Main cast: Amber Midthunder (Naru), Dakota Beavers (Taabe), Michelle Thrush (Aruka), Stormee Kipp (Wasape), Julian Black Antelope (Chief Kehetu), and Dane DiLiegro (The Predator)
Director: Dan Trachtenberg
Prey is the grandparent of the all the Predator movies to date. Set in the early 18th century, this one sees a Comanche tribe pitted against a creature that we now know to be the Predator. Oh, and the stinky white men show up too, but that’s okay, they are no match for the monster.
Of course, we need the mandatory girl power angle in order to get extra funds from the current US government by making sure that their ESG score is high, so the protagonist is our young lady Naru.
She wants to be a hunter like her brother Taabe, because doing girl stuff is icky and boring. She also wears her hair down, over her eyes, the better to do action heroine stuff naturally, at least in movie land. As long as a lady has her XX chromosomes, she doesn’t need muscle tone or practical hair to kick-ass—the chromosomes charge her up with super powers or something.
Overlooking all this however, the movie is actually solid. Sure, there’s nothing here that haven’t been seen before by fans of the Predator franchise, but the more primitive setting only heightens the tension. While the Predator’s weapons are more primitive, the technology it has far outstrips all the Comanches have at their disposal, so this requires some creative thinking on the parts of the latter.
One thing I like is that Naru has to earn her victory. Sure, a little dash of luck and plot armor is present, but that applies to every protagonist in movies of this sort. After seeing some early press releases on this movie, I half-fear I will get another ridiculous movie in which the female protagonist starts out at +9,000 power simply because she is a woman, and takes down the Predator with a single punch or something.
No, what I get instead is our plucky heroine having to use her smarts to outwit the Predator and to save herself. She has to work for her victory, which makes it far more sweeter in the end.
Make no mistake, this movie does have some of the more annoying current day action heroine tropes, such as downgrading of the male characters’ brainpower to artificially boost the heroine in the audience’s eyes. One can argue that our heroine’s impulsiveness leads to many unnecessary deaths of the men in her tribe but that’s okay, because LOL men are so stupid anyway and they deserve what they get.
Still, I like this one. It takes itself seriously, but not too seriously to the point of absurdity. This one is more of a throwback in terms of atmosphere and style to the very first Predator movie. While nothing here is ground breaking or particularly innovative, it certainly helps to erase the bad taste in my mouth that still lingers after the abomination that is The Predator!
Only, someone should tell Naru to tie back her hair. It’s hard to take this movie seriously when the heroine is jumping and tumbling all over the place, but somehow her long hair never gets in the way.
