A pointed counter to the muscular mayhem of 1987’s Predator, this imaginative installment in the franchise takes place in the Great Plains of 1719, where a Comanche woman named Naru (Amber Midthunder) encounters something far more threatening and sinister than the mountain lions, wolves, and bears she and her people contend with on a daily basis. That’s a clever setup, but screenwriter Patrick Aison and director Dan Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Lane) use it as a launching pad for a rip-roaring consideration of savagery, colonialism, and gender norms. Don’t worry, it’s gory too; Prey doesn’t skimp on the viciousness of the notorious alien at its center, an intergalactic eviscerator who hunts not for sustenance (like the Comanches) or spoils (like the French fur traders we also meet), but simply for sport. As Naru, a smart, skilled young woman who would rather be hunting than gathering, Midthunder is mesmerizing—capable in the crunchy fight scenes (especially a single-take standoff between her and a handful of Frenchmen), but also in the ways her eyes are always watching, consuming every detail about the way the Predator works and the weapons it uses. Trachtenberg and cinematographer Jeff Cutter have fashioned a beautiful film as well, making the most of natural locations that are alive and exotic. Aside from stunning landscape compositions, the movie features frequent overhead shots, including one of Naru running through a field of grass with the Predator (a hulking Dane DiLiegro) in pursuit. There is another in which Naru tellingly makes her way in the opposite direction of a group of Comanche women tending to domestic chores. Such practices are well and good (the movie has a patient eye for detailing Native traditions), but she’s got a monster to hunt.
(8/8/2022)
