Following in this tradition is Prey, a new installment of the Predator series directed by Dan Trachtenberg. After 2018's dreadful The Predator, extreme measures would need to be taken if this saga was going to live on. Thankfully, Prey is just the shot in the arm this franchise needed. Some bold wings have been taken here and they've managed to pay off swimmingly.
Set against the backdrop of 1719, Prey follows Naru (Amber Midthunder), who lives in a Comanche Nation and is desperate to prove herself a glorious hunter. Her brother, Taabe (Dakota Beavers), is her tribe's boldest warrior and casts a large shadow that Naru just can't escape from. She and her people are regularly fighting a bevy of dangerous critters, such as bobcats and bears. But Naru soon has to contend with a whole new kind of adversary in the form of the Predator. This alien has all kinds of unbelievable abilities and seems unstoppable. Naru is about to become this cosmic beast's newest trophy...or she might have a chance to prove her worthiness in combat once and for all.
Prey's screenplay by Patrick Aison is a clever creation that, whether intentionally or not, ends up taking some very broad but also smart cues from its directors last film, 10 Cloverfield Lane. Both of these projects are compact stories told with only a handful of cast members. They also share the willingness to eschew easy ham-fisted references to their respective predecessors in favor of making exciting standalone narratives. Prey doesn't waste time in trying to connect this story to the ones seen in Predator 2 or The Predator. It hits the ground running and proceeds to focus on delivering excitement, not fan service. Fans of earlier Predator movies need not fret, the titular alien still rips out spines and slices off heads, you'll get the carnage you want from one of these movies. It's just that Prey doesn't believe the only way to deliver that mayhem is through a rigid remake of what came before it.
The fun of Prey doesn't just come from its willingness to deliver new kinds of characters or themes for this franchise. It also comes from Trachtenberg and company embracing more practical means of realizing this story. CGI is used throughout this grisly tale, but it's not the only way heightened action is executed. The Predator alien is a guy in an elaborate suit rather than a CG being added in post-production, while the vast majority of environments appear to be natural locations. Going this route with the backdrops lends an immediate tactility to the world Naru inhabits while it's also neat how the Predator works as a constrast to these landscapes. This otherworldly creature sticks out like a sore thumb against roaring rivers and large fields of grain, which feels just right in reinforcing what an intimidating aberration this organism is.
Cinematographer Jeff Cutter thrives with such lovely outdoor exteriors to work with while he and editor Claudia Castello are critical to making the action sequences as fun as they are. Hand-to-hand skirmishes are, thankfully, as crisply-realized as the wide shots of expansive mountainsides. You can see and appreciate all the violence both the Predator and Naru are capable of inflicting, which is especially great since Aison has come up with some wonderfully gnarly deaths for these characters to dish out. Any R-rated action movie wins a lot of points from me if the demises are creative and Prey delivers some messy and fun ways for supporting characters to go.
Thankfully, in the middle of all the carnage, the character beats don't get lost in the shuffle. Possibly the highest compliment I can afford Prey is the dialogue-heavy scenes fleshing out Naru's personal conflicts don't feel like killing time until the next massacre from the Predator, Naru's an interesting character made all the more compelling by a fantastic lead performance from Amber Midthunder. Some of the dialogue and character dynamics at the forefront of the first act are some of the more predictable elements of Aison's script, to be sure. But by and large, Prey's attempts at making you care about the humans work just fine for this sort of genre exercise. We have enough characterization to ensure the fight scenes aren't hollow, while the movie also recognizes that too much chit-chat would disrupt the pace of the feature. Prey mostly gets that balance right.
Aside from a couple of quibbles (like some nighttime scenes being too dimly lit), the biggest complaint I have with Prey is that it's not going to movie theaters. How did The Predator get a substantial theatrical release but this vastly superior installment in the Predator saga has to settle for a Hulu bow? Who even goes to Hulu for movies anyway? Disney's botching of 20th Century Fox releases never ceases to be astonishingly misguided. But even if we all have to settle for exclusively watching it on our TVs, Prey is still a terrific action movie and much more engaging than it has any right to be. Following in the footsteps of other sequels that saved a franchise like Thor: Ragnarok and X-Men: First Class, Prey has come around to restore luster to the Predator saga just when this series needed it.
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