Prey(2022) Is a Good Story for the Predator Franchise

Movie review

My stepdaughter, who is not exactly a fan of science fiction, recommended this movie, so I finally got around to watching it on Hulu. Somewhat to my surprise, I enjoyed this relatively low budget Disney+ production.

The first thing I look for in a movie is a good story told at a pace that fits the plot. Prey delivers. Set in the Great Plains just east of the Colorado Rockies in 1712, a Comanche girl named Naru, who is desperate to become a hunter, sees the Thunderbird, strange footprints, a mutilated king snake, and attaches herself to a young warrior band sent out to hunt for food and maybe the bear that has been killing things too close to their camp.

The male warriors, naturally, mostly dismiss Naru’s warnings that there’s more out there than a bear.

Of course, this being a Predator movie, the human hunters, as well as the bear, quickly become the technologically advanced alien’s prey. In a nicely paced plot, our hero studies this new enemy and ultimately figures out a way to turn his confidence and his technology against him.

Sun Tzu would approve of this approach.

The second thing I look for are actors who play their roles well, and all of them do in this movie. Half the cast, led by Amber Midthunder as Naru, is Native Americans playing Comanches, speaking sometimes in Comanche(fun fact: Prey is the first movie to be completely dubbed in Comanche—it’s an option), but mostly in English for the convenience of the audience.

The other half of the cast speaks French, playing a historically improbable large band of French trappers who catch our heroine and her brother when they are fleeing from a close encounter of the deadly kind with Predator.

Yes, when a movie is period-specific, I do look for historical accuracy and Prey missed it a little bit here with the French. The only time you would have found 20 or 30 Frenchmen together in the West at that time would have been at a trading post.

There’s also a scene where the Comanche come across a dozen or so buffalo slaughtered for their hides. The French of the time weren’t after buffalo so much as beaver. The buffalo slaughter came after the Civil War, but these are minor quibbles.

The movie gets the costumes and weapons right, and also the lack of horses among the Comanche at that time. They were a relatively poor tribe, and had been driven where they were by stronger tribes at the time such as the Apache. The Comanche, who were destined to become the best horse warriors in the world, didn’t start becoming a horse people until after 1720 or 1730.

I’m not giving too much away by saying that the French, who were also being hunted by our Predator, exploit the Comanche by using them as bait for a cleverly laid trap, which works brilliantly except for the fact that Predator’s technology makes mincemeat of it.

Naru, usually accompanied by her loyal dog(spoiler alert: dog lives) makes several daring escapes while observing everything our overconfident alien villain does, and of course eventually comes up with a stroke of genius. This is consistent with the franchise stories, and fans of it should be happy with the ending.

Finally, the cinematography is beautiful. Filmed in Alberta, while probably too lush for where the Comanche actually lived, the movie captures a spectacular and wild land that pervades the movie far more than the special effects, which do their job of enhancing the plot without eclipsing it.

Prey is a solid, well-directed film, and if you like this genre, I think you’ll enjoy this movie.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend.