Prey

The best way to do a prequel is not to do one. Prequels answer questions most people aren’t asking. Prequels have an uphill fight to generate drama, because you know how they can’t end it in a way that contradicts the next movie. Prey sidesteps all that by going back so far before the original Predator that it doesn’t matter. 1719, specifically, with a Predator coming up against a Comanche tribe, and especially a young woman in the tribe who wants to be a hunter. To keep the playing field level, some of the Predator’s tech is down-scaled; the cloaking is a little more wonky and easier to disrupt, it doesn’t have the numerous vision filters, and it doesn’t have the plasma cannon. This is (mostly) a war of analog weapons. And it is a phenomenal war of attrition. The direction used the space of the forest and the plains and the hills to show the beauty but also the danger; the openness, the wildlife, the terrain, it’s all part of the game. I really can’t say enough about how well this is filmed, and how well the actors portray their roles. The two flaws I can level against it are the cliched “woman out to prove herself in a man’s world” plot and the dialogue. Not that I have a problem with strong women; it’s that this version is tired. Nothing original is brought to it. It just felt boilerplate. And the dialogue is anachronistic, feeling like it belongs in 2022, not 1719, which makes the story arc feel all the more awkward. There’s literally an exchange that goes “why do you want to hunt?”, and the main character replies “because you think I can’t”. UGH. But then again, you don’t come to a Predator movie for dialogue and deep storylines. You come for asskicking, and asskicking it provides, in spades. It borrows some tricks from the original, but puts new, time-appropriate spins on it, and it is thoroughly enjoyable. It may not stand alongside the original as a masterpiece, but it is easily the freshest idea the franchise has had since the original.