I didn't realize this was a Predator movie the first time I saw the poster and thought this was some random horror movie but the positive buzz certainly didn't pass me by so here we are again. After watching it I'm certainly... shocked?
From the get go this did very little to pull me in, be it the CG animals, one-dimensional plot or the the selfish attitude of our heroine. Now obviously one can argue how much that all matters when the action is good but it didn't really scratch that itch for me either... the Predator fighting with the animals was certainly entertaining but random guys biting the bullet with mostly offcam/unclear CG gore not so much. [spoiler]Would have been nice if they showed some wits when they fought him at the camp but somehow him going invisible is enough reason to lower their weapons and start talking to each other. She saw how the camouflage works multiple times in action already..?!![/spoiler]
What all those scenes, and the movie poster for that matter, certainly established, is that our protagonist has little to worry and that a showdown was coming but I would never have predicted the amounts of bullshit that would contain:
[spoiler]- Somehow becomes a baller and expert in alien technology. Knows when the Predator is coming, takes her magic herbs to immediately lower her blood temperature (but is not shivering and still standing up) and is in the Predators path who obviously doesn't see a standing corpse right in front of it or notices her moving out of the way...
- Never used the gun but knows the right angle to shoot and remove his mask (betting on this being a weakness when this did little to stop it before).
- Gets to conveniently escape for the n-th time and has enough time to finish up some traps (which the Predator even hit on some random tree lol).
- Gets hit to the head twice from the shield that cut through the Predators limbs, spear and even stone but is unscathed.
- Can easily remove a fang attached to it's face to save herself just in time.
- GPS dog that always magically reappears is ready to bring her the tomahawk...
- Manages to sit on top of the Predator and even pull him into the bog with a tiny rope and a much much smaller statue.
- The Predator obviously submerges immediately, but little does it know of her the grand plan to have him placed at that exact LOS of the mask in anticipation that he is gonna fire from his gun (despite not having had his mask for the whole time) while he is already targeted by the laser the entire time... b r a v o. Obviously that one shot was also enough to kill it.
...
Honest to god - how does a movie with such a contrived finale get so much praise, or even leave the script writing phase??[/spoiler]

Very solid, easily the best summer movie of 2022 next to _Top Gun: Maverick_ (having not seen _Nope_ yet).
It’s lean and mean, just like the original.
Maybe adding a few more bells and whistles would’ve helped with distinguishing it from that film, but the location, time period and Inarritu influence do the trick just fine (pretty sure _The Revenant_ was an inspiration for this).
The cinematography is surprisingly excellent, lots of beautiful shots with natural light and all the scenes that take place at night are visually clear without being overlit. The music and sound design are also really well done, it’s very good at conveying the primal, urgent vibe you want out of a Predator film. The performances are solid, the action scenes are well directed without every losing a sense of clarity and the pacing is tight.
I just wish there was a bit more to these characters, they’re a bit barebones for my liking. It also didn’t really surprise me at any point, it very much plays out in the way you’d expect, especially if you’ve seen the original.
Still, I quite enjoyed this, Dan Trachtenberg is definetely one of the more interesting genre filmmakers working today.

7/10

I didn’t have a frame of reference for this movie, never having watched a predator movie, or indeed hardly any movies in the thriller-action-adventure genre. But it sounded intriguing so I gave it a try. It was okay for what it was. The body count rose as it does io thrillers it seems, Nikki it was alien Mano on woman’s, as one might have predicted from the start. I am not sure why people in her village thought she wasn’t able to hunt when she seemed to have Batman like strength and dexteriity. I guess she never practiced or trained in front of anyone.

So it was fine, though it won’t motivate me to seek out more movies in the predator franchise or indeed the genre. I will quit while I am ahead, at least until the next one in an unliked genre inexplicably draws me in.

Sometimes it's best to let the dead rest in peace and such is the case, with the much exhumed, Predator franchise. The original has, quite deservedly,become a cult classic. What came after ranges from passable to truly awful acts of gave robbing.

Prey is not awful. It has wonderful cinematic's and a superficially believable, 18th century world. A world on the cusp of modernisation and change but one that still holds on to, the fading reality embraced by its native inhabitants.

Regrettably, that's far as we get. What comes after is a revisionist construct, that does not reflect life, as it was, in this era. Instead we get feminism, at a time when its presence would have been akin, to finding an automatic wrist watch, in an Egyptian tomb.

If by some miracle you can overlook this nonsensical plot turn, it doesn't get any better. Our hero, a slim young girl, apparently has the wherewithal to take on and defeat, a savage interplanetary killer. A killer, as we can recall from the first film, who chewed through all but one member, of a hardcore team, of special forces mercenaries.

Sure, Arnie's character did use old style tactics, in the end, to defeat the beast. That said, he's a huge, profoundly physical man, cast as someone with no end of combat training and even then he barely made it out alive.

No matter, old world patriarchy defying girl, who has to run like stink from a simple bear the predator easily dispatches, magically gets the job done.

Do I need say more? If utter suspension of disbelief is your thing this just might work for you. My advice, watch or re-watch the original and suspend your disbelief that the spin offs that came after, were ever made.


4/10.

I guess I have to start by saying that this movie was a lot better than some of the latest entries in the Predator franchise but then, that is not really difficult so it does not say that much. Personally, I think this movie is rather mediocre.

Cinematically it is not a bad movie. I liked the footage for the most part. Story wise, well, for the first half of the movie I found it rather boring actually.

There was some brief scenes with a wolf and later a bear that had some action in it but for the most part the main protagonist ran around moping and whining and trying to pretend to be worthy of being a great warrior. Somewhat unrealistic of course since Hollywood, of course, had cast a woman in the role. Not that I have anything against it per see but at the time this movie is supposed to happen a women, native Indian or not, stayed at home doing the chores whether Hollywood tries to pretend otherwise or not.

As I said, I m still okay with that but she spends most of the time fumbling, stumbling and when a threat comes around she runs and looks scared. Not the kind of great warrior charisma that I was hoping for in the main protagonist.

When it finally starts to get interesting she stumbles into a bloody animal trap and gets caught by a hunting party. The latter which of course is portrayed as the typical Hollywood stereotype of “white man bad”. Minor details like, having your foot caught in that kind of steel trap would render you useless for the rest of the movie, is of course ignored.

The later half of the movie has some action in it at least which is dragged down by the main protagonists moping and the fact that, when she finally has the chance of taking a shot, she just stares stupidly for half a minute and voila, the chance is gone.

On the good side is that the actors are doing a pretty decent job of the not so great script they were given and, as I mentioned, cinematically it is a quite good movie. The action, when it happens, is pretty good if one ignores the Hollywood stupidities and the not so kick-behind main protagonist.

Overall the movie is watchable and, as I wrote, better than previous instalments in the franchise but that is about it.