Prey Review: Redeeming A Franchise With A Change of Setting

As a big fan of the original Predator movie and admirer of the better parts of its follow up sequels and crossover properties, just looking at the trailers alone, this was starting to look very promising. I absolutely loved the potential being teased to us of the new setting in history being explored with the Yautja as the perfect “hunt centric culture and environment”. I thought that the visual direction looked pretty solid for a streaming service release and seeing Amber Midthunder get to stretch her filmography scope after Legion (my favorite comic book TV show of all time) was an extra added bonus for me. Simply put, I was completely sold from the marketing. On a side note, the Predator franchise has a pretty strange track record with me in regards to quality content. The first movie is an awesome sci-fi classic, Predator 2 was passable at best with a couple of cool visuals, Predators was underrated but nowhere close to the original, AVP was a nice fun experiment in its own right, AVP 2 was highly disappointing, and The Predator was just awful. So where will Prey stack up at the end of the day?

A Refreshing & Perfect New Setting for the Franchise

Throughout the Predator movie series, we’ve primarily seen jungles, small towns, and an urban city environment (and I suppose an arctic pyramid if we’re counting the AvP films). But despite having these different environments, one thing that most if not all of these movies have had in common was that it took place in present day with a mostly American cast. Despite the theoretic potential for the movies to explore more historical and environmental settings with its star creature, we always seemed to have stuck with keeping things current and a bit repetitive conceptually with each sequel. Even Predators which literally took place on an alien planet still felt like it treaded very similar grounds as the original movie to the point of looking like it took place on a random jungle on Earth just with a new cast of "human  badasses to root for". Well, this is where Prey comes in and successfully fulfills what the franchise should’ve done a long time ago. Take the core concept of the “Predator’s hunt” itself and bring it to a different era and setting in history to explore unique opportunities.

Here we have the Yautja (name of the Predator species) landing in a 1700’s Native American tribe region which was utterly brilliant for various reasons. The movie gets to heavily spotlight what can be labeled as “hunt culture” in a very interesting manner by connecting its central hero’s Comanche tribal culture with the villain’s mission. Most, if not all, of the Predator movies usually consisted of our heroes being military soldiers, scientists, or other manner of highly trained killers. Whereas this general idea worked perfectly in the first movie’s jungle set military insurgent operation battle turned creature feature, the follow up movies never fully took advantage of its star monster’s worldly implementation. With Prey, the Predator feels right at home being positioned in the middle of a place and time where hunting is already a major factor in the lives of our protagonist. 

One of my personal favorite highlights with this movie is the heavy attention placed on the themes and imagery of hunting. Through the Yautja and human character perspectives, we see nature itself presenting various examples of this pivotal component of survival and the cycle of life in a sense. I thought it was interesting seeing the creature just stand back and analyze both the wildlife sensibilities in the area as well as the humans whilst engaging in its visceral “sport”. On the other end of the spectrum, we get to explore the world of our protagonist, Naru, as a Comanche hunter making efforts to be validated by her tribe. Of all the Predator movies that we’ve had over the years, I feel comfortable enough to say that this was the best central hero figure yet. Well…outside of Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime of 80’s action cheese of course.

Amber Midthunder does a great job at delivering a subdued performance as this young hunter trying to prove her place amongst her community’s guild instead of being traditionally just an herbalist. I found myself much more invested in her character as the movie allowed me to experience a “slice of life” narrative direction in a historical era that was foreign to me. I absolutely loved the amount of attention given to showing off Naru’s lifestyle as being an herbalist blending ingredients to create medicines, practicing to hone her combat/hunting skills, and making attempts to succeed in the tribe’s hunting trial. To be honest, I could’ve watched an entire movie of just following this character go through her daily routines with her dog having run-ins with terrifying wildlife in order to elevate her status in the village. This is the first time that one of these movies managed to actually craft an enjoyable and interesting enough human story outside of its big creature feature sections making Prey truly a standout entry.

An Engaging Sci-Fi Survival-Horror Thrill Ride

I’ve talked about the movie’s great attention to culture insight and character journey, but it won’t be a Predator movie without some simple fun genre staples, right? If there was any question as to whether or not Prey would give franchise fans what they expect from the movie’s creature feature roots, allow me to relieve any hesitations formed. Prey without a doubt delivers the goods in spotlighting its headline monster’s visceral capabilities. One of the biggest concerns or questions that I saw from several fans during this movie’s initial concept and trailer announcement was the Predator’s clear technological advantage in the era presented. Would the Predator just easily cut through 1700s era citizens like butter with laser guns and explosives making this prequel out to feel almost pointless or illogical to root for the heroes? That's actually a valid concern, and what’s great about the movie is that it balances the design of its villain to match the setting of its playing field more appropriately.

The Predator isn’t just waltzing around Native American villages and colonizer camps blowing everything to kingdom come with high tech bombs and laser canons. Such a spectacle would eventually feel bland pretty quickly and any chance of the heroes defeating it would take some major suspension of disbelief. Instead, this new version of the Predator takes on a more “feral hunter and brawler” presentation going in with less laser guns and more blades and shields. It’s actually rather amazing how they thematically and aesthetically blended the creature’s entire appearance with the Comanche culture and colonizers’s old school guns. This is an alien hunter that was practically made to be formidable but not completely overpowering to the humans and fauna in this setting resulting in a constantly engaging physical threat to behold.

This is perfectly visualized in a scene where both the Yautja and Naru is shown healing themselves after their own individual battle with a mutual enemy. There's some interesting scenes here with the Predator taking on wildlife like wolves, snakes, and even brawling with a full size grizzly bear. Gradually ramping up the scale of natural threats, we get to see how each animal is able to do minor to moderate damage to the alien as it successfully manages to defeat each one in brutal fashion. These scenes were honestly pretty entertaining, and much like Naru's human journey, I could've watched an entire movie about the Predator analyzing and taking on different animal life. I mean how often do you get to see a Predator wrestle a grizzly bear then punch it to its death? Actually, let me shine a celebratory spotlight on that scene for a second because wow...talk about a badass  and visceral confrontation scene.

To see the Yautja take on these challenges before our human characters have to face it was a brilliant choice for the movie’s direction. Keep in mind that Naru, our protagonist, is simultaneously going through her own rite of passage of sorts finding “thee hunt” to take as a worthy trophy for her tribe. Having this particular story for Naru allowed for things to play out like an elevating hunt up the food chain making our central characters essentially become each others’ final boss battle. This is another thing that made Prey stand out as being a very intriguing and refreshing entry for the franchise. It also allows for some awesome individual moments of action-horror which is what we expect to see in a Predator movie. Naru running from a bear that her and her dog companion uncovers was a great scene in of itself even before the Predator steps in. There's also the moment where she and her brother get captured by the colonizers which was a little intense considering the disgustingly racist sensibilities of those people.

And then of course, we have to talk about the Predator getting to use his various gadgets to basically slaughter through people left and right. That scene when the Frenchmen use Naru and her brother as bait only for the Predator to skip them over and kill off the colonizers themselves was absolutely glorious. I especially loved the new shield additional to the Predator’s arsenal being shown off both defensively and offensively. He literally decapitates a guy with his shield which was pretty hardcore and certainly got a reaction out of me. That horrifyingly painful looking net trap from the older Predator movies makes a return here but is displayed in the most visually brutal way yet. They even managed to arm him with a projectile weapon still but instead of an overpowered laser, we get these interesting helmet tracking blades.

There’s also a cheer worthy bit where the Predator cuts off a bear trap that he stepped on and tosses it at someone like a makeshift flying guillotine. Suffice it to say, the action segments were pretty satisfying to watch and most certainly an improvement from what we saw with the last few movies in the franchise. And, if you guys have been following my reviews long enough, you'd 'know by now that I’m a huge nerd when it comes to interesting character design. Honestly, I thought that this was one of the coolest looking Predators to date. The helmet looked almost as if it was carved out of some alien’s skull giving it a more ancient primitive feel. There also seems to be less metal armor covering its body playing into its ferocious fighter sensibilities. Guys, I absolutely dug this new unique version of the character and hope to see more artistic design progression going forward.

And, in keeping consistent with the franchise, I was more than happy to see that they kept the lore of the Yautja’s mindset to kill only “worthy prey” in tact. I love that Naru was able to catch on to this trait when the Predator disregards killing her after she was already caught in a colonizer trap. She’s also able to exploit it when it skips her in order to take on her brother due to him holding a weapon allowing her underestimated position to become her tactical golden opportunity. This is the type of creative sensibilities that these movies have to pull off well to win me over to some extent and Prey successfully checked off all the right boxes. Honestly, the only nitpicks that I had was the score being a little weak and just a few CGI elements being noticeable. 

Regarding the music, there were moments in the movie that felt a little empty audio-wise and could’ve used something to fill the space (be it a tension rising track, a sweeping orchestral piece, a central notable theme to compliment our lead, etc.). As for the CGI, this was mostly noticeable in some of the animal scenes like the lion and a few shots of the bear, but there's also a few sketchy areas with the cloaking imagery VFX on the Predator. However these are minor and never drastically hurt the movie's immersion. Overall, I admired the new setting explored, loved the new Predator design, enjoyed the horror-action segments, appreciated the immersion component of the central character story, and found myself craving more as if I just watched the premiere a Hulu Predator anthology series. Hmmm…that's not a bad idea actually. And as for that flintlock pistol Easter egg, you better believe I immediately smiled when it showed up.

Rating: 8/10