Prey (2022)

★★★½
Prey doesn't just go back to the basics; it builds on the basics so that instead of getting a retread, we get an entirely new way of experiencing the Predator story while re-experiencing what made the original movie so good in the first place. Director Dan Trachtenberg and writer Patrick Aison have created a worthy entry in a long-running series that has included too many disappointing sequels. The premise alone is brilliant: Take the familiar armored and high-tech Predator alien and transplant him to 1719 earth and have him do battle with Native American warriors. It absolutely could work, and it does. This is a thrilling and bloody action movie that gets the period details right while featuring a strong female character with aspirations of fighting alongside her male companions. It's a return to the wilderness environment of Predator with new challenges like the presence of French fur trappers, primitive weapons and the wild animals of the Americas.

Naru (Amber Midthunder) is a Comanche warrior living in the Northern Great Plains with her tribe. She's a healer who aspires to be a hunter like her brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers). An attack on a tribesman suggests a mountain lion or bear may have been responsible. A hunting party goes out to find the animal, with the men dismissing Naru as unworthy of such a task. The party kills a mountain lion and returns to the village, but Naru is unconvinced. She saw bigger tracks, suggesting a much larger animal. When the opportunity arrives, she ventures out on her own, determined to prove herself with a trial that could bolster her standing and demonstrate her resourcefulness to her people. This proves more difficult than she could have imagined, because after a run-in with a bear, she sees the real threat for the first time by way of an awesome introduction that takes full advantage of the alien's ability to camouflage itself. This predator (Dane DiLiegro) has the same motivation as those who would come later. It is a hunter who kills for sport and takes trophies of its conquests. Naru gets away, but she is captured by French trappers who have seen the creature and want to destroy it.

The premise sets the stage for an exciting series of action sequences featuring the otherworldly predator against 18th century humans with all their technological disadvantages. Nevertheless, Trachtenberg directs the fighting in a way that emphasizes the strengths of the humans to overcome their weaknesses. The Comanche warriors are stealthy and quick. The French have the guns and large numbers of men. We have seen through several movies how strong the predator is, and a predator from over 300 years ago still has too many tools at its disposal for anyone to engage it in a fair fight. Taabe even calls the predator a cheater when it disappears after losing the upper hand. Still, Trachtenberg doesn't present the creature as unbeatable. The North American setting and the time period present an opportunity for new kinds of encounters and obstacles that the first film did not explore, yet the eeriness of a hidden threat in wooded surroundings duplicates Predator's greatest asset (other than Schwarzenegger).

Amber Midthunder is just plain terrific in the role of Naru. Athletic and fierce, she embodies the part with a lot of credibility given her own Comanche bloodline. I loved her performance. I also appreciate the novice cast, adding more authenticity to the landscape. The most positive development in the story is Naru's discovery of the predator's visual limitations. It's the same principle Dutch used in Predator to hide his body heat, but here Naru makes the connection because her medicinal knowledge had long been established. The indispensable Critical Drinker had a positive assessment of Prey, though he had issues with how the slim Naru barely took a beating from the mighty hunter from space while Dutch was knocked around violently by his opponent. I would argue that writer Aison got around this objection by subjecting the predator to multiple attacks from nearly every earth creature it encountered. Really, by the time of the final battle, we've seen so much glowing green blood that it makes sense for the predator to be in a weakened state.

Prey is a lean and tight little picture that greatly exceeds expectations. My only gripe with the movie is the way Naru's fellow tribesmen reject her as an equal and don't listen to her because she's a woman. This very well may have reflected the attitudes of the time, but the smugness of the men's behavior suggests that writer Aison inserted some modern feminist perspectives into the script. It's an unfortunate element that, while not damaging, is too recognizable for us not to make the connection and cause an eye roll or two. Given what has happened to the Star Wars franchise under Kathleen Kennedy's incompetent stewardship, it isn't far-fetched to think something like that happened here, to a movie that premiered on Disney-owned Hulu. Nevertheless, as the director of the exceptional 10 Cloverfield Lane, Dan Trachtenberg manages to keep things on track and ensures Prey is largely focused on thrills. Thank goodness, since the Predator series was already in a fragile state and desperately needed a strong entry to inject it with new life.

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