So, was Prey worth the wait? That’s a personal opinion, and in mine, well, not as much as people might think. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a bad movie, and it was kind of interesting, but there is one question that needs to be answered finally, and it’s one that many thought Prey would solve. How hard is it to get the Predator right? If you wish to take that argument a little further, you might be able to state that each movie has managed to get it right in some way, but none of those following the first movie have nailed it completely. The fact that not even this movie managed to get everything as perfect as many were hoping isn’t much of a surprise since, like it or not. It pitted the predator against an opponent that was worthy in several ways but still shouldn’t have been able to take the creature out as she did. There are ways that this would have worked with a little more exposition, but the idea that the predator, a highly-evolved hunter, wouldn’t know how to take down the native species of a given planet is hard to deal with.
It implies that the predators hadn’t been visiting earth for that long.
One thing that has been done in the years following Predator 2 is to retcon the original story while trying to make it all match up in a manner that would explain the story and give some cohesion to it. AVP kind of swung for the fences when it came out by stating that humans had seen the predators as gods and that the predators had wiped out entire civilizations when they lost to the xenomorphs, who were and are still considered worthy to hunt for the predator’s species. Unfortunately, Prey makes it appear that AVP is NOT canon since it would imply that the predators haven’t been acquainted with earth that long, especially considering that this predator did not use strictly energy-based weapons, and his helm was far different than any tech that people have seen in the other Predator movies.
The movie is still fun to watch.
Don’t get me wrong. The action is pretty cool since anything that has to do with the predators means that the effects and the action sequences are usually going to be well-crafted and able to entertain most people. And the fact that the predator is going up against an indigenous tribe offers up a different challenge that hasn’t been seen in other movies, but there’s still the idea that this is a species that has conquered space travel and possesses the type of technology that should be able to overcome the knowledge and skill of the people it’s going after. With that being said, it does stand to reason that the predator appeared hesitant, as though it happened to have little to no knowledge of the world it had come to hunt on. But hunting is hunting as the creature goes on to skin several creatures and show its dominance. When it came to humans, though, the creature ended up becoming a bit too confident it would appear, and this cost the creature in the end.
How does this movie stack up with the others?
It’s not the worst movie since AVP: Requiem would still be a favorite to take that dubious honor. But there is a reason why this wouldn’t be listed as the best among many fans since it’s still a new movie, and as it’s been seen over the years, the Predator movies only appear to get better with age. While a few of them are ridiculous, and it’s tough to dispute this, a couple isn’t getting much better as time goes on. Prey feels like it could be appreciated even further as the years roll by, and it’s possible that another movie could even build off of it. However, at the moment, it’s still an interesting story but not nearly as complete as it could have been. It was an intriguing movie, but while the idea of a woman taking on the predator is nothing new, it still felt a little contrived.
It does make sense, in a way.
Of course, the indigenous tribes would know the lay of the land better. They would know what to watch for and what to do in one situation or another. But this is a predator, a hunter that has managed to take down game that’s tougher and, in some cases, smarter than a human being. If not for blind luck and the right circumstances, a human usually has no chance against a predator without a serious amount of plot armor, which is one thing that can explain how this movie came to be.
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