Welcome back to Movie Recaps. Today I will show you a sci-fi, action film from 2022, titled Prey.
Spoilers ahead! Watch out and take care.
In 1719 in the Northern Great Plains, young Comanche Naru goes herb gathering with her
dog Sarii. But when nobody is looking, she takes the chance to leave the group behind to practice
her ax throwing against a tree. There, she notices some pawprints on the ground and follows them to
find a whitetail deer that she decides to hunt. The idea is to sneak around and surprise attack,
but the sound of a rumble in the sky scares the animal away. Naru and Sarii follow it,
and Naru throws her ax at it, but she fails and the ax ends up stuck on a tree instead.
While she recovers it, Sarii keeps going and accidentally gets his tail caught in a bear trap.
Forgetting about the deer, Naru rushes to rescue her dog and take care of his tail with some
healing herbs. She also inspects the trap because she's never seen something like this before,
but she's interrupted by the sky rumbling again. When she looks up, she sees a mysterious shape
falling, and she believes it to be the legendary Thunderbird. Believing this is a sign to finally
initiate her rite of passage, Naru goes to see her brother Taabe to ask him to take her with
his party next time he goes hunting, and while he's skeptical, he accepts. Then, Naru goes back
to the tribe to drop off the herbs she's gathered. While getting some medicine ready for the chief,
Naru's mother Aruka wonders why her daughter must hunt when she's great at many other things,
so Naru explains it's because they all think she can't. Meanwhile, it's revealed that the rumble
from the sky actually belongs to a spaceship that drops an alien known as Predator on Earth.
He's strong and fast, and his technology comes with camouflage that makes him invisible plus
heat vision goggles. Back to Naru, she returns to the forest to pick up some orange flowers
her mother needs and keeps some for herself in her bag. When she returns to the tribe,
she learns a mountain lion has taken one of their men and a hunting party is leaving to find them.
Naru follows them, intending to join them, but some of the men don't want her there because she
wasn't trained to hunt like them. Taabe comes in her defense, explaining she's good at tracking and
medicine, so she's allowed to join them because she may be useful. Predator is in the area too,
busy killing a snake. Following the tracks left by the mountain lion, the hunting party eventually
finds their wounded friend, Puhi. The hunters build a stretcher while Naru takes care of the
Puhi's injuries, including feeding him some of the orange flowers, which will cool his blood.
Now the party is ready to take Puhi back, but Taabe stays behind to find the mountain lion.
Naru wants to stay with him because she thinks there's something else besides the lion; it
doesn't make sense for Puhi to be alive, meaning something dangerous must've scared the lion away.
Taabe turns her down though, and makes her leave. At first, Naru walks away with the
party as her brother told her to, but she stops when she notices some weird things around her:
pawprints too big to be a bear's, a carefully skinned snake, and blood on the top of a tree.
She wants to warn Taabe, so the party sends Paake with her for safety while the others
go back to their tribe. The pair finds Taabe and help him hunt for the lion by using Naru's plan,
because Taabe wants to give her the chance she asked for. While Taabe lays down the bait,
Naru and Paake climb a tree to wait for the lion, and the meeting comes sooner than expected.
The lion jumps high enough to push Paake off the tree and kill him,
then it jumps on a branch to go after Naru. She slowly steps back as she tries to defend
herself with a spear, but suddenly, she gets distracted by the rumble in the sky again.
This gives the lion the chance to come after her, throwing her off the tree and knocking her out.
When Naru wakes up later, she's back in the tribe, and Aruka explains Taabe dragged her back.
Puhi has survived thanks to her medicine, too, so Aruka thinks Naru should perhaps dedicate
her life to medicine instead of hunting. Their conversation is interrupted when Taabe returns
with the lion's body, an achievement for which he's honored by the chieftain. Naru is still sure
there's something more dangerous in the woods and wants to go after it, but Taabe doesn't let her.
She's already tried hunting and failed, it was all him who brought the lion back. The next morning,
Naru decides to disobey and go after the mysterious presence with only Sarii as company.
Through the forest, she keeps finding more proof of this unknown creature,
like green blood on trees and more of those huge pawprints. Predator is indeed not far away from
there, this time hunting a wolf in order to get its skull, which he cleans to use it as a mask.
Naru, on the other hand, isn't as lucky with her hunts. Hitting moving targets isn't as
easy as hitting a tree, so by the time she recovers her throwing ax, her prey is gone.
Fortunately, she comes up with an idea: she ties some vines to make a rope that she then
ties to the ax, allowing her to throw it and instantly get it back without losing time.
This finally lets her hunt a bunch of rabbits to feed herself and the dog. After lots of walking,
Naru comes across a herd of skinned bison with some bullets on the ground around them.
However, she doesn't know what bullets are and thinks the strange creature did this.
When she leaves the area, she accidentally steps into quicksand. Thankfully, she still has her ax
with her, so she throws it at a tree and once it manages to get properly stuck,
she uses the rope to pull herself out. Meanwhile, Predator comes across the bison too,
which warns him there are dangerous hunters in the area. Back to Naru, after washing up in the river,
she comes across a grizzly bear that she intends to hunt. Unfortunately, her bow breaks, giving
the bear the chance to come after her. Sarii jumps in to distract the beast, giving Naru time to jump
in the river and hide under a beaver dam. The bear comes after her again, trying to destroy the dam,
but suddenly it's pulled back by Predator. Thanks to the bear bleeding on him, Naru finally gets to
see the alien and wastes no time in jumping back into the river to swim away. Predator sees her but
lets her go because he doesn't find her dangerous. After returning to the woods, Naru comes across
a search party Taabe sent to find her while he looks around the other side of the river. They
don't believe Naru's story because such a monster wouldn't let her go so easily, and when Naru tries
to leave, Wasape jumps on her to stop her. Naru fights fiercely but Wasape still wins, tying her
up to drag with the group toward camp. However, they stop when they hear some weird noises and red
lights appear on Wasape's chest. Staying invisible among the trees, Predator shoots and kills Wasape,
and when he comes nearer to recover his darts, the other hunters manage to hit him with an arrow.
This causes the camouflage cloak to malfunction and reveal Predator to the naked eye.
The men jump in to fight him, but Predator is no match for them and kills them easily. While
he's distracted fighting, Naru approaches Wasape's body to recover her things and cut off the rope,
allowing her to run away. When she makes it to an open field, Naru comes across a hunter that had
scouted ahead. He wants to fight back, but soon the red lights appear on his body too. Knowing
what they mean now, Naru begins running away as Predator jumps on and kills her fellow tribesman.
She's so concentrated on keeping her eyes on the enemy that she doesn't see a bear trap on
the ground and gets her leg caught in it. Predator comes after her, considering his options, but he
suddenly runs away when he sees a group of French traders coming to see who fell into their trap.
The traders knock Naru out and when she wakes up later, she finds herself in a cage at their camp.
Sarii has come looking for her, but he's caught and tied up as well.
All the traders are wearing furs, and Naru realizes they were the ones that killed the bison.
One of these men, called Raphael, knows how to communicate with her and asks her for information
on Predator, who he thinks is a hunter looking for the strongest opponent. Naru tells them nothing,
causing the traders to decide to reveal they've also captured Taabe and now they're hurting him to
make him smell of blood. Then, Taabe and Naru are tied to a tree as prey to attract Predator so the
traders can shoot him from their hiding spots. However, the traders didn't take into account
Predator's camouflage, and he approaches them without them knowing to start killing them one by
one. Taabe worries when he hears the screaming, but Naru explains to him that Predator doesn't
want bait because he hunts differently, and he's always let her go because he doesn't consider
her a threat. To make her feel better about her hunting abilities, Taabe confesses he only managed
to kill the lion because he had followed Naru's plan, so she did do something back then. Their
conversation is interrupted when Predators roars in anger as his leg gets caught in a bear trap.
The French traders immediately go after him, but Predator quickly recovers and after tossing
the trap away, he begins killing them with a variety of advanced weapons plus a shield
that protects them from their bullets. The tossed trap lands near the tree,
allowing Naru to use it to cut off the rope. Now free, Taabe leaves to find some horses and
Naru goes to rescue Sarii while Predator takes out most of the remaining men with a grenade.
At the French camp, the traders are picking up their things to flee, and they intend to kill
Sarii. Naru jumps in to fight them and kill them all, and once she frees her dog, she sends him
to find Taabe. Then she begins applying herbs to her injuries, and that's how Raphael finds her.
He's missing a leg, so he asks for a deal: he'll give her his flintlock pistol and teach her how
to use it in exchange for medicine. Naru accepts and shares her orange flowers with him, she also
gets to keep the piece of alien technology she finds on his leg. Meanwhile, Predator
is taking care of his own injuries before going to the camp as well. Naru hears him coming and
quickly hides while Raphael pretends to be dead. Thanks to the orange flowers cooling his blood,
the trick actually works for, and Predator can't see it until he accidentally steps on Raphael,
making him scream. Predator quickly kills him as Sarii shows up to attack, but before the dog can
be shot, Taabe shows up too, riding a horse. He manages to hit Predator on the head once, and by
riding quickly in circles he can dodge the alien's shots. After failing to use the pistol correctly,
Naru yells at Predator to distract him, allowing Taabe to jump off the horse and land a hit on him.
Now Predator and Taabe fight hand to hand, and since Taabe is such a good warrior,
Predator decides to put on his camouflage to gain an advantage. He attacks Taabe from behind to kill
him, but Taabe doesn't give up and holds onto Predator's leg to give Naru time to run away.
Back in the tribe, another search party returns to give Aruka bad news: they couldn't find her
children. Aruka grieves for them at the same time Naru reaches the river and washes while crying
over her brother's death. Sarii finds her and lets her know about a French man still in the area,
so Naru uses the alien weapon he took from Raphael to knock this man out.
When he wakes up later, the man finds himself in a camp where Naru is preparing herself to
hunt Predator. She's painted her face and eaten some of the orange flowers to cool her blood,
she's also allowed the French man to keep his pistol, although it's empty. However, his screams
attract Predator, who sees the armed trader as a threat and comes closer to kill him. He
completely ignores Naru because he can't see her, so Naru takes the chance to shoot him from behind.
A pistol isn't enough to kill him, but it makes him drop the mask, which Naru grabs before running
away towards the area where she's prepared a trap. Predator follows a trail of blood that Naru left
behind on purpose, and when he comes closer, Naru jumps on him to fight him hand to hand.
After exchanging a few blows and protecting herself from his shield by hiding among rocks,
Naru orders Sarii to run by as a distraction and manages to push Predator into the quicksand she
had fallen into before. This is obviously not enough to kill him, but Naru is ready:
when Predator resurfaces and shoots, Naru quickly moves away and lets the projectile
hit the mask she left there earlier. This makes the projectile rebound and kills Predator instead.
The next morning, Naru returns to the tribe with Predator's head and the pistol,
which is revealed to be Harrigan's weapon from another Predator story. Naru warns her tribe
they need to leave before the white men come for them, but first, everyone honors her hunt the same
way they had done for Taabe. Unknown to them, more Predator ships are about to land on Earth.