[MacBlayne]

PREY

When it was announced that 10 Cloverfield Lane director Dan Trachtenberg would be helming a new Predator film, fans were cautious, but hopeful. The last film was a trainwreck, but Trachtenberg’s pitch sounded neat. Predator vs Native Americans in the 1700s. That’s a great pitch. Well, Prey is better than The Predator, but it’s not like it had to try very hard. Prey is not a bad film, but it's not a "masterpiece" either. Despite what the over-excited critics will have you believe, it’s a C, C+ at best.

So what happened? Why didn’t I like Prey as much as the critics? Let’s start with what Prey gets right – the premise. As mentioned, Prey has a superb setting. It’s the 1700s. A teenage girl with the Commanche tribe lives in the shadow of her warrior brother. While brother goes off hunting, she is expected to gather herbs and vegetables, and prepare medicines. However, what she wants more than anything else is prove herself as an equal hunter. Unfortunately, there is something else nearby wanting the same.

It’s a simple set-up, and Trachtenberg is wise enough to show Nova (Amber Midthunder) developing her strategies and methods. She’s not a brilliant warrior that excels at weapon handling. She fails. She practices. She fails again. She adjusts. This is great stuff, and is paid off in later scenes.

However, Prey suffers from issues that befall many modern genre films. This is not a screenplay filled with characters that feel of the era. This is Twitter. Dialogue is not about establishing comradery or motivations. It’s 2022 gender politics being thrown into the mouths of 18th century denizens. Characters are not shown to have strengths or weaknesses, but are used to show how much women suck, and then they pay for it in ultra-violent slapstick fashion.

This is a big problem with Prey. It tries so hard to woo the Twitter crowd, that it inadvertently carries a nasty element of misogyny. The lead is frequently belittled for being a woman, and is viciously slapped about because the film posits that it will be fine because she will become stronger. And its only when she adopts cruel barbarism that she becomes a STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER. And then the film has the audacity to look down on women who would rather not follow such a path.

I’m sorry for getting all “woke/unwoke” there, but this really soured my viewing experience. It’s nasty, and celebrates a side of humanity that really doesn’t need celebrating. It’s not the capacity for violence that offends me, but the notion that cruelty and torture makes you a better person.

Anyways, back to the rest of the film. There wasn’t much else that engaged. The acting is okay. Critics are running out of superlatives to describe Midthunder’s performance. She’s fine, but she feels more like a California teen doing cosplay. Imagine Aubrey Plaza fighting the Predator in a sketch show, and that is Midthunder. The rest of the cast are serviceable but unmemorable.

The visuals are ugly. It’s that Terrence Malick wannabe meets flat, digital photography that tries to cover their deficiencies by slapping an ugly brown filter over the entire film. The night time scenes are shockingly bad, with me rubbing my eyes trying to figure out what was happening. We’re talking AvP2 bad. Is it too much to ask that when lighting, light the actors' faces? Trachtenberg proves to be rather amateurish when it comes to blocking. The cinematography is not used to provide atmosphere, or subtly hint at storytelling. It just records, and moves on. The CGI is also rather sloppy. Not something I would harp on too much, but there are moments that could have been easily done as practical. But I suppose this laziness befits the direction and photography. The action is passable. It never becomes exciting or innovative.

I was crushed by Prey. I was so hyped for it based on the premise alone. Sadly, it’s product designed to appeal to social media, so that the viewing link can be shared to future customers. The acclaim the film has gotten has proven my suspicions about critics today. Critics do not watch films to engage with them, to develop new ideas, thoughts, or sensations. Instead, films are something the critics sees in between the moments they look up from their phones, or look at the mini-player in the corner of their computer screens. Hardly anything in Prey feels human, nor does anything engage beyond the surface.

At least the dog was awesome!