Woke fest of a could-have-been great movie (Spoilers)
I have watched all of the Predator movies.
My favorites are 1, 3 and 2.
Having seen the trailer for Prey and done a bit of research, I was really optimistic, both for the environment and for the time period the movie was set in.
I really wanted it to work.
Watched the movie last night with my GF, she is also a fan of Predator.
We were disappointed.
The movie, however they try to push it online, is a woke-fest.
These are the parts I do not like:
1. The girl, Naru, is an insecure, entitled, antisocial, disrespectful, diva-like person, with constant need to show others that she is "worthy".
- Even though we know that the Comanche had clearly divided roles in their society, the girl has no problem disobeying advice and even orders from her brother Taabe (who is a war-chief).
- She is okay to think of herself as better than other females, and to just leave the village as she sees fit to practice hunting and exploring, while all the other females had to carry on with daily tasks.
- She sees no problem in hitting a fellow male hunter in the head, because he tried to take her home, as per Taabe's order. Hunter smacking her back was satisfying.
- She doesn't seem to be bothered by the fact that she had to be carried back home while unconscious after the cat attacked her (and would have killed her), or that she is physically unable to carry a fellow hunter home if needed, or, at least to cut and gather wood by herself. Simply why these jobs do require divided roles.
2. The girl, Naru, is also a superwoman.
- Even though she was unfit to pass her main hunting test, she is somehow fit to survive several attacks of Predator, where he kills a dozen armed men by himself in one fight!
- She is capable of winning a fight with 3 to 4 armed male trappers by herself, something that even a professional and masterfully trained assassin John Wick would struggle, at least a bit.
- But the best part is, at the end, she is capable to kill Predator all by herself, something a bunch of 220+ pound heavily armed and trained commandos from the eighties struggled really hard to accomplish. By the way, in the process, she cut his arm, and used his homing missiles, and she somehow knew exactly where (and at what height) the predator will stand, so she put the helmet's laser targeting at that exact spot.
3. The Predator in this movie is a joke. I wont go into his face changes, but I'll point some horrible choices for him.
- We all know Predator as a stealth killing machine, mostly killing from afar, or when he comes near, cloaked. Not this one. This one is okay with casually jumping into the group of a dozen of armed men and attack them like that.
- This Predator seems to can't defend himself from Taabe's attacks. Taabe is even able to hit him with an arrow, walk next to the Predator, pull the arrow from his body, arm his bow, strike him again, and repeat.
- This Predator seems to have no problems slaughtering a heavy bear, killing 15 armed men in one scene, but somehow can't keep up with a tiny superwoman who chops him to pieces in the final scenes.
4. Movie itself suffers because of all this.
- Why they had to be so "modern" and to not "offend" anyone and to make it so the tiny supergirl does all by herself something that many trained and armed men were unable to?
- Wouldn't it be great, as suggested somewhere, that there was no superwoman, but both normal men and normal women, who joint forces as a village, and killed the Predator in an intelligent and "realistic" setup, in a prepared field with traps, ranged and melee attacks, where some or most of them would be slaughtered, but they were able to kill him? No superhuman feats, just plain old normal people and cooperation.
I really wanted this movie to invoke some of the atmosphere from the best Predator movies, but at least for my girlfriend and me, it is more of a "safe bet" movie that wont offend insecure groups of viewers.
For the rest of us, this is another ruined chance for a worthy successor of an old gem.