The following contains spoilers for Prey, now streaming on Hulu.
There's no arguing how great Hulu's Prey is. Not only has it reinvigorated the Predator franchise, but it also has past actors from the first movie, Bill Duke (Mac) and Jesse Ventura (Blain), heaping praise on it. Fans are simply lapping up the flick, as well as critics, with Amber Midthunder's Naru truly stealing the show. Tasked with fighting off a Yautja hunter on Comanche territory in the 1700s, Naru delivered the goods in a true feminist statement to freshen up the property. However, as epic as Prey is, and as much as it has in common with 1987's Predator and the sequel three years later, it reiterates that the best movie in the series is indeed 2010's Predators.
Now, this isn't to knock Prey, but it treaded a lot of the same ground that Dutch's team covered. Granted, those soldiers were visitors in the Guatemala forest, but they were put under the same kind of duress as Naru's tribe, forced to use the terrain to their advantage. In Prey's case, Naru knew the land more and was able to use an orange flower, not just mud, to disguise herself to kill the Yautja. Still, the film was predictable, especially when the start of the final act had Naru realizing she could use the helmet to trick the Predator into shooting itself.
Had that revelation been kept for the last fight, it'd have made the conclusion pop a bit more. More so, the twist would have topped off the great performances, breakneck action, and the emotion of Naru, who was fighting to protect her people and avenging her brother along the way. Instead, it just improved on the formula of the first two movies, adding a Native American lens to things. On the other hand, Predators had this same defensive strategy, but with shocking twists that made the alien world Royce was placed on so much more perilous.
There, the humans who were thrown together had much more challenges outside rabid Predator hounds and stronger Predators with deadlier tech. There were betrayals by the likes of Noland and Edwin, who tried to get the protagonists killed. This added another dimension, reminding fans that mankind could be an even bigger monster in this race to see who was the territory's alpha. This crafted a more cathartic story, where Royce had to battle his own selfish desires to abandon Isabelle, digging deep to find the hero within. Even the Yautja had a civil war, which admittedly made them more human, shedding light on their culture.
In doing so, director Nimród Antal gave humanity and the Predators stern opposition: maelstroms swirling within, complicating the plot a bit more than the average hunt for sport -- something Predator 2 rehashed in a concrete jungle and which the Alien vs. Predator movies and Shane Black's The Predator would ape. This way, Predators ended up having more nuanced themes regarding honor and morality, which Prey and the other movies just scratched the surface on -- which was understandable, as the focus was on the game more than anything.
With all these challenges, Predators' Royce and Isabelle had to work harder to trust each other, sowing a lot more doubt in their fight, unlike Naru, who had her dog, tribesmen, Raphael and his pistol, and even French fur traders to use as pawns. Even when Royce got help from a hunted Predator, that still felt like a time bomb that could backfire, adding more tension and suspense. Ultimately, all these components combined to give Predators a bit more of a dynamic, extreme mission with its humans in a strange land that was always designed to break them rather than offer hope.
Prey is currently streaming on Hulu.