Prey (8/10)
In an ideal world, I would have seen Prey on DVD. Alas, it looks like it's never coming out on DVD, and with my Disney+ subscription expiring, plus Disney's removal of material from their streaming service (bastards), I figured it was now or never. Or, later, but y'know, semantics. Anyway, I sat down, and watched this film as the obedient little 'ooman I was. Having watched it...um...okay, I'll just say it, this is the best Predator film in the franchise. Yes, even better than the first. Granted, that could change, and I know my ranking of the Predator series is a bit unorthodox (you'll see that at the bottom), but whatever the case, Prey's a very solid film. Oh sure, there's little niggles I have with it (e.g. the French trappers are a bit too cartoonishly evil), and there's little inconsistencies (the yautja doesn't harm Naru because she's maimed, but then kills Adele when he's in an even worse position), but these are minor gripes.
Now, I could leave it there, but Iz gotz more opinionz, and as such, I'll list some of them. Not a full review or anything, but certain stuff I feel is worth commenting on. So on that note:
-Minor point, but the landscape shots are gorgeous. After having lots of real-world landscapes represent alien planets in Star Wars shows, it's actually refreshing to see wilderness represent actual wilderness.
-Naru is the MVP. I know that's arguably a "duh" moment, since she's the protagonist, but Amber Midhunter does a terrific job with her. Badass, not invulnerable, good sense of motivation, etc. She's not the most complex character in the world, but she's certainly a likable one, and she carries the movie with ease.
(Also, like Leo in The Revenant, she has to survive bear attacks and encounters trappers and whatnot. Seriously, I was getting a few Revenant flashbacks with this. 0_0)
-On the subject of the protagonists being Cherokee, I can't comment on what's authentic or what isn't, but everything seems 'real' enough, so to speak, so that's nice having them as protagonists. Taabe (Naru's brother) is a good character as well. You could argue it's a cliche that Naru wants to hunt while everyone insists that her role should be a healer, and you'd probbably be right, but the film does it well enough.
-I'm going to get my comments on the film's yautja out of the way first, I love the design, and more importantly, the tech. I don't know if this was ever explicitly stated, but my take is that the yautja's tech is intentionally gimped to give him an edge over 18th century humans, but not too much. So for instance, he has a shoulder weapon that fires tracking arrows rather than a plasma caster, and has to use a manual shield to block gunfire rather than full-plate armour (still uses cloaking, the pansy). I'll be honest, I've never been as enamored with the yautja as many others, but this yautja is what I want from a Predator film - has an honour code, but is absolutely brutal, but clearly not invincible. This guy kills dozens of people, but is also wounded throughout the film.
-By extension, the gore factor. Again, gore to me is like icing on a cake, I don't mind a lack of it in of itself, but the gore here levels are gratuitous in a good way. Lots of blood, people die terribly, but it never drifts into sadism.
-Obvious parallels are obvious, but Naru has to undergo a rite of passage to become a hunter, and that's to hunt something that can hunt her back (bear, cougar, whatever), while the yautja has come to Earth to hunt prey, starting with a snake, a wolf, a bear, and then, humans, the challenge getting higher all the time. Like I said, obvious parallels and nothing really beyond them, but they work well enough.
-"If it bleeds, we can kill it," says Taabe. Which is actually one of the few times a movie has quoted another movie in its franchise without coming off as hackneyed, so well done there.
-I'm going to skip right to the final fight at this moment - I should say that if you're watching this film for in-depth character or themes, you won't really find it, but I'm going to focus on some of these things regardless, even if I'm almost certainly overanalyzing. I'll come out and say that in addition to being the best Predator film, this has the best final climax in a Predator film as well. So on the subject of it:
1: In regards to the original Predator film, there's a moment in the end where Dutch roars/yells to the yautja after covering himself in mud. My interpretation of this (even if I've never seen anyone agree with it) is that this moment of Dutch embracing his inner beast, so to speak. That after 20th century weapons have failed, it's only by 'going native/primal' that he can succeed, even if it costs him emotionally by the end. I bring this up, because while this is almost certainly overanalysing (and even if it is intended, it's not an in-depth theme), there's a similar moment here. The yautja roars at Naru, she has her own warcry that the Cherokee have used among the film back at it. While the whole "both yautja and humans are predators" trope isn't new (heck, it's in the very title of Predators), I'll give it credit for reaching its apex. Throughout the entirety of the film, parallels have been set up between Naru and the yautja (both hunt deadly prey, both paint blood on their faces), and it's conveyed without any outright dialogue.
2: Like I said, best fight scene - strength vs. agility and all that. It's very hard IMO to make it believable that any human could survive for more than a few seconds with a yautja, but here, the movie pulls it off effortlessly, and yes, the fight's appropriately brutal as well.
3: This is almost certainly (like, 99% certainly) reading too much into things, but anyway, what occurred to me is that it's arguably thematic that Naru defeats the yautja while it's snowing. We know that yautja are better suited to warmer climes than humans (we are, to borrow a phrase, "ice age animals"), so after prevailing throughout the film, it's arguably telling that Naru defeats a yautja when it's out of its element (literally). As in, this is Earth, not Yautja Prime, the planet's naturally cooler (well, at this point in time at least), hence, Naru succeeds with the planet literally backing her.
Is that likely to be the case? Absolutely not. I can't even link it to 'The Predator', where Earth's increasing temperatures are a plot point (or at least a worldbuilding one). Still, it entered my mind regardless.
-I can't really complain about the ending, but I have to question why three yautja ships show up at the end, presumably in response to Naru killing one of their own. I know that some promotional materials stated that this is the first time a yautja has come to Earth (either that's an error or a massive retcon), but you could interpret their arrival in the context of one of their own being slain. However, I'm not sure what you could do with a sequel, or even if a sequel is necessary. I certainly like the idea of Predator films having Hunts across time and place, but "across time and place" is the key part of that sentence. If there's a "Prey 2" that takes place in the same region with the same characters, I don't see it succeeding nearly as well.
So, yeah. Pretty good film. Per usual, ranking of the Predator films is below:
1: Prey
2: Predator
3: The Predator
4: Predators
5: Alien vs. Predator
6: Predator 2
7: Alien vs. Predator: Requiem
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