Hunt or be hunted, says the new “Predator” prequel film, “Prey,” but don’t underestimate the threat level either, the movie often reminds us. It’s a movie, like the original, ultimately about survival and outwitting your would-be slayer. Handsomely crafted by director Dan Trachtenberg, the “10 Cloverfield Lane” filmmaker knows his way around a suspense thriller. Trachtenberg’s got the goods; he knows when to be slow-burning and understands the tautness, coiling, and release of tension, on top of the catharsis of full-blooded action. It’s a classic “Predator” film in many ways, subverting the paradigm slightly by featuring a new context: a Native American female warrior at its center, Naru (a persuasive Amber Midthunder, full of conviction). But as fresh as “Prey” does feel in this new warpaint on the surface, the film does feature a lot of inherent, built-in franchise limitations.
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For one, we’ve seen “Predator” films before, so unlike his patient and Hitchock-ian ‘Cloverfield’ film, “Prey” immediately loses the element of surprise so elemental to most suspense films. That audience knows what’s out there, and what the situation entails. Naru and her Comanche tribe do not. And it’s never ideal in a suspense thriller featuring a monster when the audience is one step ahead of the character, knowing ultimately where the story is headed. Still, despite this fundamental flaw in the design and the inevitability that follows it from the beginning—we can pretty much guarantee Naru will outwit and survive, just like Ahnuld did way back when— “Prey” still has captivating qualities to offer.
Plot-wise, the film is pretty threadbare—there’s an alien in the woods slaughtering things, and it’s on a collision course with a Comanche tribe in 1791. But its story—Naru constantly being underestimated by everyone around her, and the desperation to prove herself, something of a self-imposed conflict—engages a bit more. To a point anyhow.
“Prey” begins following Naru, her faithful dog, Saril, and their exploits. She is eager for respect and to be seen as a warrior, and she has the skills to back it all up. But as a woman in a man’s world, her role is meant to be more of a caretaker, and her mother and much of the tribe are puzzled by her desire to hunt. Her older brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers) is essentially the tribe’s superstar hunter, and when he kills a mountain lion that has maimed one of their community members, he seals the deal as the heir apparent to the tribe’s chief; just one more burden for Naru grapple with. Naru wants to face the tribe’s hunting trials: hunt something that will hunt you, and she’ll soon get her wish.
But something is amiss. Why did a mountain lion leave one of their tribesman for dead instead of eating him? Why has a rattlesnake and a field full of buffalo been skinned alive, their meat left to rot? Naru’s intelligence and wit puts her ahead of the pack; she’s essentially the smartest person in every room and deftly cunning. Unfortunately for “Prey,” we’re still one step ahead of her the entire time too, and her sharp intellect means she essentially outsmarts every predicament she’s in outside of a few early failures.
So, while screenwriter Patrick Aison is trying to convey how competent Naru is, and why this preternaturally gifted character is able to defy these gender norms and obstacles —many of the undermining sexist variety from the condescending men of her tribe— the screenplay verges on never fearing for the character, she’s so bad-ass (the empowerment gas pedal is sometimes pressed a few hairs too hard).
So, it’s a testament to Trachtenberg’s suspense artistry that “Prey” is as engaging and entertaining as it is, regardless. Featuring a great score by Sarah Schachner (especially the bookended, more elegiac music), terrific cinematography by Jeff Cutter, and tight editing by Claudia Castello and Angela M. Catanzaro, “Prey” is very well constructed on a cinematic level.
Still, “Prey” is much more interesting when it centers on Naru, her tribe, and the gender dynamics she faces for hunting and tracking. Midthunder is compelling and super watchable; there’s never a question about whether she can carry the film as she’s easily the best thing about it. But when the Predator alien fully enters the picture, takes over, and ends up picking off everyone one by one—her fellow tribesman, the French Canadian fur trappers that enter the picture as a second act conflict, etc.—the entire affair just becomes a fairly standard formula and diminishes bit by bit until the inescapable conclusion.
So, from the outset, while it may be dressed up in different garb and feature a community that rarely gets their due (a good thing, for sure), it’s ultimately still very much a “Predator” movie to a fault. This speaks to the tyranny of franchises, the deal with the devil bargain you make when you enter one of these arrangements and one that doesn’t benefit the monster genre much. There’s a much more interesting version of “Prey” out there somewhere conceived with a new, totally different creature audiences haven’t seen before and aren’t familiar with its cornerstone traits, patterns, and behaviors. Even if the movie ultimately utilized the same design—human outwits creature with adversity, grit, skill, and determination—a truly fresh package would have done “Prey” wonders.
In the end, “Prey” is about who is seen and how they’re seen. Naru is invisible to her tribe, never acknowledged as a real hunter, a capable warrior, or even a real person, and she uses her cloak of disregard to her advantage (though the whole, “I’m not seen as a threat, this is what makes me dangerous” thing is literally far too spelled out). Ultimately, we see through “Prey” too, all its Predator tendencies, bents, and movements—it’s like the hunter in the forest in a movie that says to a clumsy friend, you announced yourself 10 minutes ago loudly traipsing through the woods. “Prey” is a crisp movie, but it’s in constant tension with its irrevocability, which makes the case for deeper originality to take center stage in the fight. [B-]
“Prey” arrives on Hulu on August 5.
