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.

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.

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?

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.

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.