Deadliest Prey (2013)

Nearly three decades after his abduction by the psychotic Colonel Hogan, the hardened Vietnam veteran and elite soldier, Mike Danton, has to face once more his archnemesis' thirst for revenge. Is Danton still the best?

Well there you have it! It's a B-movie a la... well, pretty much any action movie of the eighties. The soundtrack is spot on, and the characters both pay homage to and play parody on icons of old, like Rambo, but the main show... nah, it's unfortunately not that good. Ted Prior does a good job of looking worried instead of tough, and though Fritz Matthews contributes some of that toughness, the main antagonist (played by David Campbell) just manages to grin or grimace evilly in between repetitive speeches about his revenge.

The soldiers get killed off one after the other, and the choreography feels slow and sometimes sloppy. I've seen worse, but I feel like it could have been a lot better than this. They do nail the special effects, though. Oldskool. Not bad. Props on the props.

Most of the movie's spent in the forest, as Mike first picks off soldiers one by one while escaping, and then returns and goes at it again in order to get his at this point abducted wife back. Showdown time, between Hogan and the seasoned veteran main character Mike. The former's a real veteran but... yeah, he's a real veteran. He looks kind of... frail.

The director: David A. Prior, did a bunch of awesome action back in the late eighties and early nineties, but his latest works before his unfortunate demise - this movie being the very last one... didn't uphold the standard.

Times change, and filming techniques with them, so maybe he just didn't keep up with the times. Maybe the actors didn't. Maybe the setting just doesn't play as well in a modern milieu. Maybe the budget was lower.

Hopefully there's some good excuse, because it was a somewhat depressing final movie for someone who's been in the action biz so long... he made good stuff back in the day, like Raw Deal and... hey, there's a prequel! Deadly Prey (1987). Maybe that one's better...

If I'd seen the original one back in the day maybe this would've been a more appreciated dose of nostalgia, but as it is it feels like the old guys are just too old, and the other soldiers just too clueless. The script's dim and Tara Kleinpeter is lost potential. Could've been good...

 rated 2/5: decent