An apex hunter takes on a top-tier final girl in "Prey", Dan Trachtenberg's beautifully shot and gloriously action-packed entry into the "Predator" franchise that -- for me at least -- blows the franchise's other entries out of the water. Of course, it helps greatly that aspiring Comanche hunter Naru (Amber Midthunder, giving an excellent performance) is such a great character to anchor the action, with the Predator's arrival in her 18th century existence fast-tracking her journey from fumbling ambition to bad-ass survivor status. You can easily guess how things will turn out in the end, but that's a minor problem when the getting there is this good. The action sequences are spot-on, the sense of tension and danger omnipresent, and the effects work more than matching Jeff Cutter's sublime cinematography. Some might quibble a bit with the dead-serious tone (especially in a series with a sometimes silly sci-fi background) but when a movie is made with this kind of proficiency I can tolerate a lack of levity. Awesome stuff.
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