Schwarzenegger, step off. Here's what makes the new 'Predator' movie a worthy prequel

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic

August 3, 2022 at 3:04 PM·4 min read

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Prequels usually suggest a paucity of ideas, but “Prey” is more original than most.

It’s the origin story of the monster from the “Predator” films, or at least one of the monsters. If the notion of yet another “Predator” movie is scarier to you than most of the movies have been, well, this one’s actually OK.

It’s set 300 years ago in the Comanche Nation, in the Northern Great Plains. If Arnold Schwarzenegger and his troops could barely defeat the creature with military-grade weapons in the 1980s, what chance do warriors in the 1700s have?

Then again, Arnold didn’t have Naru fighting by his side.

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Amber Midthunder's performance is the best thing about 'Prey'

Played by Amber Midthunder in an exceptionally magnetic performance, Naru is tough and smart and has a chip on her shoulder the size of a boulder. Her brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers) is respected as a hunter. While he knows his sister is also a skilled hunter and tracker, everyone else belittles her dreams.

Why do you want to hunt, Taabe asks? Because you all think I can't, Naru replies. During one hunt she tags along, only for one of the others to tell her they won’t be gone long enough to need her to cook for them.

So you see what she's dealing with.

Indigenous actor Amber Midthunder, who is Sahiya Nakoda, stars as Naru in the movie "Prey," the latest installment in the "Predator" film franchise.

Naru is inexperienced, though, never tested. This only adds to her desire to prove her worthiness to her brother, to the tribe and to herself.

Boy, will she get her chance.

While hunting one day she sees something in the sky. She thinks it’s a sign she’s ready for her big hunt, in which the hunter is also hunted. Generally speaking this involves, like, a lion or a bear or something. But what comes down from the sky is something different altogether.

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Taabe and the others believe a lion is responsible for wounding a warrior. Naru is convinced it’s something else, and that the tribe is in danger. So she and her trusty dog set out to find whatever it is, kill it and earn the respect she craves along the way.

Jhane Myers, a Comanche and Blackfeet visual artist and film producer originally from Oklahoma, produced the new "Predator" movie "Prey."

As with the other “Predator” movies, the alien has cloaking technology and heat-seeking vision, along with some pretty cool weapons. Sharper than most, it seems like. Director Dan Trachtenberg and screenwriter Patrick Aison also account for this being an earlier version of the creature. Its mask, for instance, is made of bone, not some advanced metal.

But the Predator is still brutal, tossing a bear around like a puppy, for example. It can be wounded, though it’s difficult. I don’t know that this thing can be killed, Naru tells her brother. If it bleeds, he says, it can be.

It bleeds.

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As with Schwarzenegger, you need a hero you think could win

Along the way Naru discovers that white fur trappers can be as predatory as the Predator. It’s an interesting update to the franchise, as is the exploration of the role of women in a society of hunters. But the film revolves around the impending showdown between Naru and the creature.

There are some clunky bits in which the filmmakers aren’t attentive enough to details. And the CGI in some spots is laughably bad.

But Midthunder makes up for it. She makes Naru believably tough and smart, the kind of warrior who might well stand a chance against an opponent seemingly impossible to defeat. Yet Midthunder also portrays her in such a way that her evolution seems authentic (if compressed for time). Where she is impetuous and inexperienced at the outset of the film, in the climactic battle against the Predator she is ready for the fight.

A worthy opponent is, after all, essential to the franchise. It’s what makes the first one work, to the extent that it does. You want to see Schwarzenegger fighting a monster.

That’s the draw here, as well. Midthunder’s Naru is a completely different kind of fighter — I mean, duh. But she’s a compelling one, one you want to see fight and win. More importantly, through Midthunder’s performance you believe that she could.