'PREY' REWATCH REVIEW

‘PREY’ IS THE FIRST INSTALLMENT IN THE FRANCHISE AFTER ‘THE PREDATOR’ NEARLY KILLED THE FRANCHISE ENTIRELY IN 2018. DESPITE THE PANDEMIC AND BEING AN EXCLUSIVE HULU RELEASE, IT REINVIGORATED THE FANBASE AND RESUSCITATED THE DYING BRAND.

IT ALSO, AS OF NOW, HAPPENS TO BE THE FIRST LIVE-ACTION ENTRY CHRONOLOGICALLY IN THE SHARED UNIVERSE TIMELINE AND IT’S A GOOD THING BECAUSE THIS MOVIE IS GENUINELY VERY WELL DONE.

I REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME I EVER SAW IT AND HAD LOW EXPECTATIONS FOR IT, GIVEN THE WAY THE OTHER ENTRIES HAD GONE, BUT WAS PLEASANTLY SURPRISED.

‘PREY’ SCALES EVERYTHING BACK TO BASICS AND GROUNDS IT IN THE FORMULA THAT MADE THE ORIGINAL SO SUCCESSFUL BUT WITH INTRODUCING DYNAMICS AND ENVIRONMENTS WE HAD NOT SEEN PREDATOR CHARACTERS INTERACT WITH PRIOR.

IF YOU ARE ENTERING THIS UNIVERSE FOR THE FIRST TIME, ‘PREY’ WILL GIVE YOU THE CONFIDENCE TO RIDE OUT THE LOWS OF SOME OF THE OTHER FILMS.

AND I’D ARGUE THAT IT’S BETTER THAN THE ORGINAL...



WARNING! - SPOILER REVIEW BELOW



The smartest thing that this film does right out the gate is not title itself as a predator movie. this is super wise given the dive the franchise took before this installment. the franchise, even just taken by itself and not lumped in with the others it shares a universe with, became stale with a selection of lackluster sequels that never did anything super interesting with this world. dan trachtenberg immediately sets a tone with the title that this will be different and it's going back the formula that rooted the franchise in the pop culture pantheon in the first place.

'prey' is arguably a very similar movie to 'predator' except for some key things, namely the setting. it's been well documented in the predator canon that they have been visiting earth (and other worlds) for ages hunting various prey that will give them a fight worthy of a true warrior. However, seeing the predator in history has never really been explored...until this film.

For this movie, a member of our favorite warrior alien race touches down on earth in 1719 at a time when north america and the indigenous people within were already being invaded by a very different alien race - white people. Here we find our main character, Naru, who is the only female lead in the entire franchise (excluding 'alien vs predator'). She's eager to prove herself to her own tribe and not willing to take alternative roles assigned to her - she wants to hunt and she wants to fight...period. The tribe doesn't seem to trust her skills and, to be fair, she seems to make a lot of mistakes that ensure her brother and all of his friends are pissed at her all the time. Things take a turn, though, when a certain alien killing machine lands in the area searching for a worthy hunt. Working his way up the chain seeking his foe, the predator starts with lower-level creatures - ones our main characters typically use as their own prey - and they assume its an animal they need to take down. naru, though, is the only one to get any idea of what they are dealing with and takes matters into her own hands and when the predator fails to take her down, she becomes the lucky one chosen for the other half of the human vs alien warrior battle royale. Many of her brethren are wiped out in the process as collateral damage (and a good number of white settlers also) until Naru succeeds in taking her foe down.

I gotta say, I love this movie mainly for just how refreshing it is compared to the other installments. the entire franchise has a toxic masculinity built into the dna of the franchise beginning with the original - the predator is a warrior and therefore the one he goes up against must be male and it's a pattern that wasn't broken until this movie. the formula is almost essentially the same, you just swap arnold Schwarzenegger out for this girl and change the time period to something more interesting we haven't seen yet. it's an easy switch-up and wow does it work well here. the predator also gets a slightly degraded look here, given it's supposed to be a couple hundred years or so before we meet this species in the original movie and looks menacing and terrifying.

despite being banished to streaming and released during a global pandemic, 'prey' was wildly successful simply for the amount of care that was put into making it which is the only reason dan trachtenberg is getting his shot at a big screen installment with 'predator: badlands' in the first place. THis is something that is important to note as it just expertly displays his knowledge of not only filmmaking, but his knowledge and love of this franchise and it's lore.

The bottom line is if you're wanting to see a really good action/horror movie, this is definitely one of them. It's definitely one of the best in this particular shared universe and is hopefully only a taste of the quality of storytelling we will get when 'predator: badlands' drops in theaters soon.

9/10

you can catch 'Prey' streaming on Hulu and Disney+ right now.