, but the targeting made sense for her to know. She also watched Adolini go unnoticed until he got stepped on and its established people go cold with the kind of medicine she uses.

My problem with it however is that Feral should know how the targeting system works. Which even if the laser wasn't aimed at him, it still wasn't aimed at Naru. Meaning the spear is going any place that isn't Naru.

Actually as an aside, what the f**k even is this gun? I get the idea, you can aim the spear. But what practical usage does this have? He still has to follow the target for the spear to follow. But the spear while can miss, it also goes too fast to alter course. So why is this function here? Further why wouldn't this be on the gun itself? Further, this is his first trip here and instead of bringing a gun that shoots, he brought a gun with an extra step to hitting his target.

[close]

[Nightmare Asylum]

Not sure if anyone's mentioned it, there are a lot of pages to this thread, but A+ Wilhelm Scream use.

[SiL]

Not sure if anyone's mentioned it, there are a lot of pages to this thread, but A+ Wilhelm Scream use.

The only thing goofier was the opening titles

[oduodu]

And there were so many trees he could've been hiding in! When I saw the forest setting in the trailers I was like "Great, trees, plenty of places to hide and drop down from."

I can't remember a single attack launched from a high vantage point. Everything was just walking up to people or standing in front of them.

Predator 2 at least had the excuse of closed quarters.

one of the mysteries of the first movie was how the predator moved through the trees with no noise no trees bending etc. the only thing we saw i think if i remember correctly was that in one scene the when the pred jumped from one tree to the next while cloaked he seems to be able to stand parallel to the ground. like his cloaking device not only bends light but gravity as well. anyways i dont known how this movie handles that aspect but his movement on the ground and not being in the trees limits the mystique and makes this pred fell less intelligent and playing with his prey. imo anyway.

[PAS Spinelli]

JH had gone to Earth many times, this is Feral's first time there, he did use the trees a bit too

[Xenomrph]

Boring first act, excellent middle act and terrible last act. The callback lines ("If it bleeds, we can kill it" and "Come on! Do it!") were eye rolling. Also, it made zero sense how Naru figured certain things out, such as the fact that the predator uses heat vision to see its targets and that the predator's helmet uses a homing targeting system.

As mentioned she sees the flowers' cooling effect and how the Predator can't see the trapper she had just dosed, and in the scene when her brother fights and distracts the Predator after knocking its mask off, she sees how the homing laser works.

[CANNON]

I have to say..

I would of taken this movie for what it is. I truly would have. The movie did a great job establishing itself as a good predator movie.

 But... why do they need to do Stan Winston a disservice and disrespect him by changing his design.

I mean what the hell, honestly, why did they need to change the face!?... it takes all validity away.

It's unfortunate I'll never see another predator movie with predator in it.

[St_Eddie]

Also, it made zero sense how Naru figured certain things out, such as the fact that the predator uses heat vision to see its targets and that the predator's helmet uses a homing targeting system. The ending was abrupt and anti-climatic.

She gives Adolini the drug that cools his blood and realises the Predator can't see him afterwards. She takes the same drug later to the same effect.

I get that but it doesn't make any sense.  Why wouldn't she assume that the predator wasn't attacking Adolini simply because he was playing possum?  What on Earth lead her to jump to the conclusion that it was because he was cold?

[oldpainless]

I think that this movie had good ideas but ultimately two things ruined it or me

1. Mary Sue main character, basically all the other characters in the film including the predator only exist to be patronized by Naru
2. The face and the design of the feral predator is just absolutely garbage, really offensive for a predator fan

On the positive side I liked some scenes like the figth of the Predator against the french guys

overall another lost opportunity for the franchise