Prey Fan Reviews

[newagescamartist]

Rose tinted glasses I genuinely think.

For me it's taste. Robocop is my favorite movie of all time. But my second favorite movie of all time is Upstream Color so go figure 

Getting off topic though. I watched Predators again last night. That's such a hard movie for me to peg. I genuinely like the performances from Brody, Grace, Braga, and Ozawa. The Predators look amazing when they're wearing their masks. It has the best kill in any Predator movie ( Stans, rip ), but there's just something about it that doesn't elevate it. If any movie in the series feels like The Force Awakens it's Predators imo. Just feels beat for beat in a way. I watched it again to make sure I was ranking Prey correctly. I can definitely say that for me, Prey is better than Predators.

[SiL]

I think they're about equal. They're flawed in different ways. There's plenty to like in both of them but for me they both lack that special sauce that makes them something great.

 The acting is inconsistent, the writing is often clunky in both, they both somehow reuse too much and too little. It's weird.

[DaddyYautja]

It's not. I adore Predator 2 it's a fun movie, but to be pretentious here, Prey and Predator are films.

Prey's script is a total mess.  They drop info which the films ignores the very next scene.  The French know how the pred hunts,  no explanation how they got this,  and on the very next scene they setup a trap in a way that's the complete opposite in how the pred hunts.  Two people tied to a tree bleeding.  Do the French know this Pred is also super dumb? How?

[BlueMarsalis79]

You mean Raphael Adolini's hypothesis that he imparts to Naru, when he's clearly not the leader, or listened to all that much?

It's also heavily implied that the explosion in the forest Naru sees that puts her off kilter when facing the mountain Lion's the Fur Trappers fighting the Predator, being that they are said to have encountered it before, it's a obvious connection of the dots present. 

[DaddyYautja]

You mean Raphael Adolini's hypothesis that he imparts to Naru, when he's clearly not the leader, or listened to all that much?

Where do you get the idea he's not listened to all? He walks up to the boss and asks him to get info from her and the boss says sure.

The only thing we get of him interacting with the boss is the boss listening to him.

It's also heavily implied that the explosion in the forest Naru sees that puts her off kilter when facing the mountain Lion's the Fur Trappers fighting the Predator, being that they are said to have encountered it before, it's a obvious connection of the dots present. 

How is it heavily implied? all we get is a roar and his cloak sparking like it always sparks from hits.  If the pred met the French at that moment why isn't he attacking them through the whole film? instead we get him messing around with animals and only meeting them by chance because he chased some one into their camp.

There is no solid info in any degree that shows how the French know so much.

[Lt. Lurker]

I'm getting the impression it's relatively well regarded around here, but I'd never have generally thought Predator 2 was that overhyped / overrated, if anything probably underrated and not widely liked. I personally like it a lot but I'd agree that it's probably more a "fun film" than a "good film". For me though, that over the top, Robocop-esque, hyperviolent world is exactly why it works. It makes it memorable. That and Danny Glover and Bill Paxton carry it.

Prey may be a more competent and technically better made film, though even that i'd maybe dispute based on the CGI, but it's boring and pretentious. It takes itself too seriously for most of the film, then throws in a whole bunch of dumb non characters in just to be killed off by a dumb monster to make the main character look better by comparison.

I'm sure it's blasphemy to say, but I actually enjoyed The Predator more. It was a trainwreck, but i genuinely found it quite funny and entertaining for the first half. That's my lasting impression. With Prey it's like "Um, well the cinematography was nice and uh..." Anyway, I'm not here to hate on anyone who loves it, and didn't even hate the film, i just found it so..."meh". So the idea that it would be comparable to (or even better than) P2 is just a bit out there for me.

[BlueMarsalis79]

I get it from the very next scene, where the leader's displayed to be a complete violent belligerent oaf of a man and they set it up in a way to capture the Predator which they partially succeed in with the net, but ultimately underestimate it.

Meaning either Raphael Adolini underestimated it by leaving the best Prey as bait to make it investigate them, or the leader did, we never get clarification.

It's clear they have encountered Feral before in some capacity otherwise how would they even know of the thing's existence?

Feral did not consistently attack the Fur Trappers for I thought anyway fairly self explanatory reasons, the same reason he did not attack Naru and Taabe's party immediately, but instead left a man for dead who they rescue near the lion's den early in the film, and also the same reason it skinned the snake alive, to play with his food because it is a Predator.

[SiL]

Feral didn't leave the guy in the mountain lion's den, the mountain lion did.

Once Feral starts killing people the movie starts moving along a bit breathlessly and never lets any tension rise. We go from the massacre of the French to the final fight without letting the audience resettle and the tension to build back up, making the whole thing feel perfunctory.

The dialogue is stilted but lacks the hyperrealistic tone or scenery chewing deliveries of the original to make it work. Taabe and Naru talking about their hunts by the stream was not great.

[SiL]

We have no idea if it did that intentionally or if the mountain lion just sensed it and vacated.

[BlueMarsalis79]

It scared away the mountain lion, as Naru surmises later, that's what I mean by Feral left him there but did not go after the lion, the only reason to do that's to f**k with people, to observe. That Naru actually notices him doing before she gets knocked out and thrusts with her spear.

That's absolutely not true, we go from the massacre to rescuing Sarii, to Raphael Adolini's death, to Taabe's death and long enough mourning Taabe, then to the stream and the final fight.

I think the dialogue's just fine, that initial conversation's the film's worst acting though, but the best more than makes up for it frankly. The way Taabe says "I did." But you can tell he's just trying to hurt Naru and protect her at that point and does not really mean it, to then come around by the point they are both tied up's great stuff if you ask me. "You see what I miss, you always have."

[SiL]

It scared away the mountain lion, as Naru surmises later, that's what I mean by Feral left him there but did not go after the lion, the only reason to do that's to f**k with people, to observe. That Naru actually notices him doing before she gets knocked out and thrusts with her spear.

As I said above, we don't know if it intentionally scared off the mountain lion. Or what it was doing in the trees.

That's absolutely not true, we go from the massacre to rescuing Sarii, to Raphael Adolini's death, to Taabe's death and long enough mourning Taabe, then to the stream and the final fight.

Yes, we go from action to action to action to a brief pause of mourning, then we just plow through the setup into the finale.

Compare with Predator, which takes a good breather to show Dutch setting up and Jungle Hunter cleaning his trophies and lets us really amp up for the final fight.

to then come around by the point they are both tied up's great stuff if you ask me.

I maintain Beavers was at gunpoint to deliver "If it bleeds, we can kill it". Awful delivery but throwing that line in didn't deserve any better.

[BlueMarsalis79]

We can roughly surmise what it is doing in the trees because we see it from a point of view in the prior scene when they find the snake though. It's observing in some capacity that much's clear, it does a lot of denoting of what's Predator and what's Prey early on. Even if you do not agree on the lion the skinning itself still proves my point.

It having different pacing does not make it superior or inferior though, just different, I genuinely felt more tension in the one scene of Naru hiding behind the tree when Raphael Adolini played dead than the other three films combined.

That line's not great, but on rewatch I didn't find it nearly as jarring, the dialogue directly before it and after it makes up for it.

[SiL]

We can roughly surmise what it is doing in the trees because we see it from a point of view in the prior scene when they find the snake though. It's observing in some capacity that much's clear, it does a lot of denoting of what's Predator and what's Prey early on. Even if you do not agree on the lion the skinning itself still proves my point.

The skinning shows he just straight up murders things as soon as he sees them do anything mildly interesting so I'm not sure how it proves the point he was observing and messing with anyone. Surely it would've killed the mountain lion if it ran into it.

It having different pacing does not make it superior or inferior though, just different,

Different in itself, no. But this is inferior pacing as it barges too quickly into the showdown. Let it breathe, let it build.

[BlueMarsalis79]

Whether he knew it would live or not's hardly the point though. He does not kill the Wolf immediately though, he waits for it to chase down the Rabbit so, the mountain lion never finished the job for whatever reason, being spooked or something.

I agree to disagree, I like that it does not waste time, although I could go for more as I like Naru, as I find her more interesting to watch than I found Dutch, he's in part just Arnold Schwarzenegger to me.

The pacing's just right for the film in my opinion.

[SiL]

Whether he knew it would live or not's hardly the point though.

Knew what would live? The snake?

It was dead. That was a reflex when it struck.