Prey

The story is the worse collection of cliches about Africa and "the natives" (that's what the script calls the local people) made after1950. The story follows a spoiled rich kid and his friend with their guide and a missionary doctor and his wife who crash in a light aircraft in an unspecified African country. Apparently there are lions so the rich kids and pilot go off to a nearby village, but the pilot who apparently can't read a map "makes a wrong turn." That's word for word. They return to the crash site and get jumped by a couple of "natives" with AK47 wearing Day of the Dead make-up. There's lots of shouting, unseen lions leaving blood trails from missing passengers and a happy ending for at least one. The dialogue is moronic, the acting even from the two names stars is so wooden, they could have built a glider to escape the lions, who we see very little of. Overall the film is very weak, not scary at all, dull and stupid. There's nothing positive to say about it, except when the plane crashes, it looks like it was shot down in the Battle of Britain.

So you get 3 really top actors in Suvari, Hirsch and Phillippe to do a survival film in the Kalahari, you'd expect it to be great right? Wrong.

First off this is not the actors fault, it was the unimaginative dialogue and direction, no character building, scenes were so obviously rushed that one of the characters actually dies without even showing what actually happened LOL

This film is like some rich guy from Dubai or Saudi offered an obscene amount of money for these actors to be in their masterful project and it absolutely sucked.

The use of lions being the main predator in the film is just lame and actually put's them in a very bad light.

Could this really be the same Ryan Philippe who was in "Cruel Intentions"? Are things really that bad? Well now he's "Andrew" who runs a Christian missionary deep in the Kalahari. Forced to flee, they engage the rather untrustworthy services of pilot "Grun" (Emile Hirsch) and next thing they are amidst some wreckage in the middle of a wild game reserve with loads of hungry lions, hyenas, scorpions and a few heavily armed freedom fighters. Can they survive? There are some beautiful animals featured in this film and the Californian Vasquez Rocks National Park serves well enough as a location double, but the rest of this is all really quite poorly written and executed before a denouement that I could have done with half an hour earlier. There's nothing about the characters for us to care about, one being determined to smuggle artefacts out of the country whilst an other wants to indoctrinate the locals with a lifetime supply of bibles. Maybe he thought it was called "Pray" instead? It's not exactly predicable, it's not that structured - it sort of meanders along desperate to generate some sense of menace from it's arid and hostile environment, but all to underwhelming avail. Nope, nothing at all to recommend this to anyone, sorry.

Oh, no, not ANOTHER lion movie called 'Prey'! We had 'Prey' in 2007, 'Prooi' in 2016 (Prooi being dutch for Prey), and now again! Then there was the 2022 'Predator' prequel also called 'Prey'. All too confusing...

The film's alternate title is 'Kalahari', and now it sounds all too much like 1965's 'Sands of the Kalahari', which is about a small plane flying to Johannesburg crashing in the Kalahari. Only, in that movie there are baboons and no lions. 'Prey' sees a private plane (flying to Johannesburg) carrying a handful of passengers crash landing in the Kalahari, and the survivors are being hunted by lions - blah-blah-blah.

'Prey' (aka Kalahari) is as B as a B-movie gets. Very little was explained about why the handful of passengers had to make use of the private plane and the characters were bland and one-dimensional. As a result I didn't root for any of them. In short, I simply didn't care about any of the characters. What the hell is Ryan Phillippe doing in a film like this?? Someone get the man a new agent!!

If you were hoping to see lion attacks here, forget it; there are none. There are lions, yes, and there are attacks, yes, but nothing is shown on screen!! The attacks are pretty much left to the viewer's imagination. Now, this is as cheap as it gets. I mean, honestly, this film is from the bottom of the cheap barrel!! The plain wreck looked like a cardboard cut-out!!!! I'm not joking, it literally looked like a thing that was made out of cardboard with windows being painted on it!! Give me a moment while I compose myself and try to stop laughing...!!!!

Why on earth did Green Light Pictures greenlit this?? It's a horrible script, and even worse in its execution. Every attempt at adding emotional depth - or horror for that matter - failed miserably. This is as forgettable as they come. If you're into lion movies, 'The Ghost and the Darkness' is still the king of them all! 2022's 'Beast' starring Idris Elba was by no means a good lion movie, but it was far superior to 'Prey'. In fact, compared to 'Prey', 'Beast' is a masterpiece in film making!!! The best thing about 'Prey' is its poster!! Pffff!!!!

Hm. It's a tricky one, is this. How do I be polite yet be honest about this film. Firstly, what ever happened to the jeep? Secondly, I've seen turds dry up quicker under a solar lamp. Thirdly, how did they get the make up on the lion? Then between scenes it must have had a wash, for now it's 'sans' blood, so there must be water nearby to quench their thirst? I mean what the hell is going on? It's like The Grey made into a PG version, made suitable for children who don't have a clue what the hell is going on, but are happy to be entertained by the charming clown you're mother's petrified of. It's not a beast of a film, it's watchable just to see how bad it can get. And why the buggery didn't they use the jeep?