Prey: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. A clever twist on the Predator sci-fi action formula that results in the movie being the second best in the franchise.

Prey, the fifth film in the Predator franchise and a prequel to the previous films, made its exclusive premiere this past weekend on the streaming service Hulu.

The original Predator (1987), directed by the criminally (pun intended) under-rated, populist master craftsman John McTiernan (Hunt for Red October, Die Hard) which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger at the peak of his powers, and boasted a phenomenal supporting cast of hall-of-fame badasses, including Bill Duke, Carl Weathers and the scene-stealing future governor of Minnesota, Jesse “The Body” Ventura, with his classic line “I aint got time to bleed!”, was a supremely entertaining sci-fi spin on the ‘man is the most dangerous game’ premise.

The subsequent Predator films, Predator 2 (1990), Predators (2010) and The Predator (2018) were without Arnold and McTiernan, and were incoherent, cringe-worthy embarrassments.

Which brings us to Prey, which is written by Patrick Aison and directed by Dan Trachtenberg, and stars Amber Midthunder and Dakota Beavers.

Prey is, if nothing else, very clever. It’s premise, setting the challenge-seeking hunter Predator alien in the early 1700’s in a region where the Comanche live, is simple yet original enough to revive this moribund franchise.

The plot revolves around Naru (Amber Midthunder), a young Comanche woman and accomplished healer and tracker who yearns to become a hunter/warrior like her brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers).

There is no doubt that Prey got greenlit because the film espouses the ‘proper’ cultural politics of the current age, and checks all the right gender and ethnic diversity boxes. For instance, Naru’s navigating of the “patriarchal” Comanche culture in which she lives and rising above the limits imposed on her gender was a storyline that must’ve sent thrills into the loins of the suits at Hulu/Disney. No doubt the movie’s majority Native American cast did as well.

And while the film does signal its cultural/political virtue much too often for my tastes, and those scenes of vapid feminist defiance are by far the worst in the movie, it still manages to be a thoroughly entertaining piece of movie-making despite all the incessant, eye-rolling, girl-power garbage.

The film also works because Amber Midthunder as Naru is a compelling and charismatic lead. The luminous Midthunder’s naturalistic style is never too much or too little as she effortlessly carries the movie from start to finish.

Dakota Beavers as Taabe is also excellent, as he brings tremendous nuance to a role that in lesser hands would’ve been caricature filled with empty posturing.

While some might feel that a flaw of the film is that Naru and Taabe are the only truly fleshed-out characters, which they are. I actually felt that minimalist approach to character development helped the film stay lean, focused and on point.

The best part of the movie though is that director Dan Trachtenberg and screenwriter Patrick Aison stick to the basics (protagonist gender swapping aside - which i admit is a major caveat) and make a Predator movie that would make Joseph Campbell proud due to its proper use of myth as its narrative foundation.

For example, like many coming of age stories or myths, Naru must cross geographical barriers, in this case rivers and ridges, to seek out the dragon that she must kill in order to ascend from childhood to adulthood.

Taabe, ever the dutiful big brother, has already made his own journey, and tries to mentor Naru, but there’s only so much he can do for her, as Naru must make the perilous journey herself.

Taabe’s pivotal role in propelling Naru on her journey and towards her destiny is right out of the Campbell playbook and will make fellow Jungians/Campbell enthusiasts knowingly nod in agreement.

Trachtenberg and Aison’s commitment to Campbell’s mythic storytelling fundamentals is what makes Prey such a psychologically satisfying film. It isn’t a great film but it is an entertaining one because it’s so satisfying to the audience’s unconscious mythic yearnings.

As for the movie-making itself, director Trachtenberg does solid work by once again staying true to storytelling fundamentals. He plants small seeds throughout the story and lets them grow to be useful later on in the story, and never deceives his audience or ignores the internal logic of the film. He also does a good enough job in visually telling the story, and despite some ups and downs he gives enough cinematic flair to the film for it to be worthwhile.

I also think that Disney’s decision to release Prey on Hulu is a wise one. The Predator franchise is on life-support, and it seems difficult to imagine a star-less Prey generating a great deal of box office at the moment. By releasing straight to Hulu, the film can build an audience slowly by word of mouth without the pressure of being labelled a box office bust. This approach will help future Predator films be viable for theatrical release.

Speaking of which, I couldn’t help but think about the potential future settings of the Predator franchise now that history is its playpen. Predator in Shogun era Japan, or in Mayan era South America, or Qing Dynasty China, or Aboriginal Australia, or early Zulu Kingdom Africa, or Ancient Egypt, Sparta or Rome. The possibilities are endless, and one can only hope that the Predator franchise stays the course and keeps making clever and interesting movies like Prey.

The bottom line is that Prey is the second-best Predator movie, a distant second to the original. If you like sci-fi action movies, and can tolerate a dose of vacuous, vapid and venal virtue signaling stuffed into a cool Comanche/Predator movie, then give Prey a shot, you might like it…I was pleasantly surprised to find that I did.

©2022

Run Hide Fight: Review and Commentary

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. The movie could have been much worse. It may appeal to adolescents and those with adolescent tastes in movies, but for everyone else it isn’t worth seeing.

Run Hide Fight, written and directed by Kyle Rankin, is a new action thriller film that tells the story of Zoe Hull, a female high school student fighting back during a school shooting.

The movie, which stars Isabel May as Zoe and Thomas Jane as her father Todd, is basically Die Hard but set in a high school with a female protagonist.

Run Hide Fight has garnered some media attention due to its being the first film distributed by The Daily Wire, the conservative media outlet founded in 2015 by political commentator Ben Shapiro. The movie is available for streaming exclusively on The Daily Wire for paid subscribers beginning on Friday January 15th.

As Andrew Brietbart once said, “politics is downstream of culture” and with this in mind Shapiro is leading the charge for conservatives to make a more concerted effort to be involved in popular culture, long a bastion of liberal domination.

Conservatives have for decades railed against liberals’ control of entertainment, decrying the impact it has in shaping public sentiment. But despite all the handwringing, conservatives have never really made a serious move to compete in that arena, just complain about it.

Conservative filmmakers have traditionally lacked the talent, skill and craft to make worthwhile conservative art or entertainment, which is usually so politically heavy-handed, artistically obtuse, intellectually trite and emotionally infantile as to be ridiculously unwatchable.

Run Hide Fight sets out to reverse that trend.

As someone more arthouse than action movie, more cinema than politics and who has zero interest in Ben Shapiro, his whiny politics and his even whinier voice, my expectations going into Run Hide Fight were very low, and my assessment is as follows.

The film is most definitely derivative, formulaic and predictable as it borrows liberally from the Die Hard blueprint. The structure of the narrative and the character archetypes are almost identical to Die Hard…but not as good.

For example, one-dimensional bad guy Tristan Voy and his henchmen are pale imitations of Die Hard’s deliciously devious villain Hans Gruber and his collection of monstrous minions.

The film also suffers from some sloppy directing and flimsy storytelling as director Kyle Rankin is no master craftsman like the criminally under valued John McTiernan.

Rankin’s decision to juxtapose the realistic and viscerally unnerving school shooting violence with the action hero fantasy violence of Zoe’s John McClain-esque counter-attack is definitely tonally jarring, disorienting and off-putting.

But there are also some bright spots.

The well paced film runs an hour and forty-nine minutes and kept me engaged the whole time.

The film’s politics are pretty subtle, with conservative values just a back drop, not the main attraction.

And finally, Isabel May does a terrific job in carrying the whole movie. May is not Bruce Willis, but she is a formidable force and flashes moments of genuine brilliance in the movie.

Is Run Hide Fight a great movie? No. But it also isn’t a bad movie. To its credit, it is, like the vast majority of Hollywood’s output, just a plain old regular movie…but that is a huge first baby step for conservatives trying to get into the pop culture game.

The problem is the film is only streaming on The Daily Wire and to see it you must pay to subscribe. I understand what Shapiro is trying to do with this business plan, but I think it’s terribly flawed.

This film is definitely geared toward a teen audience and what Shapiro wants to do is bring young adults to his website to see his lone film, and then stick around to read and listen to right-wing news in the hopes of bringing them into the conservative fold.

This single film alone just isn’t good enough though for some teenager to expend enough time, mental energy and money to actually subscribe to a website they’ll only use once to watch a middling movie in a market already flooded with a cornucopia of middling movies.

Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu or the myriad of other streaming services are teeming with a plethora of similarly mediocre, mildly entertaining films, whereas The Daily Wire only has this one.

Sure, the people who already subscribe will be happy to have access to Run Hide Fight, but by limiting who can see the film, Shapiro is just reinforcing his echo chamber and not expanding his reach, which if conservatives want to get into the pop culture war should be his ultimate goal.

If Run Hide Fight were available on video-on-demand and anybody could rent it for $5 or buy it for $15, thousands of young adults would watch it and it could maybe help The Daily Wire build a relationship with an untapped audience. If VOD services refused to carry the film, that would only generate free publicity and rebel cache for the movie.

Shapiro’s current business model loses out on the money from expanded access via video-on-demand and myopically cuts off his right-wing nose to spite his liberal-hating face by letting only true blue conservatives see it.

As the old saying goes, you never get a second chance to make a good first impression, and Run Hide Fight is a decent enough teen action thriller that it would make a good impression on young adult audiences, if only they had an easy opportunity to see it.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2021