Prey

(2007) **1/2

Robocop and his new wife, Bridget Moynahan takes his children to the Africa savannah. Robocop, an engineer, has to work so he arranges for his new wife and kids to go on a safari. Unfortunately Robocop’s daughter is a grating, bitchy, sullen 14-year old who hates his new bride (early on I was rooting for her to meet the business end of a lion). The safari begins as you might expect. Bitchy 14-year old makes sarcastic comments and is the ultimate killjoy for everyone’s good time (“I can see animals at the zoo”, eye roll). In a futile attempt to impress this little bitch their guide takes them off-road where the real action is. Soon after, Robocop’s 10-year old son announces that he has to take a shit and needs to get out of the car. Given that they are off-road and in very dangerous territory the correct response would be, “Pinch it off kid because we ain’t getting out here!” Instead, inexplicably, the guide stops the vehicle and walks the kid REALLY far away from the car. I guess the risk of big sister seeing your bum outweighs the threat of being eaten by a lion. Unfortunately for him, the kid never gets to drop any kids into the pool as his bowel movement is interrupted by a lot of growling (curiously, his desire to poop never comes up again for the rest of he film). The guide, realizing the stupidity of his actions, instructs poopy-pants to get back to the vehicle. Bam! Just like that a lion attacks making mincemeat out of our poor misguided guide. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the guide took the car keys with him. Thus the main thrust of Prey is set into motion as we watch Bridget and the two kids deal with this perilous situation. They do everything wrong, of course. When Bridget manages to get the car keys by the skin of her teeth, she promptly gets the car started, blindly drives like a maniac and eventually crashes the car into a deep ditch. Way to go, dummy. Along the way 14-year old daughter eventually learns that she misjudged step mom and they have the requisite bonding moment. Eventually Robocop hires a “tracker” and searches for his family.

On the plus side there’s a lot of lion action in Prey and it’s clear that real lions were used for the majority of their scenes. There’s plenty of blood and some genuine tension, which makes me bump up my rating half a notch. Annoying characters, stupid decisions, and cliché character development ultimately sink Prey. Mediocre.