Film Review: Prey
Dan Trachtenberg’s lean anD mean Prey returns Predator back to basics
Dan Trachtenberg’s Prey is an absolute corker. The latest installment in a flagging franchise, the film weaponizes its simple formula into a sleek, sci-fi action missile. With powder keg tension, gnarly kills, and a formidable Amber Midthunder as a Comanche huntress facing off against a hi-tech alien foe, Prey is living proof that bigger isn’t always better. Minor spoilers ahead…
“If it bleeds, we can kill it.” These are the iconic words of alien-killing encouragement uttered by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Dutch in the original 1987 Predator. Instantly conveying the stakes of woefully outmatched underdogs fighting for survival against a hi-tech extraterrestrial warrior - and instantly cool - it’s no wonder the line is repeated in Dan Trachtenberg’s (10 Cloverfield Lane) Prey, the latest cleverly-titled installment of this flagging sci-fi franchise. Correcting the muddied mistakes of its predecessors - which were met with either ambivalent shrugs or critical drubbings - Prey finds brutal efficiency within its simple, sanguine formula, telling the story of a young woman’s coming of age as she faces off against a vicious alien threat.
Displacing its cloaked menace to the American Great Plains over 300 years ago, Prey follows young Comanche huntress Naru (Amber Midthunder, Banshee, Legion), a defiantly headstrong warrior bristling against the station her tribe has ordained for her. Much to the chagrin of the male hunters and the disappointment of her own mother, Naru disregards a role as gatherer to join her loyal and supportive brother, Taabe (Dakota Beavers), in hunting expeditions and surveillance of threats against the tribe. Prey goes above and beyond the facile “girlboss” trope, instead weaving Naru’s coming of age into the texture of real history: Her ambition lies in completing the “kühtaamia,” or the “big hunt,” not to prove herself as a woman, but to live up to her family’s great warrior lineage. Little does she know, this puts her - and her signature tethered tomahawk - on a collision course with an alien baddie itching for the fight of its life.
“…Prey finds brutal efficiency within its simple, sanguine formula, telling the story of a young woman’s wit and wile as she faces off with a vicious alien threat.”
1989’s Predator featured a who’s who of muscled action heroes, outstripped and outgunned by an invisible killer. But where Arnold and company were all glistening, epic handshakes and wild gunfire in the jungle, Prey is all wile and precision. Like its hunter and its hunted, Patrick Aison’s deliberate screenplay works a slow-building powder keg, biding its time. Naru grapples with the dangers of the wild as her male cohorts thumb their noses at her; elsewhere, French colonists set up camp with their flintlock firearms. And in the background, lurking? The Yautja interloper, picking off animals and humans alike with gruesome efficiency, only offering fleeting glimpses of its iconic weaponry. But Trachtenberg has no interest in rehashing the past and he knows his audience, which will most likely be comprised of either longtime franchise fans or the genre-savvy. The full flourish of the alien reveal comes earlier than you would expect, announcing itself in a shower of ursine gore that breaks the creature’s cloaking device. It’s the first of many searing moments that will undoubtedly make its way into the pantheon on Predator iconography.
Man - or woman, in this case - and Predator don’t face off until deep into its third act, but to call Prey a slow burn would be a misnomer. There are plenty of breezy character beats carried by Midthunder and Beavers, whose tender sibling bond forms the emotional anchor of the film. Prey’s commentary on gender is also pointed but unintrusive: Naru is mostly treated as a joke by the men who surround her, until her skills become their salvation; and funnily enough, she’s invisible to the alien, deemed an unworthy adversary until her iron will to protect her tribe and fulfill her hunt is no longer able to be ignored. On the grislier side of things, Prey also gives gore-hounds plenty to chew on with its procedural aspect; as Naru and her detachment of hunters slowly come to the horrifying realization that what’s stalking them isn’t mere wildlife, the bodies start piling up. And the kills are doozies. Limbs are lopped and spinal columns are extracted, all to the tune of familiar and new alien tech: The Predator’s iconic plasma caster makes a welcome return - though in a much more fascinating analog form - and a shiny new retractable shield gives Prey some of its nastiest dismemberments.
“Headstrong…but also passionately empathic, Midthunder centers Naru as a compelling lead on the same level as the franchise’s muscled Austrian forefather.”
Even with the alien carnage unfolding, Amber Midthunder remains Prey’s most electrifying presence. Headstrong and ferocious with the force of elemental fury but also passionately empathic, Midthunder centers Naru as a compelling lead on the same level as the franchise’s muscled Austrian forefather. She also shoulders the mantle of action star just as effortlessly: A whirlwind of arrows, blades, and axes, her physical prowess is showcased in a ballet of kinetic choreography and physicality that gives Prey its most memorable set pieces. A fevered dash through amber grass, a brutal melee with French invaders, and the final showdown with the Yautja - steel and wit together - are all series high watermarks.
Prey is humble in its construction, largely unashamed of its reliance on genre convention; in fact, it’s proof that formula is formula for a reason. Stripping bare the franchise’s increasing slather of bells of whistles, Trachtenberg returns the Predator franchise back to basics in the best way possible. With intimate, character driven action that still ticks every box on its self-destructing wrist computer, Prey is a bloody, revitalizing tonic for a franchise that has long gone sour.
