Yo. It has been a hot minute since I've done a movie review, so I figured I'd dust off the old keyboard and finally sit down to spew out some word garbage to you guys over a movie I just checked out recently. The film I'll be talking about today is called Prey, and I'm sure at least some people here have heard of it/watched it, as it is the biggest debuting movie to be released exclusively on Hulu. This movie is a prequel film to probably the greatest action/horror movie ever made, Predator, as well as Predator 2. This movie was written (In part) and directed by Dan Trachtenberg, who is best known for directing 10 Cloverfield Lane. It stars Amber Midthunder as our protagonist, Naru, as well as Dakota Beavers in his first acting role as Naru's brother Taabe. The entire cast for the film was picked to be as realistic as possible, with each person being of Native American descent.
I heard about this film being in production back in mid 2021, and was fairly hopeful/excited about it after hearing the premise. Especially since the more recent Predator films have been actual dog asshole in quality, especially the 2018 film which was literally just watching someone spray diarrhea on the big screen after eating taco bell. The original film held such a simple premise, and each iteration after has expanded it out and eventually turned it into a bloated fucking mess. This movie dials everything back to just having a nice simple story, and that's all you really need when there's an 8 foot tall alien hunting you. But, lets actually get into the review, shall we?
Since I've already kind of brought it up, the first thing that I'm doing to say about this movie is that it was a life giving breath of fresh air for this crusty franchise. It has a very interesting/fun setting for the premise of the movie which is simple (Set in the 1700s, focuses on a comanche tribe being hunted by a Predator), and it doesn't overly focus onto the predator for most of the movie. I absolutely fucking loved the first Predator movie, I have probably watched it a few hundred times through my life after seeing it as a kid. Predator 2 was also a fairly good sequel, although it had its issues. After that though, things got very messy for this franchise. The Alien Vs Predator movies were actual piles of dogshit in terms of writing and quality. AvP 2 had such horrible cinematography that you can't even see what's happening for most of the movie. Predators which came out in 2010, was okay. It had some cool sequences in it, and characters that were semi interesting. But, I never really thought it compared at all to the OG. Then we got The Predator in 2018, which had absolutely terrible writing, poorly written characters, as well as goofy designs for the predator aliens. It was legit the worst thing to come out for this series, in my opinion. So, it's genuinely so nice to finally have another predator film in this series that has competent writing for the story, good characters that aren't hollow husks and some actual new/fun designs for the Predator and his tech.
The cast of the movie was super well done, in my opinion. They used an entire cast of Native Americans for each character, (besides the French trappers later on in the film) several of which who had no prior acting experience but ended up being absolutely solid in this movie. In particular, Dakota Beavers who plays Taabe did a great fucking job at his role and I really enjoyed his performance. To find out that he was a retail worker and this was his first acting gig, was honestly a surprise. The main character Naru is played by Amber Midthunder, and she always does a very good job at her role. There were a few mediocre performances in this movie for sure, but overall I thought the acting was above average. The pacing of the film was also something that was really well done. The movie is around 1 hour and 40 minutes long, but It flies by really quick to the point where I was kind of surprised the movie was already over.
The narrative while simple is well done, in my opinion. The setting is that the protagonist, Naru, is getting ready for a coming of age ceremony involving hunting something that hunts you. She's doing this to prove that she can fight as well as anyone else in her tribe. Cue Predator landing and wrecking everyones shit. It focuses more on showing the main character having to use her wits to stay alive and fight the predator, versus using brawn/might to try and win which a lot of the sequels really focus on. I always wonder if people who made the sequels forgot how Arnold actually wins at the end of the OG movie, using his wits and luck to pull it off when his muscles and technology couldn't do shit. The movie being set in the 1700s where guns aren't really a huge thing and there's no technology for them to use as a crutch, really helps with the premise and just makes it more interesting. They also have the predator kind of dumbed down, since it's hinted as being his first hunt and since this is several hundred years in the past some of his technology isn't fully developed in comparison to what we saw in the OG movie and Predator 2.
The action in the movie is super well done for the most part, and is definitely some of the top tier stuff that has been shown in any of these Predator movies. There is a particular action sequence that takes place in a forest that was recently razed to the ground by fires, and it was just a great back drop for the scene that made it really fucking cool. Most of the action in this movie is very memorable and just over the top fun, and I enjoyed the hell out of it. The special effects were pretty good, for the most part as well. I had seen online afterwards that they originally were going to be practical effects for the actual Predator in the movie, and I'm a bit bummed that they canned them because from what I saw it looked fantastic. That's not to say the CGI used for the Predator was bad though, because it wasn't. However, there were definitely some issues for me in the CGI department, which brings me to my cons for this movie.
I'm not exactly sure what the reasoning is, but, there are some big issues with the CGI that was used for pretty much any and all of the animals that are shown in this film. Predator itself and all the action stuff with CGI looks great. But, as soon as it focuses in on an animal it looks like some 2004 era CGI. For some of them it's not really noticeable how bad the CGI is, such as when there's a snake shown on screen. While it's not moving, it looks pretty passable. However, as soon as it's actually actively doing something it looks like a sentient spaghetti noodle. There were other animals used that just always looked like ass, such as the bear and the mountain lion. I'm not sure if there were budgetary issues with the movie where they had to work with what they had, or if the CGI work was just rushed in that department. But, yeah, it's definitely not the best work I've seen anytime recently. That's honestly my only huge issues with the movie, I definitely have some tiny nitpicks but I'll keep those to myself.
Overall, I thought this was a solid horror/action movie outside of being a Predator film. This is definitely something you could just jump into without any knowledge of the previous movies and love. As a Predator film, it also does a good job and is hands down the best sequel we've gotten thus far. I have a soft spot in my penis for Predator 2, but objectively I would say this movie is probably better. The CGI is pretty fucky at times, and some things don't work entirely for me. But, it's a good movie, an easy 7.5/10 for me if I had to rate it. It's not as good as the OG film was. But, nothing they make for this series will be since the original movie is basically the peak of 80's/90's action, has Arnold Schwarzenegger at his absolute best with a cast of fun/great actors and holds up super well to this day. Definitely give Prey a watch if you haven't already :)