Stalking by Lions
Having recently got married Amy (Bridget Moynahan) and Tom Newman (Peter Weller) plus his children head on a holiday to Africa in the hope that his kids will drop the attitude towards Amy. In the hope of doing some bonding Amy takes the kids on a game drive with the ranger but find themselves stranded when they are attacked by ravenous lions that kill the ranger. When Tom realises something is wrong he seeks out a big white hunter to help him find and rescue his family.
The opening scene of "Prey" is a piece of wildlife footage featuring 4 lions bringing down a zebra. It is a powerful piece of footage which sees one lion move around to the writhing zebra's neck and sink its teeth into it. This is made all the more powerful when we get a close up of a lion's bloody face, its fangs stained red. Sadly those are the best scenes in the whole of "Prey" which ends up an okay but predictable wild lion movie let down by the effects and editing.
To be honest "Prey" doesn't require a great deal of reviewing as it is obvious that the situation with Amy and the children will bring them closer together as she tries to protect them whilst Tom goes all hero to save them. As such we have annoying, ungrateful kids who scream a lot, Amy trying to act all calms and motherly whilst Tom is all panicky. All of which could have worked if the editing had been sharper and created atmosphere and danger rather than feeling like 3 separate pieces of film pieced together in the editing suite.
What this all boils down to is that "Prey" has an okay idea but is let down by a lack of atmosphere and some poor editing which fails to convince that those in danger are indeed in danger.
