Hunter Prey (2010)

I watched Hunter Prey on Monday.  I wasn't really sure if I wanted to do a review of it.  I mean, yeah, it was a good movie, but it seemed to be getting a decent amount of praise and it was on Netflix Instant so what was the point nobody likes me anyway.

Then I watched a fourth of Terminator: Salvation and I was all HOLY SHIIIIIIT NO WE GOTTA DO THIS REVIEW

Hunter Prey is by that guy that did Batman: Dead End, which was that fan film where Batman fought the Alien, then the Predator and everyone on Internet 1.0 had no idea what was happening ROMS WHAT ARE DOSE.  Dead End wasn't great by any means, but it was a dorky derivative concept done about as well as you could hope for, and that's exactly the game behind Hunter Prey.  It's hardly doing anything new or interesting, but it's somehow nerd food of the highest order.  If you're the target audience you're probably going to like it just for the fact that it's exactly the sort of crappy movie you thought about with friends, except look it was actually completed.  On thinking about this, it's sort of brilliant that the film avoided anything resembling innovation: it would have destroyed the illusion that we're seeing our subconscious nerd scenarios come forth and play on the computer screen.

This might sound like damning praise, but consider the state of modern science fiction films.  While there's occasionally gems like Moon, generally we get either brainless action films that think they have something to say, or hifalutin REALLY MAKES YOU THINK DONTIT shit done by people who read Ender's Game and think that plot movement is a luxury.  Hunter Prey just aims to tell a story, and fuck it, that's what it does (pretty well).

The plot, in keeping with the nerdishment (get it bros), is basically a collection of sci-fi conventions just different enough that your mind feels clever for recognizing what the director is ripping off without being totally put off by the concepts.  We start off with three space ranger dudes dressed in "totally not clone troopers" gear chasing after a prisoner who crashed their ship and they have to get back by the time rescue arrives because he has the ability to blow up their world!  Yeah.  Thankfully, in keeping with how Dead End went, this plotline resolves itself in about 30 minutes with a twist that you'll probably see coming if you watched a given minute of the film beforehand.

Again, let's give some credit.  The director clearly saw that the target audience would figure out what was going on almost immediately, so he just shrugs his shoulders, gives some action shots, then proceeds to the twist.  Let's compare this to fucking Salvation, which despite having a perhaps even more obvious twist, keeps going and going under the presumption that no one is going to figure out that the convict guy who signed his body to Cyberdyne and then wakes up fifteen years into the machine wars without knowing what is happening is actually a cyborg.  And when it's finally revealed, all the characters are like NO WAY and we get like twenty more minutes of Christian Bale altering the script and argggh this fucking movie.  Hunter Prey gives the surprise, and then just moves onto the rest of the film.  What a nice movie!

Everything about the film, visually wise, is pretty much fun.  You know the movie was filmed in Mexico or something like that, but the scenery is still great, and while there is cgi twin suns and dumb shit like that, it's not obnoxious HAY LOOK ITS AN ALIEN WORLD OOOOO type of thing.  You probably know what I mean, right?  Props are silly (behold the alien computer that is connected by a headphone jack), but the film doesn't spend much time with obnoxious technobabble.  Which is probably for the best, as the aforementioned computer is one of the two bad things about the film.  You see, the computer was pretty clearly ripped off of Cortana, the purple AI lady from Halo that got progressively sluttier as the series progressed.  While there's no sexy holograms here, there's the same weird romantic tension between one of the space rangers and the computer, and it's really hard to tell if we're supposed to just be laughing at a guy being attached to his Vista OS or if it's really intended to be some sort of clever flirting but really just some awkward PUA disaster.

What's the other bad thing?  ENDING.  Without spoiling, after the initial twist, we get roughly 40 minutes of really fun interplay between the two opposing sides, some nice action sequences, conversations that aren't embarrassing, just a nice little sci-fi romp.  Then we get to the final scenes, lots of twists, and while straining credibility, one is still willing to play along.  But then we get to the final pivotal action.  Initially, you think it makes sense, but thinking back, you realize it runs completely contrary to everything forever.

IN SPOILER:  For those that have scene the film, you probably get that I'm talking about the fact that Blue Guy didn't shoot the human, and then just lets the human get the coordinates of the alien planet because uh.  I can sort of get the second thing, as it leaves a sequel open and while it seems kind of insane to give the coordinates, there's probably yet another twist in the wings.  But the first?  No, man.  The human asked why he didn't shoot, and he says "because you didn't" or something like that.  But the problem with that is that it's clearly established that the human didn't shoot the last guy because he needed some way to get the computer or otherwise he wouldn't find the coordinates.  Blue Guy clearly knew this from his talks with Not Cortana, and yet just lets him go.  What.


Ultimately, in a world where there are people defending Terminator Salavation, there's a real need for good, fun science fiction that isn't taking itself hell of seriously.  Hunter Prey, as mentioned above, is a good movie, fanservice for nerds without making one feel like a total creep.