Prey will stream exclusively on Hulu on August 5, 2022.
After the mediocre reception of 2018’s The Predator, director Dan Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Lane, Portal: No Escape) takes the franchise back to its roots in Prey… all the way back to base. More than 250 years before Dutch’s first encounter with that ugly son of ab!t¢#, Prey finds the Predator (Dane DiLiegro) landing in the middle of Comanche Nation for a blood-soaked trophy hunt. It’s an intriguing setup to take on a villain whose first appearance was defined by how easily he ripped through a armed to the teeth troop of fleshheads with guns and explosives, transposing them to a time when his targets weren’t even close. That tools to rely on. But it would be a mistake to underestimate the Comanche’s chances. Prey follows the struggle for the tribe’s survival through a lightning-fast, take-no-prisoners rip through the Great Plains, while both honoring the franchise’s roots and providing the perfect entry point for newcomers wanting to see what all these chilling, laser-guided goodness is about.
At the heart of the Comanche’s conflict with the Predator is Naru (Amber Midthunder), a teenage girl who is ridiculed by her family and peers for being dissatisfied with harvesting for the rest of her life. Like her father, she’s a fighter at heart and determined to complete the Comanche fighter’s rite of passage: hunting something that will hunt her. But even her brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers), who leads the fighters of the Comanche, doesn’t believe that’s possible. It gnaws at Naru throughout the film – more so as those around her continue to see past her obvious skill – and it’s that frustration that fuels Amber Midthunder’s take on the character. Naru’s struggle to be taken seriously by her tribe as a warrior is a strong through line, and that’s a good thing, as it’s the one thing the script takes a lot of time to focus on. Past Predator movies have garnered great material from the interplay between characters going up against the alien fighter, and Prey’s choice to focus on Naru to the exclusion of everyone else means the supporting characters are drawn a bit thin.
As Naru’s story begins, Trachtenberg weaves scenes of the Predator making its way through the food chain, which serve a dual purpose: demonstrating its strength and technological edge, as they build tension leading up to its first face-to-face. – confrontation with the budding Comanche warrior. It’s also through these episodes that the film begins to differentiate between Naru’s and the Predator’s hunting styles, with the Predator’s over-reliance on his technology giving the first hints as to how he can be defeated. In comparison, Trachtenberg goes to great lengths to highlight Naru’s secret weapon: critical thinking. Whether it’s a scuffle with the boys in her tribe or hiding from the Predator as he makes his way through the plains, Naru always listens and notices, always using a loss or setback as a learning opportunity. It’s a crucial and well-communicated aspect of a character that, given the significant disadvantage she has in single combat, insists that Naru is the only person capable of stopping the Predator’s rampage. Prey puts a lot of stock in Naru, with her at the center of almost every scene, and Midthunder more than keeps up with the relentless pace of the action because she’s constantly undermined and underestimated, making her wins that much more impactful. At once dry-minded, determined and capable, Midthunder’s Naru is an excellent addition to the canon of sci-fi heroes, and that ax on the rope that swings them around Scorpion-style will be the bane of convention security checks for the upcoming years.
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If you were concerned that Prey took place 268 years before the original would mean more rudimentary gear for the Predator, then you’ll be happy to hear that Trachtenberg finds room for most of his signature weapons between the ribcages of those unlucky enough to to get his way. And the Predator’s rampage through Comanche Nation looks incredible: the film was shot on location in Alberta, and Trachtenberg uses that expansive terrain to make Naru and the Comanche feel even more insignificant next to the towering alien stalking them. The Predator isn’t the only enemy Naru faces, with a second batch of invaders crashing halfway through, giving way to a lengthy and absolutely brutal showdown between all three sides.
Prey’s approach to the Predator’s attacks alternates between quick, fraught encounters that Trachtenberg describes well (there’s a particularly fun one-take fight scene to keep an eye on), and long, drawn-out games of cat and mouse, chess matches in the trees where the Predator calls “checkmate” by breaking people like twigs. Prey is sensible with how it applies these different approaches and, even if the plot feels like it’s on autopilot, the way Naru’s encounters with her enemies unfold comes across as dangerous and unpredictable. Trachtenberg wisely assigns the Predator’s bloodiest and most brutal kills to the Comanche and to the story’s other enemies, who carry more “modern” weapons with them. The Predator’s advantage is significant, and with Prey being a rare, high-profile genre platform for native culture, it may have been overkill to enjoy the relatively ill-equipped Comanche’s death. While the Predator spares no one, Trachtenberg films their demise with a judicious eye so that their deaths are a lot more dignified than how the rest of the characters bite into it.