Prey: The Best Predator Sequel

Let’s be honest for a second, as a monster, the Predator has to be one of the worst movie antagonists of all time. Yes, he looks cool and yes, he has cool weapons and can rack up a lot of kills over the course of the movie’s runtime, but there has never been a Predator movie where there is a legitimate chance that the titular villain will be able to kill all the human characters in the movie without dying. The first one works because it is about how Arnold Schwarzenegger manages to out-strategize the monster but beyond that, it’s all just more of the same every time they make one. Prey
is different though because it prioritizes the story of the characters in the movie while still delivering unique and interesting action sequences to keep audiences hooked.

Set in the early 1700s in the Comanche Nation, the movie follows Naru (Amber Midthunder) who is a healer that aspires to be a warrior. She discovers the arrival of the Predator’s ship and decides to go out and see if she can find and kill the alien to prove to her people that she was worthy of being a warrior.

While the action sequences are great, and are worth watching the film for alone, the thing that sets this entry apart from its predecessors is the focus on Naru as a person and not just as the plot device that is going to get the upper hand on the Predator and kill it. Naru has autonomy, desires, and motivations besides just the usual “survive” or “the military said to kill this thing so let’s kill this thing” which makes her journey all the more enjoyable to watch. It adds weight to the action sequences that is more than just the obligatory weight that comes with the protagonist being in the climactic fight and, even though the viewer knows that she will likely live through the ordeal since this is not exactly a new formula, there is still the possibility of living and being seriously injured or having other trauma as a result. If Arnold loses an arm in the first Predator, there isn’t a reason to care but the viewer will have a reaction if that happens to Naru because we know her backstory and aspirations.

The only problem with the film is not even so much with this entry but with the way it is marketed. During the runtime, it is not stated that this is the first time a Predator has arrived on Earth, however the fact of the matter is the downgrade in weapons between the original and this movie is noticeable. The marketing also says multiple times that this is the first time a Predator has come to Earth. What this entry does is it creates the ability to turn this franchise into almost an Assassin’s Creed type affair. For those who don’t follow, each Assassin’s Creed title takes place in a different time and place. One takes place in the Caribbean during the era of piracy, one takes place in Victorian London, one in ancient Egypt, one in ancient Greece, the list goes on and on. That applies here because a series of period Predator films would certainly be more interesting than the Predator continuing to come to Earth in the modern era and watching as a group of armed-to-the teeth modern humans figure out how to kill it. The issue is that by saying the first one arrived in 1730, the franchise is really pigeon-holed into only making movies set between then and now. Again, that’s not specifically a problem with this movie, it is a problem with the circumstances around this movie and more directed at the franchise as a whole.

At the end of the day, Prey manages to be the best Predator movie since the original, and there is definitely a conversation to be had over whether or not it should take over the #1 spot. It is available to watch on Hulu at no additional cost to subscribers and it is just over an hour and a half, so the time commitment is not massive. That said, this probably could have been a theatrical release and been just as enjoyable, if not more enjoyable. While Warner Brothers/Discovery’s cancellation of movies like Batgirl
because of how high the budget was for an HBOMax release does seem like a massive overstep, there is something to be said about how many movies Disney has released on Disney+ or Hulu in the last year that should have definitely been theatrical releases.

Final Rating: 9/10