Prey (2022)

⭐ 6.0/10

(Originally written by Joseph)

This is the movie that came out this year as an extension of the Pretador series. It got really great reviews, and was also talked about a lot as it takes place in pre-colonial North America and features a mostly indigenous cast.

It didn't really work for me. It was mostly fine, but never good. I felt a lot of the things I really wanted to see were simply not present. I know this is based on a campy monster-chase series, but I love indigenous aesthetics in movies and I kinda just wanted an authentic indigenous story. But the costumes and settings all felt a little glossy, the characters all spoke as if they were millenials, and there were a lot of pretty forced themes of girl power and anti-colonialism that just kinda made it feel like a 21st century story done by people playing dress-up. I get that that's what a lot of people want to see, but I was rolling my eyes pretty often. There were also a lot of those cringey instances of the characters saying something funny in passing at the beginning, and then saying it very serious at the end. I love you three thousand!!

There were other quibbles, such as the movie constantly breaking its own rules especially when it came to the actual Predator. But I don't want to act like this was a terrible movie. It was passable. Most of the fights were between humans and CGI animals that didn't look great, but then there were some great fight scenes that I loved. This movie was okay. But I don't really recommend it.