A film review by Craig J. Koban August 18, 2022

PREY  ½ 

2022, R, 100 mins.

Amber Midthunder as Naru  /  Dakota Beavers as Taabe  /  Dane DiLiegro as Predator  /  Stormee Kipp as Wasape  /  Michelle Thrush as Aruka  /  Julian Black Antelope as Chief Kehetu  /  Stefany Mathias as Sumu (Chief Wife)  /  Nelson Leis as Waxed Mustache  /  Bennett Taylor as Raphael  /  

The PREDATOR film franchise has always been on a wobbly qualitative pendulum.  

Born with the altogether awesome John McTiernan directed and Arnold Schwarzenegger staring 1987 original, this sci-fi action series ushered in a not terrible/mostly decent Arnold-free sequel in 1990 that later begat a 2010 back to basics sequel and then - most recently - a series killer installment of unpardonable awfulness in the Shane Black led THE PREDATOR (and let's forget all of the fairly terrible ALIEN VS PREDATOR entries from the 2000s).  The last film should have been a call for celebration for fans considering Black's involvement (he not only stared in the eighties original, but also helped re-energize and define the action genre milieu in the same decade by writing the LETHAL WEAPON films).  2018's THE PREDATOR was so terrible it seemed like this franchise was put on critical life support and was all but declared legally dead. 

This long preamble brings me to the cleverly titled PREY (an obvious play on PREDATOR), which by some small scale miracle has managed to jab a hypodermic needle into the heart of the borderline beyond saving series and has injected some audacious freshness into it while simultaneously understanding what core die hards want with these films.  It all begins and ends with director Dan Trachtenberg, who previously made a gigantic splash with his 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE, which marked one of the most superb feature filmmaker debuts in a long time.  Teaming up with the intrepid screenwriter talent of Patrick Aison, Trachtenberg crafts a real humdinger of a novel premise for this fourth PREDATOR sequel: Set not in the present or future, PREY takes place way, way back in the early 18th Century and on America's Great Plains, where a sole Predator alien lands to - yup! - seek out big game targets on his hunt, which inevitably has him crossing paths with a local Native American tribe and a young female hunter that's out to prove herself to her clan.  This revitalizing newness of approach here is what makes PREY such a breakout sequel/prequel.  It's not only a ridiculously great PREDATOR chapter and an involving coming of age story about female empowerment, but it also chiefly displays the kind of outside-of-the-box conceptual ambitiousness that Hollywood summer blockbusters - and most fifth films in a series - frequently shy away from.  And make no mistake about it: this is far and away one of the summer's best entertainments. 

That, and how many large scale sci-fi action sequels in a long running franchise features a mostly Native American cast and a female Native American hero leading the charge? 

This protagonist in question Naru (played in what will be considered a career defining and breakout performance by Amber Midthunder), a fiercely loyal and brave Comanche warrior and hunter that can give as good as any of her male brethren, but gaining the acceptance and respect from them is going to take some hard work and patience on her part.  Despite the fact that she's just as skilled as any male trapper/hunter, she's regrettably pushed towards petty domestic duties on the homefront with the rest of the women (when her mother politely asks her why she's insistent on becoming a hunter, she proudly retorts "Because all of you think I can't!").  Even though Naru has some support in her brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers), she nevertheless is frequently insulted and oftentimes mentally and physically humiliated by her fellow male hunters.  What most of them fail to acknowledge is that Naru - despite her small stature - is arguably just as tough, dexterous, and resourceful (if not more) than any other male tribe member.  The only way she will gain any level of recognition is to go on a daring solo hunt and return home with evidence of her abilities and courage.  This rite of passage is a make or break moment in Naru's life. 

Unfortunately, strange and unexplained occurrences stymie her efforts.  Firstly, she witnesses weird streaking lights and cloud formations in the skies above her, which she initially perceives as a religious sign of things to come.  Then, while on her solo hunt, she notices an oddly skinned snake that's followed up by footprints that are not made by any animal that's she's fully aware of.  While looking for a wild lion that's being sought after by her tribe, Naru eventually comes in full contact with a camouflaged alien Predator species that makes extremely quick work of a man-hungry grisly bear that nearly made Naru its lunch.  Unable to fully grasp what this creature is or where it came from (and with no knowledge base of planets beyond her own or any concept of aliens and interstellar space travel), Naru begins to surmise that this alien might be a famed terrorizing monster from stories told to her during her childhood.  As the Predator begins to decimate his way through just about every wildlife creature and Comanche in his path, Naru soon realizes that she have to pull out all of the stops to stay alive and find some manner of ending this monster's killing spree once and for all. 

Again, it's the core concept that Trachtenberg and company dream up here in PREY that segregates his film well apart from previous PREDATOR sequels.  Setting the film in 1719 and featuring mostly Native American characters with infinitely less sophisticated weapons than Arnold and his hired mercs had in the then modern day set PREDATOR, there's a strong element of dread and danger that permeates this film at every corner.  That's not to say that these Comanche characters are not gallant and cunning warriors, but they're essentially facing an enemy that's beyond their historical comprehension (how would any human being - Native or not - perceive a giant alien menace from the stars with unexplainable high tech gear in an era hundreds of years before any concept of modern warfare?).  Beyond that endlessly enticing hook, PREY is on routinely solid ground on a level of period world building.  Shot mostly in Alberta, Canada convincingly doubling for 1700's America, Trachtenberg achieves some rich natural atmosphere out of these locations that shows off both their lush beauty as well as evoking how hostile and dangerous the open plains could be for this time period.  It's not only an untamed wilderness fraught with earthbound predators, but when the extraterrestrial Predator that's seemingly unstoppable and unkillable is thrown into the mix then that provides a whole other element of frightening danger to Naru and her tribe. 

PREY's opening half is pretty note perfect and expertly engineered in thrusting viewers into the world of the Great Plains from centuries past and in providing a glimpse into the gender power dynamics that are at play with Naru's tribe.  There's obvious mystery early on in terms of her using all of her keen deductive hunting skills to determine what other threat is making its presence felt beyond the wild animals lurking about, not to mention that there are some clever and enthralling scenes of the alien himself acclimating to his newfound environment.  This culminates in Naru's first close encounter with the Predator, who is able to yank that aforementioned bear away from mauling Naru to death (the beast is camouflaged, but his form is revealed to Naru in one extraordinary moment as he hoists the bear above his head like a pro wrestler, leaving its entrails and blood cascading down over him to reveal his form).  Trachtenberg orchestrates so many thrilling actions sequences beyond this, like a pulse-pounding standoff that Naru has with a mountain lion perched in a tree and another one when she's trapped in a pit of quicksand without much of an exit strategy.  It's bad enough to have an alien hunting you and your kind down one-by-one, but that's only added on to the cornucopia of other natural dangers that present themselves to Naru on her journey as well. 

And if the Predator and wild animals were not enough, Trachtenberg then throws in another European human element into the mix to add a whole other complex obstacle that poor Naru has to confront and conquer.  The closest thing that PREY has to true villains are a slew of French fur trappers that Naru stumbles upon, who turn out to be more unscrupulously evil than the Predator himself.  This leads to a protracted and bravura montage that has these trappers capturing and using Naru as bait to bring out the alien, which leads to predictable blood-spewing results (these trappers are in the horribly and laughably unenviable position of bringing muskets and knives to a fight with this ridiculously advanced alien that can hide from plain sight and possesses laser guided weapons).  Interestingly, the Predator has more of a code of ethics than the trappers: The beast never kills defenseless and/or weaker prey and instead goes after big alpha targets.  The scumbag trappers here kill anything in their sights.  By the time Naru escapes the French's clutches and is forced to confront the Predator - all decked out in the monster's phosphorescent green blood that she uses as war paint - PREY has you ensnared within its hypnotizing grip and won't let you go. 

The key to all of this is, of course, the brilliant casting of Midthunder as the Ellen Ripley-esque main hero, who - like Sigourney Weaver's iconic character in another legendary sci-fi series - has to go through a nightmare inducing gambit of psychological and physical horrors and find the inner strength and resolve to come out swinging against an unendingly intimidating creature from the cosmos.  And also like Ripley, Naru has brawn to match her brains, which makes her such an adrenaline-pumping action hero that's uniquely her own.  I last saw Midthunder in the terrible Liam Neeson thriller THE ICE ROAD, but here she's makes for a thoroughly credible tomahawk throwing badass.  This all ties in with the larger significance of PREY's largely Native American cast, and having a summer tentpole blockbuster sequel of this scale featuring this much First Nation's talent is a massive step forward when it comes to proper representation and inclusiveness in mainstream genre filmmaking.  And one of the best things that Trachtenberg does here is making these Native warrior heroes empathetic and relatable, which allows for us to root them on as much as we would any other white group of protagonists that have dominated action films since the medium began.