Kalahari

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.

I wanted to love this movie. It has a fantastic cast and going into it I had really high hopes. What you get is a movie that could have been really great, but in the end was poorly executed. What will likely be the draw for most is the animal attack aspect. Survival horror... man vs nature. It's present, but they decided to take the Jaws approach here. A few people fall prey to the wildlife but the events are completely left to your imagination. I felt like they fell flat in that department in a big way. I wasn't looking for a gore fest, but you have almost ZERO animal human interaction here. The initial attack was a shock to me, but not in a good way... the way it was done. Very ambiguous. You see the characters and they are fine. When we're brought back to the scene after a cut to other characters, the attack has already taken place seemingly some time ago. I just wasn't a fan of how it all went down. Some characters do absolutely ridiculous things that make no sense. There's at least one huge continuity issue. Then there's an almost ridiculous spiritual undertone to this that I also felt was poorly executed. One of the main characters is dealing with a crisis of faith and he makes what I feel are some ridiculous choices that are supposed to be faith based. I feel like the writer or director has the notion that having faith negates the ability to reason. Indeed I've known some people like this, but it's not the rule. The kind of people who don't lock their door because God's looking out for them. Inevitably they're burglarized or worse. God gave you the ability to reason and a lock to keep people out 🤷‍♂️ I digress... This could have been a good film especially with the main cast. Unfortunately it wasn't, and for numerous reasons.

I have a relatively low threshold to meet for a movie to be passable. I dont mind some bad acting, bad special effects, loose plot holes, etc as long as the movie has some sort of storyline and a bit of a twist. This movie had nothing. No plot, no hero, no villain, nothing. Barely any animals are even shown and there's no big showdown between "man and beast". The acting was horrendous from all points which is shocking because some of them are decent actors in other films. The ending was the best part because it meant I could turn it off. There is absolutely no redeeming qualities in this entire film. Please do yourself a favour and find ANYTHING else to watch.

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!!!!

Not a good movie. Im glad it was only an hour and a half and not longer... but it could have been better if it was shorter. Felt extremely low budget. The characters had no depth and there was absolutely no character development. Honestly it had the deel of a fan fiction film. Evert time the suspense started to build it fizzled out. Ryan Phillipe acted like he didn't want to be there and Emile Hirsch tried but with a paper thin plot had no opportunity to develop. The survival aspect was non existent, the poachers never played out and the revels were embarrassing. Overall poorly done. I would only recommend this to my ex-mother-in-law and the politician I want out of office.