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May 23, 2017 · 5 min read. There was a moment about four hours into “Prey,” the new sci-fi game from Bethesda and Arkane Studios, in which I realized I had no idea what to do next. There were locked doors for which I clearly had to find a key and a maintenance vent that appeared to lead me just about nowhere.
Aug 4, 2022 · Boasting a cast drawn almost entirely from Native American and First Nations actors, “Prey” is painstakingly attentive to the authenticity of its Indigenous setting. Similar attention to the ...
Aug 5, 2022 · “If it bleeds, we can kill it.” Prey ’s deployment of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s classically badass observation in Predator is as potent a piece of fan service as any of the callbacks in Top Gun:...
- Adam Nayman
- Amber Midthunder’s spine-ripper of a performance shines in Dan Trachtenberg’s lean, mean Predator prequel.
- What we said about The Predator
- What’s your favorite Predator movie?
- The 31 Best Modern Horror Movies
- Verdict
By Tom Jorgensen
Updated: Aug 5, 2022 10:20 pm
Posted: Aug 3, 2022 4:00 pm
Prey will stream exclusively on Hulu on Aug. 5, 2022.
After the middling reception of 2018’s The Predator, director Dan Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Lane, Portal: No Escape) takes the franchise back to the basics in Prey… all the way back to the basics. Set over 250 years before Dutch’s first encounter with that ugly son of a b!t¢#, Prey finds the Predator (Dane DiLiegro) landing in the middle of Comanche Nation for a blood-soaked trophy hunt. It’s an intriguing setup, to take a villain whose initial appearance was defined by how easily he tore through a pack of meatheads armed to the teeth with guns and explosives and transpose it into a time where its targets don’t even have those tools to rely on. But you’d be mistaken to underestimate the Comanche’s odds. Prey tracks the battle for the tribe’s survival through a blisteringly paced, take-no-prisoners tear through the Great Plains while both honoring the roots of the franchise and serving as the perfect entry point for newcomers who want to see what all this spine-ripping, laser-guided goodness is about.
At the heart of the Comanche’s conflict with the Predator is Naru (Amber Midthunder), a teenage girl ridiculed by her family and peers for not being content to harvest crops for the rest of her life. Like her warchief father, she’s a fighter at heart and intent on completing the Comanche hunter’s rite of passage: to hunt something that’s hunting her. But not even her brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers), who leads the Comanche’s hunters, believes that to be possible. It gnaws at Naru throughout the film -- more as those around her continue to look past her obvious skill -- and it’s that frustration that fuels Amber Midthunder’s take on the character. Naru’s fight to be taken seriously by her tribe as a warrior is a strong throughline, and that’s a good thing, because hers is the only one the script takes any significant time to focus on. Previous Predator films have mined great material from the interplay between characters going up against the alien hunter, and Prey’s choice to focus on Naru to the exclusion of everyone else means that the supporting characters are a little thinly drawn.
IGN's Jim Vejvoda gave The Predator a 6.5/10, writing "The Predator is, in many ways, a throwback to what made the 1987 original so beloved... It’s a shame when everything splinters apart in the haphazard and shoddy-looking last half-hour, largely derailing what began as a promising entry in the wildly inconsistent franchise." Read the full review here.
As Naru’s story kicks off, Trachtenberg weaves in scenes of the Predator working his way up the food chain, which serve a dual function: they demonstrate its strength and technological advantage, while building tension in the lead-up to its first face-to-face encounter with the budding Comanche warrior. It’s also through these episodes that the movie begins to draw distinctions between Naru and the Predator’s hunting styles, with the Predator’s overreliance on its tech providing the first hints at how it could be beaten. By comparison, Trachtenberg takes pains to highlight Naru’s secret weapon: critical thinking. Whether it’s in a scuffle with the boys in her tribe or as she’s hiding from the Predator as he tears his way through the Plains, Naru is always listening and noticing, always using a loss or setback as a learning opportunity. It’s a crucial and well-communicated aspect of a character that, given the significant disadvantage she’s at in single combat, hammers home that Naru is the only person capable of stopping the Predator’s rampage. Prey places a lot of stock in Naru, with her at the center of nearly every scene, and Midthunder more than keeps up with the ferocious pace of the action as she is constantly undermined and underestimated, making her victories that much more impactful. At once dry-witted, determined, and capable, Midthunder’s Naru is an excellent addition to the canon of sci-fi heroes, and that axe-on-a-rope that she hurls around Scorpion-style will be the bane of convention security checks for years to come.
There’s not an ounce of fat on Prey, with every piece building off what’s come before.
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Screenwriter Patrick Aison’s script draws some smart parallels between Naru’s enemies, with their differing approaches to the hunt full of thematic fodder for Trachtenberg to drive home the injustice that recurs throughout Naru’s story. While the metaphors are clear and vital, Prey’s narrative structure does hew exceptionally close to that of Predator’s: a mission, a trip into the wilderness, an encounter with an unseen foe… you get the idea. For newcomers, this won’t be a distraction, but it does mean that existing Predator fans may find themselves putting the pieces together a lot earlier on, which does deflate some of the tension in the third act. But with a runtime of just over 90 minutes, at least it takes no breaks in getting to where it’s going. There’s not an ounce of fat on Prey, with every piece building off what’s come before and mining every piece of setup for a well-established payoff.
There’s also a dog. The dog’s name is Sarii. Sarii is a very good dog.
Dan Trachtenberg’s Prey never lets up. It’s full of the Predator franchise’s trademark violence and tension, but it’s the ferocious, star-making turn from Amber Midthunder that stands as its greatest strength. The movie’s sole focus on her lead character, Naru, means that the supporting roster comes off a little wooden, but when Prey’s tracking the...
Aug 10, 2022 · Prey has been winning rave reviews across the board, with many reviewers calling the Predator prequel the franchise's best since the original. The praise extends beyond just critics, though,...
- Jack Shepherd
Aug 17, 2022 · Here’s our review of Prey, which redefines the future of the film franchise while honoring the past in clever ways (Predator 2 fans will be very happy).
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In the Comanche Nation in 1719, a fierce and highly skilled warrior named Naru learns the prey she is stalking is a highly evolved alien with a technologically advanced arsenal. Release: August 5, 2022 via Hulu (United States) Director: Dan Trachtenberg. Reviews:
