Prey
Prey, 20th Century Studios, Disney+, Hulu (2022).
By C. A. Ramirez
A house pet posing as a Predator.
The Comanche were known for their epic feats of warfare. They once created a bonfire composed of their still-breathing enemy combatants; every feature of their body maimed to gruesome effect. Unfortunately, Prey depicts these great warriors as some sort of peaceful group of meandering hunter gatherers. Coupled with a plot that adds nothing to the Predator lore, Prey might look gruesome, but it is really a sheep in wolf’s clothing.
The one and only compliment I have for this movie is its cinematography. Gorgeous landscapes are beautifully framed throughout the entire film. The rest of the camera work is fine until we get to any action sequences. The fight scenes are abysmal; the camera tightens up on the individuals attacking and not where their strikes are landing. There are a lot of severed limbs that happen at the edge of the screen and motion blur manages to ruin the rest. Modern cinema's attraction to motion blur is puzzling. They should know most gamers turn it off because all it does is mask the action instead of enhancing it. Hollywood needs to use real blood, I know the actors might need to be hosed down between takes, but CG blood is a huge disservice to any action film. On that same note, every animal is CG and it's awful. Go practical or go home. All you need for SFX in a Predator movie are sparks, explosions, gallons of blood, and IR POV shots - simple. Watching the Predator kill a fake snake doesn’t exactly inspire fear and trepidation.
The Comanche were ruthless warriors and hunters, and Prey failed to capture their warrior culture in a movie where the villain’s sole motivation is to seek out worthy opponent warriors. The writers and director failed to understand the Comanche and Predator, and missed a fantastic opportunity to highlight two cultures in love with warfare. This would have added historical and authenticity to both the heroes and the villain. Prey is not a bad movie, so long as you know nothing about the Comanche. It is a garbage dumpster full of lit feces if you do. S.C. Gwynne’s book, Empire of the Summer Moon, details the remarkable exploits of the Comanche people. Wielding fourteen-foot lances as they galloped at high speeds after buffalo herds. Comanche warriors were known to shoot their arrows with such force, they would go straight through a buffalo. Their speed and marksmanship with a bow and arrow were unmatched. According to the Warrior’s Tools: Plains Indians Bows, Arrows, and Quivers, by James Eric Smith (2019), “from a distance of three hundred feet, a Comanche could hit you with an arrow if you stood still, but since you could see the arrow coming, you had time to get out of the way. The only catch: you had to watch for the other three or four arrows that would be following the first.” (AP citation) They did not chuck tomahawks at their prey, with ropes attached to it. That does not work, on anything, anywhere…in fact, the main character misses every animal she tries to hit with them. Ah yes, the main character, Naru…the hero that is because they themselves declare it.
Amber Midthunder as Naru in Prey, 20th Century Studios, Disney+, Hulu (2022).
Naru spends most of Prey failing to understand how to do anything correctly. She uses her blunt tomahawk to cut a fish and mashes it with its blunt edge. She then sees a slender and sharp flint knife nearby and begrudgingly uses it, as it’s the better and (obviously) more suitable tool for the task at hand. Her mother was next to her wondering what her daughter was doing, but of course, did not correct her – because how dare anyone question a female regardless of how incorrectly she prepares a meal for the collective tribe. How many children with Asian or Hispanic parents would have been physically corrected upside their head if they tried peeling a vegetable with a spoon? The movie paints Naru as some sort of rebel who does everything her own way despite the fact she fails to do anything right. Naru does not hit one animal with those stupid tomahawks on a rope. She also feeds that dog of hers a whole fish without deboning it, but screw it, real life is but a dream.
Naru is the worst hero. It has nothing to do with her being a woman. It has everything to do with her character being poorly written. Ripley is the quintessential female sci-fi protagonist. Intelligent, cunning, and fearless. What she lacked in physical strength, she made up for by being a skilled technician, utilizing her knowledge to outsmart and overpower the ruthless xenomorph. That depth and nuance is absent from Naru. She comes off as arrogant and incompetent at the beginning of the film, and her transformation into a skilled hunter is not organic and fails to make her role significant. The Predator from Predator would not have considered Naru a worthy opponent. While the movie force feeds you a hero you barely believe could survive one night in the woods, the Comanche did not live in the woods, but oh well. My main problem is the studio hyping this movie as a premature triumph. Not because of its acting or story. No, because this is the first movie that pays careful attention to Native American “authenticity”. I guess we should all forget about The Last of the Mohicans (1992), Smoke Signals (1997), Wind River (2017), and Shouting Secrets (2011). Pack it in boys, the Director of 10 Cloverfield Lane has got the authentic Native American experience down, and it’s encapsulated in a sci-fi setting that features an alien who lives to kill. Bravo! Never mind the story, here’s the cast! I have no problem with championing a project based on the cultural background of its acting talent. However, Prey is set in the 1700’s, and none of the Comanche give a performance that reflects the time the movie is set in.
Dakota Beavers as Taabe in Prey (2022).
Dakota Beavers plays Naru’s brother, Taabe, and looks and acts great in the part. My only gripe is, the script should have called for the dialogue to be spoken in Comanche and the story should not have represented the Comanche in such a farcical light. Variety went so far as to say “The film, directed by Dan Trachtenberg of “10 Cloverfield Lane,” aims to offer as accurate a portrayal as possible of the Comanche people”. I am here to tell you that no, it does not. Prey has small faults of authenticity, but none are more glaring than its hot-headed hero.
Prey should have had its story revolve around Naru’s tribe raiding homesteads. The Predator, attracted by the lovely cacophony of warfare, would have gone to investigate. Bearing witness to the Comanche’s ferocity would have convinced the Predator that the Comanche are worthy opponents. The Predator would then track the Comanche back to their territory, but not before killing most of the raiding party. A maimed and brutalized Comanche raider would make it back to camp where Naru, experienced healer, enters the story. She uses her knowledge as a healer to determine that these wounds were not caused by a lion, but something much worse. No one believes her and the war party, headed by her brother Taabe, never returns from their next excursion. The tribe of Comanche are left without warriors. Now, it's up to Naru to concoct a blood cooling medicine, so what is left of her tribe can successfully stalk and kill the Predator before being massacred. Cat and mouse, kill or be killed, head in a bag, that is the message.
When a studio hypes its latest movie as being incredible, solely based on the merits that its entire cast is from a certain culture, then its critics must parse just how authentic and accurate the representation of that culture is. In the case of Prey, the move is a grotesque insult to the Comanche people, portraying them dishonestly and inaccurately throughout the entire film. Ignorance truly is bliss; not knowing much would make 90% of what Hollywood is churning out compelling and rich. Prey suffers from the quagmire of modern times, where emotions and feelings don’t need to be developed organically but plopped in front of the viewer, in whatever malformed state they happen to reside. To make matters worse, the sole tie-in for Prey as part of the Predator franchise is that Naru finds the same flintlock pistol that the Predators give to Danny Glover in Predator 2. The pistol bears the name of “Raphael Adolini”. Compelling and rich. Who is Raphael Adolini? Why is this an amazing and substantive revelation? It’s not, move along. The flintlock tie-in also means that Naru was killed by other predators who then took the pistol so that they could give it to Danny Glover, a warrior worth its bestowment. In the end, Naru dies, not in the movie of course, but through its implied ending when she walks out of the woods (of which the Comanche did not live in EVER) bearing the one tangible Predator tie-in.
Dane DiLiegro as the Predator in Prey, (2022).
Audience members who know nothing about the Comanche and the Predator series will enjoy this movie and might even think it is somehow original. Everyone else should take this movie with a sack of salt - because in the words of Dutch, Prey is, “one ugly son of a bitch.”
