Movie Review: "Prey" Is One Of the Best In the Franchise

20th Century Studios' Prey hit Hulu this weekend, and the movie does everything you'd imagine and want a franchise revival movie to do. Keeping it simple, but action-packed, Prey keeps you on edge, mixing a good action film with elements of good ol' 80s horror (I'll get into that), and makes for a creative and exciting storyline that wraps a great movie that is easily in the hunting for one of the best of 2022.

If you're not familar with Predator, it originally release in 1987 by the then-20th Century Fox Studios, starred Arnold Schwartzneggar and is the origins for quite a bit of pop culture moments including Arny shouting Get to the Chopper!, "You're one ugly Mother--—" and that good old meme representing two seemingly unrelated things coming together. The movie was Vietnam-adjacent, with all the jungle, muscle, and ammunition you'd expect from the era it released it.

But like most franchises from the 80s, Predators started to see its decline the more its canon was picked back up. The sequel, Predators 2 gave us Danny Glover as a cop in the "mean streets" and made for a good follow up, as did Alien V. Predators, which helmed Senaa Lathan as the right-hand bad gyal to one of the predators herself as they took on the xenomorphs in Antarctica. Everything after AVP's release, though, were feeble attempts at the studio to make a great movie that we all culturally grew up on. Call it a symptom of studios competing with Marvel Studios, but there have been more bad Predator movies than there have been good, and I'll leave you with this punchline: All the bad storylines involve middle American, White Characters.

Awww man, here comes Alex with that Woke Shit.

Hear me out, though. I'm going somewhere with this.

Predators is about an alien species that are absolute apex warriors, laced with technology that's way beyond our own, including a cloaking mechanism, spears, bombs, net, and a whole list of equipment that would make a well-prepared Batman look like a Kardashian slap box match. When mentioned in Alien vs. Predator, they allowed it to be canon that the predators have been visiting Earth for hundreds of centuries.

And this is where Prey gets it so perfectly right.

Set in sometime around the 1700s, Prey introduces us to possibly the "first hunt", where we meet a young Native American girl who, like the beast itself, is looking to get her feet wet with her first hunt. Of course, with opposition from her Comanche tribe, she goes through quite a bit of friction while trying to prove herself worthy of being one of the best hunters in the tribe. Studded with a cast filled with true Native Americans, Amber Midthunder's Naru fits the set, costume design, and historical context of the plot without any question, while also offering a plot that starts at a good enough pace and then moves forward with all the action and tact you'd want from a predator movie.

There are no side love stories. No flashback attempts at developing her character. And no corny "a girl can do that, too" scenarios. Instead, a realistic historical story that pins early Natives against an early Predator, one whose tech isn't as decorated as those in latter movies, allowing for a bit of a more even playing field in what builds up to be some interesting action sequences.

With just knowledge of the land, an axe, and her intuitive dog, Naru gives the movie's best shot at predator, while her counterparts, a band of French pelt hunters, who view their guns as the ultimate killing machines struggle to make even a scratch on the beast. This was obvious when a group of the Frenchmen shoot their muskets at the beast, and then are shown having to literally reload their gunpowder before being able to shoot again.

Of course, with such a huge step back in available firepower, this movie gets really interesting because of the even wider gap between human arsenals and the beasts' utility belt. And speaking of utility belt, we get an entire action scene of this Predator absolutely unloading on the Frenchmen with some iteration of nearly every weapon we've ever seen from one of these guys across the franchise, and that was exciting.

THE THEME

So back to my comment. No good Predator movie has had a white lead - is that true? I think so. With just Arnold's 1987 movie and Adrian Brody's 2010 movies, the rest, which include Alien v. Predator: Requiem, Predator (2018), and more fall flat because of stupid back stories, unneeded love interests, and a desire to gore porn (movies that are overly gory for the excitement of the audience). In my opinion, that's not what makes Predator a great franchise.

Instead, it requires the human characters to approach their attacks on predators from the approach of winning without big guns - because obviously, the aliens have all the advantage there. In Predator (1987), the main character had to outwit the beast after understanding its weakness: its poor eyesight. In Alien vs. Predators, Sanaa Lathan understood her role as a human as actually being part of the predators' hunting game and showed her worthiness in being able to kill. There's an element to the predators that requires an understanding that you can't beat them outright or head to head.

Again, that's what makes Prey such an interesting film. Here is this teenage girl who steps out of the comformity of her tribe to be a hunter, and outwits seasoned hunters, French hunters, and the Predator itself for the big win! And she does it all within the movie feeling so-called "woke". Midthunder's delivery of the closing monologue drove that point home.

As one of the Frenchman attempts to grab his musket to shoot her, Naru eats an herb that slows the heart rate down and cools the body. When this happens, Predator's helmet can't detect her presence. As he approaches the man she delivers straight bars about not being seen as a threat, and therefore actually being one. In a movie set during a time period almost exclusively driven by men, yes, this is bars because of how seemingly subtle it was on the grand scale, but how important it was to the action and plot of the movie.

Prey is easily one of the best Predator movies, and alost one of the best movies of the year. 2022 hasn't been as great as we anticipated, and the only thing that may challenge my high acclaim for the movie is that, unfortunately, the movie went straight to HULU instead of actually having a theatrical release. With scenes like the grand reveal of the predator's face, this movie had major moments that held close to the 80s horror style of revealing the big baddie half way through the movie. That would've been dope in theater, along with the musical score by Sarah Schachner.

According to iMDB, there is a version of this film in Comanche with English subtitles. And since there have been lots of movies returning to theatre, like Spiderman: No Way Home and Morbius, its obvious that box office rules might not be the same as they were pre-pandemic. So, we may see Prey release to theatres, but even if it never does, it still gets to sit very high on my life of 2022 movies, and is a solid revival for one of my favorite movie franchises.

What were your thoughts on Prey? Where do you rank it among the Predator movies?