Midthunder gives a stunning performance as Naru, a young woman determined to prove herself as a hunter despite her brother and other male warriors’ insistence that she’s not good enough. But as a driving idea, it pulls the plot into several twists and turns that kept me engaged. The thesis of the movie-“How can you hunt that which is hunting you?”-which is asked by Naru’s brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers), has the potential to be corny. Naru and Predator are mirrors of each other in a fascinating way: both of them are stalking the other, and both are looking to hunt something worth catching. This Predator prequel depicts the first intergalactic hunter to arrive on earth, in the middle of Comanche territory, where it meets its match in young warrior Naru (Amber Midthunder). I skipped the English version and instead watched the Comanche language dub, which adds a layer of cultural specificity and language preservation that makes this movie a particular gem. If you haven’t seen Prey yet, I highly recommend you go watch it immediately. But if you’re an Idris Elba fan, enjoy hate-watches, and don’t mind a little justification of human rights crimes, why not? Prey (There are a couple white poachers too.) In other words, the movie suggests the poachers should be killed in order to protect wildlife, a moral question that has been in the news lately-remember when we found out a bestselling author was involved in one such murder in Zambia? Human rights organizations have been speaking out for years against the torture, rape, and murder of poachers-most of whom are indigenous to Asian and African countries.īeast is a bad movie that jumps into topical issues and fumbles the landing. This imagery seems to fault them for their own destruction and imply that the Americans and the white adventurer are purer than the cruel Africans who poach lions and therefore deserve to die. So why did the lion kill every single man, woman, and child in a South African village? These people weren’t poachers and yet the movie shows their bodies mutilated and surrounded by flies in a familiar orientalist gaze. When Lion Dundee sees the beast’s carnage, he keeps shaking his head and going, “Lions don’t do that.” Which, like… exactly.īeast credits the ability of the Daniels family to survive the lion to the predator’s “knowing who his real enemies are”-i.e. The explanation is that he’s “gone rogue” and is out to kill every human in his territory because a group of poachers killed his pride. Not that lions can’t be scary, but it feels far-fetched to portray a lion mysteriously gaining the ability to overtake teams of men with guns. Jokes aside, I found the movie’s premise quite disturbing. I was lucky enough to see this movie in a theater with lots of other Black people, so I could laugh and comment loudly along with the rest of the audience at the worst parts of this movie, like when a suddenly CGI version of Lion Dundee hugs a lion. Martin turns out to be a low-rent Crocodile Dundee working with lions on a game reserve. Nate Daniels (Idris Elba) takes his two daughters (Meredith and Nora Samuels) to their mother’s home country of South Africa to visit a white Afrikaner family friend named Martin (Sharlto Copley). Here’s our take on which ones are worth the heightened heart rate, and which ones to skip. But not all monosyllabically titled thrillers set in the outdoors are created equal. nature (or alien?) stories designed to prickle the sweat glands underneath your arms and make you grip the edge of your seat as you watch the heroes fight to survive something scary or horrible far away from cell service. Prey started streaming on Hulu last month, Fall hit theaters on August 12, and Beast premiered last Friday. It’s been a slow summer for Hollywood, but there’s been no shortage of monosyllabically titled thrillers set in the outdoors.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |