I start the same way I started in September 2018: As an individual born in the very early 1980s, the Predator has been an essential part of my development as an idle person of little benefit. Ah has always been, since the beginning of time, as one of the references in terms of cinema in general. Go ahead, therefore, that they can make all the movies they want for me, that I will continue to be in the first row of combat there. As a child willing to smile as the son of the Patriot at the end of the third season of ‘TheBoys’. I’ve enjoyed each and every movie in a franchise that as it is, not that I’ve set the bar particularly high. I even enjoy ‘Alien vs. predator 2’, the worst of all without a doubt, and in fact, the only one that I consider really bad. Is ‘Predator: The Prey’ is not the exception but also, after the version of the 2018 film that we saw, it has kept the bar above what is good and healthy enjoyable. Whether or not you were in the 80s, for the good, I am afraid that they have been far, far away. Too far. Dan Trachtenberg knew what he was doing, and unlike Shane Black, he has had the freedom to deliver it from start to finish. For this he has resorted to what worked so well for another franchise around a fucking bug reduced to a ruthless killing machine: his particular Ellen Ripley, Amber Midthunder. With her, or thanks to her, the film acquires a meaning and an entity that, in reality, all the sequels of the franchise lacked: Most of them are hollow derivatives surrendered to their festive condition and imprisoned by a villain without duplicity. Here, in addition, there is also a dramatic base. A base that strengthens what, however, continues to be a great honor for a luxurious B series, as simple as it is pragmatic. Although Midthunder may be Ripley, the Alien Queen is still a Predator that, as established by the canons of cinema for very macho men, leaves no one in one piece in her wake. That little smile of the Patriot’s son that I was saying is recurrent, as well as some digital effects that still don’t do justice to a character with such a physical presence. The good of the 80s has been left too far, he said, because now it is evident that there is more CGI than ingenuity. Also more shock than suspense, and more forcefulness than charm. In ‘Predator: The Prey’ lack that point of measure, temperance and humanity that make ‘Predator’ the immortal classic that he is. The action is very direct and everything is very simple; the characters are cattle, and the Predator presents himself as an unstoppable threat that, like the Lord of the Nazgl, no man can kill. But Neru is “not a man” any more than owyn was. And although in 1987 we knew that it was also going to end in a face to face, the path was uncertain. And besides, said face to face was much more patient, exciting and with a more emblematic look.
‘Predator: The Prey’ it is hampered by its inability to disguise the kind of film to which it completely folds. An attempt is made to compensate for the absence of uncertainty and suspense with ardor and graphic violence, making it something highly effective that, however, goes to what is going on in such a hasty, elemental and evident way that without taking care of the details, it is little more than a trail of deaths. It does not widen the margins of what the viewer expects to find, in any case, something that is very easy to enjoy in a very childish and gratuitous way. But, the damn but, is that it ends and the residue it leaves us is scarce. Amber Midthunder’s heroine is the only thing with character, and her well-telegraphed story is overshadowed by self-imposed haste and the CGI blood trail left behind by the Predator: A supposed earlier version that looks like an upgraded version… even except for the laser, it seems to have upgraded weapons as well. Ace, ‘Predator: The Prey’ it is an elegant, very distracting and enjoyable afternoon saver that goes longer than we would like, being effective but cursed but, at the same time, ephemeral. something as if ‘TheBoys’of which Trachtenberg directed his first episode, would end up being reduced to nothing more than its shocking images of blood and offal, one after another until their impact, hollowed out, ceased to have relevance.
By Juan Pairet Iglesias
@Wanchopex