My Review of "Prey"

Prey is a new Predator movie that is only available through streaming. Currently it is available for Disney Plus. There wasn't much promotion of this movie but I think there should have been. The epic nature of the film really calls for a theatrical release but unfortunately it didn't get one. I for one would still go to the theatre to watch this despite having already seen it on streaming.

This movie starts off in what I presume is a forest somewhere in Canada. It also takes place back in the 1700s. Our main protagonist is Naru. She's a Cherokee warrior, well she would like to be anyways. Oftentimes she's looked over as a hunter. Her brother Taabe is a great warrior in her village and he's trying to give her chances to become one. The two obviously have a great bond with one another but Naru needs to get over her own hurdles to become a true warrior.

She pretty much has all the other essentials. Over the first portion of the movie we can see that she's quick, smart, cunning and skilled to be a warrior. However after a certain hunting incident she's wasn't able to pull the trigger to kill her prey. There's a lot of visual representation of prey and predator throughout this movie. It's a common theme obviously.

Naru is quite observant throughout her journey and she notices something isn't quite right about the forest. There seems to be some sort of weird disturbance because animals are acting differently and there's weird environment changes. This is all confirmed when Naru notices the Predator in the forest.

Before she can warn the others she falls into an abundant amount of weird situations that cause her and her colleagues to get into serious danger. This is a lot of the fun in this movie. You really never know what's going to happen next. Well you can kind of tell what's going to happen next but you don't know what kind of obstacles are going to get in the way.

Naru's warrior journey is beautifully paced. We can see how she progressively becomes better and better as she learns new things. The movie has really great ques for us as the audience to understand everything. This is a must because there are some big portions of the movie that are communicated in French, Cherokee or snarls and grunts.

It's also fun to see the pride and ego of all individuals and groups deflate so quickly when they get humbled. There's always some sort of prey and everyone takes turns becoming the prey even our big bad guy. They bring a very good sense of fear and tension throughout all of the scenes in this movie.

Special effects are surprisingly well done. I thought the title opener looked a little amateur though. A really weird observation but it did take me out of the movie for a second or two. For the most part all of the action sequences and visual effects were really well done. This movie can get a bit dark so it's best to watch it in 4k with HDR or Dolby Vision. The color grading can make a difference in you seeing what exactly is happening on screen.

Overall, I thought this was a very fun movie to watch and the logic for the most part works. You never start thinking why would they be doing that at any part of the movie. I was really happy that I was able to enjoy this so much because I'm a huge fan of the Predator franchise. I have to give this movie an 8.5 out of 10. They better realize the popularity of this movie and release it in theatres. I'm sure a lot of people will come out to watch it.