IN THEATRES NOW (original) (raw)

“Prey” is the arnch-tastic, bite-olicious, cinematic drivel destined to land in Obscureville or Makefunofland. This chomp-olistic mess is shamefully directed by Darrell Roodt and the downright pudency of writing is brought to us by Beau Bauman, Jeff Wadlow and Darrell Roodt.

When Dad the engineer is sent to Africa to work on a dam, he brings his two children, a pre-teen son David and teenaged daughter Jessica, and new wife Amy along for a trip of a lifetime. Jessica, played by Carly Schroeder, shamelessly goes after Amy, driving the my-mama-was-replaced-by-your-skinny-stupid-ass-sword deep into her with a series of uncalled for low blows and teenaged angst. After spending a night in their plush accommodations, Amy, Jessica, and David, head off to see African animals in their natural habitat as Dad goes off to work on the dam. When Jessica, gets annoyed she is seeing no animals, the ranger driving them around to see the animals decides to go off off-roading. David has to go to the bathroom and he and the ranger get out of the car. This is where the fun begins.

A lioness, hiding in the lion colored grasses appears and begins to stalk David. Luckily, the hawk eyed ranger helps David escape the jaws of the hungry lion. Unluckily though, the ranger is eaten, his blood poured all over the car in the mauling. Now stuck with no keys to the ranger truck, they are stuck waiting for someone to come and find them. Lion after lion attacks them, attempts to eat them and has no luck. Dad hires a private hunt guide, and attempts to find them.

I don’t know how the people in this movie even survived the birthing process they are so stupid. Every person who is killed in the movie is killed because they were being Gomer Pile stupid! They might as well kill a gazelle, roll around in its blood and walk up to a starving pride of lions, screaming. They constantly put themselves in the position to be eaten, try to outrun a lion, and drive like they’ve never actually been behind the wheel before.

The lions can’t even be consistent. They will attack a group of two but not a group of four but a little later they’ll attack a different group of four. They happily attack the toe headed blond Anglo folks but at first seem to have no taste for African people. The lions are also the most precise eaters in the history of the animal kingdom. During their feeding, people stay in their death position and when they’re done, there is a perfect and complete bloody skeleton left on the ground. Contrary to nature, in yet another way, the male lions even help in the hunts. Some of the lions will attack the truck but others will not. The lions are the only reason to watch the movie though; the acting isn’t going to draw anyone to the movie.

Amy, played by, Bridget Moynahan, gives a yawn inspiring performance. She is frightened when she should be calm and calm when all good sense says to be afraid. There are scenes where she is incredibly irrational even when she finally has the upper hand.

Dad, Peter Weller’s character, tries to be a bad ass but he couldn’t stretch his machismo around his waist. Oh yeah, and he is stupid. There is a scene where he drives to the top of a hill and he sees something at the bottom he wants to check out. Does he drive his car down the hill? Wouldn’t that be: Faster? Easier? Use less personal energy when in the dessert? Yes. Is it what he does? Not by the hair on his chinny-chin-chin. He runs down it, for what seems like a mile, through the lion colored grass. By that point in the movie I wished he’d be eaten by lions, drop from dehydration and have vultures eat his eyes while he was alive.

“Prey” needs to pray for a screen play, better actors, a better director… You know, I’m wrong. “Prey” needs to pray that no one remembers how bad this movie is! Is there such thing as retroactive production?

LaRae Meadows
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