Prey (2022)

A Predator gets dropped off by its buddies in the Northern great Plains in the early 1700s, and encounters both a bunch of French trappers and a group of Comanche. In particular, one girl, Naru (Amber Midthunder), figures out early on there's something in the forest they've never encountered before, but struggles to get anyone in the tribe to take her seriously.

The movie flips the formula somewhat from earlier Predator movies, in that the human protagonist is aware of the Predator before it's aware of her. This isn't Arnold or Danny Glover getting blindsided by an alien hunter. Even if Naru doesn't know what it is that's in the woods, she knows there's something out there that has to be confronted. And when the Predator does cross paths with her, it dismisses her, more than once.

The movie parallels the two characters. On the one side, the Predator gradually levels up the things it kills. Rattlesnake to wolf to bear to humans to a lot of humans. It gets wounded repeatedly - seriously this thing is a tank when it comes to shrugging off damage, which does make for some fun battles - but it also lets the movie slowly reveal some of the arsenal and the alien's strength. It straight up knocking a bear the fuck out with a punch was pretty impressive.

Especially contrasted with Naru's journey. Her attempts involve a lot more failure. The deer escapes her, and while her plan to take out the mountain lion is a good one, she doesn't stand her ground when the moment comes and it falls to her older brother to finish the job (though he's slow to give her credit for that, which made me initially mistrust my eyes when they told me she at least got her spear into the puma's side.) Her confrontation with the bear goes considerably worse than the Predator's.

In that sense, the movie feels almost leisurely at times. I started to wonder if they were ever going to have Naru and the Predator actually face off. But as the Predator's working its way through potential challenges, the movie's building her up into a challenge, while seeding in the signs of all the skills that are going to make it happen. Her ingenuity, the knowledge of medicine, her tracking skills, just how observant she is in general, really. Midthunder's able to give Naru a full range. The stubborness to prove herself and the fear when the moment comes and she's not ready. The bickering with her brother. I really like the sort of dejected slump when someone nudges her shoulder with a boot to make her wake up for another day of harvesting breadroot, something she despises. The way it takes her longer to get up after the battle against her not-great showing against the puma than it did earlier in the movie.

Some of the callbacks to earlier movies feel more shoehorned in than others, though I like how it plays with expectations in regards to them sometimes. The part where she is nearly sucked into the bog and crawls out, covered in mud, so you figure that's when the Predator catches up and can't see her. But no, it's not chasing her because it doesn't care about her. And, "if it bleeds, we can kill it," is always good.

I also really liked the parallel at the end between Naru's return to her people, with proof of two different threats, and her brother's earlier return after defeating the puma. Both returning with a severed head, both scenes having the voices off the people fade out as they react. In one case, the warrior's return signals a return to status quo. The threat's been dealt with, everything can continue as usual. In the other, it signals that things are changing and they're going to have to think differently to survive.