This is a movie I have wanted to watch ever since it came out, and finally got around to seeing. It isn't because I'm really into Predators or the lore of the Predaverse (hopefully I made that term up), but because it features indigenous people and is watchable in Comanche. There are tons of random alien-based sci-fi movies out there, so I wish more movies would differentiate themselves in interesting ways like this. It is far cooler than watching a White Teenage Guy/Girl fend off the aliens yet again.
I hope that they can take the next step in the future and have the entire movie originally filmed in Comanche (or Navajo, or Inuktitut, or Klallam, or any of the many other languages of the indigenous people of the world), rather than just dubbing it. But perhaps that's too much to ask. I did not really investigate how well this movie did, but I do hope that the movie executives producing got the right message. Unfortunately, not enough fantasy/sci-fi/action movies have followed in the footsteps of The Dead Lands in te reo. On a related note, it's good that they cast actual indigenous people for the roles; this doesn't seem like a high bar, but history has shown that apparently it is!
Other than that, I think the movie did a pretty good job with its setting and lighting; it was pretty stylish without being too visually dark to distinguish anything. And the general lack of explosions and gunfire that are normally in this sort of movie helped I think with the audio mixing problem that so many big action movies seem to come out with. So I never felt like the movie was challenging me to try to figure out how to watch it, which I can't always say with movies in this style.
There is probably a cap on how high I will ever end up scoring a movie like this, because ultimately it is just an Action Movie; I do love action movies, but they tend to be very similar to each other in a lot of ways and follow the same basic arcs and rarely do much to surprise me. Ultimately the conventions of the genre and the baggage of the existing series hold it back from greatness, but Prey doesn't mess it up by trying to do anything more complicated or get away from its intended purpose, and so it is more than watchable.
Score: 6/10
IMDb: Prey
PS: I love her makeup, especially at the end when it's half black and half glowing neon green. It probably doesn't help that I have a bit of a crush on her. Wife, don't read that.
PPS: Sarii (which I have now learned is the Comanche word for "dog") was played by a dog named Coco, rescued from a shelter to play in the movie. According to the directors her role was greatly expanded from its original scope because she was just too popular. And thank you, directors, for not making my wife cry. The end of the movie was a palpable release of tension.
