05 Aug Prey Review by Jim Washburn

PREY

dir. Dan Trachtenberg, starring Amber Midthunder, Dakota Beavers, and Dane DiLiegro

BLUF: An excellent action/horror film, and the best addition to the Predator franchise since the original (and by a massive margin).

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1987 Predator is, in my opinion, a perfect movie. At least, as perfect as movies can be. This list is not long, and puts it in the company of The Godfather, Jurassic Park, Jaws, and a few others. The characters, setting, script, story, execution, and tone are all basically flawless. So, every sequel or spin-off ever since has had so much to live up to in comparison.

The real disappointment is how poorly they all managed. Predator 2 expanded the lore, but was tonally inconsistent, and Danny Glover was a tough sell as a middle-aged cop taking down the Predator. Predators was ok, but had some weird casting choices, odd side-quests, and poorly developed characters. The Predator was just hot garbage, start-to-finish. And the Alien vs. Predator movies were just bad, despite a few redeeming ideas here and there…

Dan Trachtenberg’s Prey is an incredible return to form for the franchise, largely because it returns to the simple story of the first film (predator hunting prey, but which is which?), relies on a wholly unique and interesting setting (a 200-year prior prequel), and an incredible performance by Amber Midthunder as Naru, the Comanche hunter/healer/warrior who encounters the Predator.

Unlike the other sequels, Prey is a lower budget film, which was probably a conceptual choice based on the diminishing returns of the sequels, whose bigger budgets seemed intrinsically tied to worse films. By stripping everything down to the forested woodlands of 18-century frontier Canada, the film’s focus is solely on the characters, from Naru, to her brother and their tribe, to the Predator, and a few others. The film follows Naru almost exclusively, and to its great benefit. She is a skilled tracker and hunter, despite the negative opinions of most members of the tribe regarding a woman pursuing roles traditionally held by men. Many recent, poorly crafted movies have presented female characters from an arguably colloquially “woke” perspective to the detriment of a well-written, well-developed character (the Star Wars sequel trilogy and the latest Terminator movie come to mind).

Naru and her brother are filling the gap left by the death of their father, giving her a reason to help with the hunting. In addition, the film develops her character by consistently showing her putting in work to develop her skills and adapt to the fact that she is not as physically strong as her brother or the other hunters. She also fails from time to time, and her need to learn and improve is narratively driven under great threat. And Midthunder’s performance is absolutely terrific: she sells it all, with an earnestness and honesty in emotion that perfectly captures the audience’s own feelings watching each scene unfold. Midthunder’s Naru is not even remotely the same as Schwarzenegger’s Dutch, but that is what makes this film so much better than the other sequels. Predator 2 and Predators tried to sell Danny Glover and Adrien Brody as Arnold-lite heroes, always falling short, and leaving a void that could have been filled with a character with unique abilities and frailties. Naru is radically different from Dutch, and in all the right ways that serve this story.

Another strength of the film is that the characters largely make good, logical decisions throughout the film, based either on what regular viewers would do, or aligned with the character’s demonstrated poor decision-making. This also sets it apart from previous movies, which often had characters doing stupid things in the face of much better, obvious options. Along with this, we have the Predator character, who arrives on Earth and slowly works his way up the food chain (literally), finding the best fighters to challenge. Particularly in this setting, the Predator is outrageously over-powered, and the actor playing the Predator conveys power and aggression with just his movement. He presents a legitimate, perhaps unbelievable challenge to the main characters, which opens up the narrative aperture for solid character development: the Comanche must adapt to this new challenge. Or die. Watching this transition through Naru is the heart and soul of the film.

Prey is streaming on Hulu, which is disappointing from the perspective that I would have liked to see this in the theater. That said, some of the effects are probably not big-screen worthy. Following a good trend, most of the animals in the film are CGI (no trained or abused IRL animals), but with a spectrum of quality. I suspect that blown up to theater-screen size would have revealed a weakness in the effects that is mostly masked on a smaller screen. This is my only real complaint, and it is negligible considering what we gain. Notably, the film is made almost entirely with Native American actors, playing Comanche, and there is an option to watch the entire movie in Comanche—they filmed every dialogue scene twice, to have a legit Comanche version of the film. The music is great. There are a few callbacks to the original Predator films—not really fan service, as they fit the story, but earned and enough to make me smile. A large portion of the film has no dialogue, leaving the filmmakers to convey the story through image, motion, cinematography, and tone—the best way to tell a story. The exposition is absolutely minimal, and solely to orient viewers who have not seen the original film to some of the subtleties of the Predator lore.

Overall, this is a really great, 90-minute action movie. It does the franchise proud; so proud, that I want a direct sequel (which would be a first for the franchise) that shows what happens next with Naru and the Comanche tribe; the end credits tease this possibility, so we’ll see. The action is solid, there is some appropriate Predator gore, and…by the way…a faithful dog that serves as Naru’s companion throughout the film and is its own hero. Highly recommended, and already playing again (in Comanche) as I write this review.

Pros:
Awesome lead performance by Amber Midthunder
Stripped-down, terrifying Predator character
Beautiful setting in Alberta, Canada
Tight, concise story with likeable characters
Wonderful tribute to Comanche culture through an unexpected cinematic narrative

Cons:
Some occasional shady animal CGI
The first act is not slow or boring, but establishes a lot of unique settings and environments, which can seem slow if you’re easily distracted and not intellectually curious about anything—which is largely on you…

Rating: 4.5/5
This is an awesome movie, and a refreshing reminder of how sequels/prequels can succeed: tell a simple story in a unique setting, with a lead character that has their own story, strengths, and weaknesses, not trying to imitate anything that has come before.

Review by Jim Washburn