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Woke ‘Prey’ Still Packs Genre Thrills

Solid prequel delivers something most blockbusters can't - efficiency

At last, a “Predator” spin-off that doesn’t make you re-watch the 1987 original to get the bad taste out of your mouth.

That doesn’t mean “Prey” tops the source material. Hardly. Director John McTiernan’s film has aged remarkably well, from its relentless pace to that glorious finale.

What “Prey” does is lean into the genre essentials. That, combined with a whiff of imagination, makes it superior to franchise extenders like “The Predator” and “Predators.”

Predators | Official Trailer HD | 20th Century FOX

Yes, the new “Prey” has its woke elements. We follow a hardscrabble Native American woman who wants to hunt as hard, and as successfully, as her male peers. And if she has to physically out-muscle men twice her size, well that’s what 21st century screenwriters demand.

Take that, Comanche patriarchy!

The focus remains on the predator, a creature whose trilling voice and deadly bag of tricks still grab our attention.

Prey | Official Trailer | Hulu

Naru (Amber Midthunder) longs to be regarded as a hunter like the men in her Comanche tribe. She’ll have to prove her worth, a challenge made all the more difficult when a mysterious creature enters her realm.

It’s tall, quasi-invisible and possesses strength beyond mortal men. Sound familiar?

We know all about the alien in question, but the tribe members have to learn the hard way.

The film doesn’t allow much time for nuance, culture or other elements that might enrich the saga beyond the use of authentic Comanche language. It’s all about the thrills, the alien antics and how this creature continues to intrigue us more than 30 decades after its debut.

Predator (1987) - Predator vs. Dutch Scene (3/5) | Movieclips

 

Director Dan Trachtenberg (“10 Cloverfield Lane”) keeps the action flowing, and he knows what franchise fans expect after all these years.

That template is slickly applied and makes the minimalist story easy to swallow. Ignore the 1:39 minute running time. This wraps in a clean 90 minutes, and that sense of efficiency alone deserves kudos in our bloated blockbuster age.

Midthunder captures Naru’s uncertainty and mental strength, making her a shrewd choice as the film’s protagonist. She’s not ready for any predicament, but give her a few beats and she’ll improvise.

 

At one point the predator dismisses her as a credible threat to its survival. A film set in modern times might have leaned into that sentiment, preaching along the way.

Team Trachtenberg lets the moment stand for itself, while audiences recognize the error of its ways. Case closed.

The Comanche backdrop separates the prequel from past efforts. It’s also a refreshing canvas on which to paint. How many action films engage in such an untapped setting?

One mistake the prequel makes?

The creature’s technology is similar to what we see, centuries later, in the original ’80s film. That makes our heroine’s mission that much harder and more implausible.

Plus, it suggests the alien race didn’t evolve much over that period. Hmmm.

A subplot involving French hunters hints at a richer storyline, but it doesn’t earn enough screen time to matter.

FAST FACT: McTiernan says the original film’s producers wanted more “gun pornography.” So he did as told, uncorking a minute-long sequence where our heroes fire at everything, in sight.

Movies like “Prey” trip our cynical sensors from the jump. Oh, another desperate attempt to milk a franchise that should be put out of its misery. Can’t Hollywood come up with something new?

That’s true on the surface, but “Prey” is smart enough to acknowledge the obvious and give us enough thrills to squash our skepticism.

HiT or Miss: “Prey” can’t compete with the original “Predator,” but by staying lean and mean it blazes its own worthy trail.

17 Comments

  1. The Title of the article says, “Pushes Woke aside”, yet the movie has a female lead as a Comanche warrior. The Comanche had distinct gender roles that they did not stray from. Having a female lead as the “warrior” would not have in reality occurred. So another franchise bends the knee to the “woke” mentality.

    1. Not only that but modern woke lore absurdly teaches women they can overpower men twice their size. Nothing good can come in lying to women about that.

  2. Prey is a novel from 2002 written by the late great Michael Crichton. This title rip-off sounds nothing resembling the original.

    1. Of course. They only pretend to care about other cultures. Fact is their culture is the only one that matters and they’ll make it the hegemony at any cost. This includes erasing the cultural histories of people they claim to be protecting.

  3. The concept that made the original so good is that it made the entire jungle into a haunted house. It was a horror movie.
    And finally Dutch is able to find a way to escape that haunted house.
    The sequels lost that.

  4. Never give a cent to anything slightly woke (though as pointed out above, it’s more woke than this author will admit).

    1. Saw this bit of Hollyweird fantasy. Its so woke I didn’t need coffee the next day. In fact I couldn’t keep anything down. Think the last terminator movie.

  5. I wouldn’t call it Comanche patriarchy per se. If anything the women’s role in many Native American societies was seen as superior to men’s. Still it was not unheard of for individuals in those societies to take on the roles of the opposite sex. As for Q, the fact that it’s controversial doesn’t imply any roles have been “rewritten”. I wanna see it, sounds cool. The thing about these empowering women defying gender role tropes is it’s kind of been overdone to death. But whatever I am not anti women action hero, I am more interested in the movie itself.

  6. The woke aspect that annoyed me the most was the portrayal of males in this movie. They are made to be abusers and brutes. This girl needed a strong father figure in her life. She’s just one step away from being transgender and taking on a lesbian lover. And I disagree that this movie is efficient. It could’ve just been Comanches vs. cougar vs. bear vs. Predator, but they just had to throw in white people to make it Comanches vs. all the above … and White Colonial Oppression.

  7. So the predator kills 1000lb+ grizzly with his bare hands. Kills entire squad of French invaders. Kills off Comanche male squad members. All the while the female Comanche throws a mini axe around and tries to prove herself as a viable hunter herself. This movie is pro-women anti-men from the get go. Now if she fell from the tree after trying to slay a lion but was not successful, how in the world does she get to slice off the predator’s arm and ultimately kill him? Right, she used her brain instead! This is the exact type of nonsense these woke people need to stop making. If the female had some sort of magical powers it would be at the very least believable. But having her hold the predator’s head back to camp at the end to show how she is indeed a warrior is just utter garbage. Please do not think your audience is brain dead. We see exactly what you are trying to portray. Out of the entire Comanche warrior pact, only one single woman was able to defeat this predator. I much prefer the muscle head version back in 1987

  8. Once again, hollywood has shown us that women are not worthy of their own ORIGINAL character, or movie. They have to either ride the coat tales of a franchise, or be the female version of an already established male character. Pathetic.

  9. I googled it to see if this was hating on white people, furthuring the divide they claim they want to end (clearly they don’t), & but so i came upon this review. I won’t pay hulu nor watch this. You can make great cinema without teaching a youthful generation to resent a race of people, & you could find great writers who thought more about this divisive effect more than getting your own resentment into your writing… if you wanted to.

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