Kris Ashton

Diversity in films is an inherently good thing. Every story is told from a point of view, and more points of view mean more original stories, something of which I’m always in favour. Done well, altering race or cultural background can even improve a character. Michael Clarke Duncan in Daredevil (2003) is my favourite example of this – giving the Kingpin a boy-from-the-’hood back story made him far more complex and interesting than the one-dimensional villain portrayed in the Marvel comics.

The trouble is Hollywood has started writing scripts with diversity as its primary concern… and picking characters first before attempting to build a story around them is bad creative practice. Unless you’re penning a character study, the story idea has to come first, because it helps inform who the characters should be. Maybe they’ll be diverse, maybe they’ll be largely one race; worrying about that should not be the writer’s focus. He or she should be choosing characters that fit the setting and ensure conflict and verisimilitude.

I liked the idea of Prey. Putting a fierce Native American warrior tribe such as the Comanche up against the alien warrior society established in the earlier Predator films struck me as a fundamentally good concept. And even though having a female protagonist did suggest a level of ‘diversity first’ thinking, it didn’t concern me too much. The whole point of the original movie was that Dutch ended up outmuscled and outgunned and had to use his wits to survive. A female lead might put an interesting kink in the formula.

And Prey does have some redeeming qualities. The cinematography is quite beautiful, the action scenes are well choreographed, and the performances, generally speaking, are competent. The costumes are also fairly authentic, even if the actors involved tend to be too beautiful to convince the audience they are part of a warrior people living off the land in the 18^th century. (In fact, the Nasty White Men are more convincing in this respect – more on them later.)

Now, before I pick the movie apart, let me disclose something. The original Predator is among my all-time favourite films. I believe it’s one of those movies snooty film critics could not or would not deign to understand, in much the same way stodgy music critics could not begin to comprehend N.W.A’s Straight Outta Compton, much less its success. Contemporary reviews which did praise Predator tended to focus on the special effects and completely overlook everything else that made the film work.

Perhaps ironically, then, the least of Prey’s failings is its overuse of CGI. Rendering gore with computer graphics is an inevitable part of modern special effects and, applied the right way in the right situations, it can be effective. But in Prey CGI is thrown about with gay abandon and during the final ten or fifteen blood-soaked minutes the use of computer graphics is so profligate that the finale loses most of its impact.

Next issue is gimmickry. In fairness, gimmicky weapons have been a problem in every Predator film since the original (the updated weapons in Predator 2 had a certain logic, at least – a decade had passed and it was feasible the predators would have developed new technologies just as humanity had). Not only does Prey give us gimmicky weapon overload, it disrespects existing Predator lore in the process. During one scene, the predator sets up floating devices (why does he need to enter a special code for that?) before wandering off to let them massacre the Nasty White Men remotely. In what way does that correspond with an alien race that enjoys the thrill of the hunt? The predators could have just shot at them from space and been done with it.

On now to the antique pistol. This one really gets my goat. It’s an attempt at a nod to its forebears, but in doing so Prey it completely disrespects one of the most memorable pieces of lore added in Predator 2. Remember the scene where the predators hand an antique pistol to Danny Glover as an acknowledgment of his dogged determination in defeating his adversary? Presumably the human who originally owned the pistol had been a sufficiently worthy opponent for the predators to keep his weapon as a trophy. In the clumsy hands of the Prey writers, however, it is now no more than a trinket, a gun stolen from the Nasty White Men who are little more than grunting savages.

As for the herbs that “cool the blood” and make Naru invisible to the predator… do I really need to elaborate on why this conceit is absolutely ridiculous?

The script, generally, has problems; its reduction of the white pioneers to a gibbering plot device (much as Native Americans were in the old cowboys-and-Indians flicks) being a comparatively minor transgression. Prey barely has a storyline. I suppose you could level a similar criticism at the first two Predator movies, but at least they had memorable characters and high stakes (Dutch Schaffer and his team trying to stay alive long enough to rendezvous with the rescue chopper, Mike Harrigan trying to figure out who is behind a rash of murders that have no clear motive). The nearest thing Prey has to a motivational through-line is Naru attempting to prove herself as a warrior, which is all very right-on and feminist, but it renders the predator incidental to the situation. It might as well be a bear.

Dialogue was among the most memorable elements of the first two films and, even when it was being self-consciously corny, it remained eminently quotable. In Prey, there’s not much dialogue to speak of and what there is either comes across as cliched or anachronistic (I actually winced when Taabe said “I’ve gotta get me one of those” about the horses).

Last and perhaps worst of all is how the predator meets its demise. I was anticipating – preying for? – some strategic brilliance from Naru, but instead she emerges victorious thanks to a combination of implausible luck on her part and wanton stupidity from the predator.

I can only assume those calling Prey “the best film since the original” have seen none of the films since the original, because by any objective measure it’s really only on par with Predators and The Predator (the Alien vs Predator films are really a different franchise, in my opinion). Trying to deflect well-deserved criticism by claiming it’s rooted in sexism or racism, as many Twitter types have done, is tiresome and intellectually bankrupt. Let me reiterate: the female lead and the Native American perspective are not the problem with this film. The problem is, it’s not very good.