Prey

★★★★ “If it bleeds, we can kill it." It turns out all this franchise needed to bleed out was 35 years of bloated, over-staged blockbusters, just so Dan Trachtenberg could drop it into the Great Plains with an axe on a rope and a dog.” “Prey” works so incredibly well because it understands what made McTiernan’s 1987 original a masterpiece: it’s not the lore, it’s the geometry of the hunt. By stripping away the military machismo and corporate conspiracy nonsense of previous sequels, this becomes a pure, lean survival thriller. Amber Midthunder is an absolute revelation. Naru isn’t just a "badass protagonist"; she's an underdog who observes, adapts, and uses her environment. While the massive French fur trappers and the literal alien monster rely entirely on brute force and advanced weaponry, Naru’s greatest asset is her brain. Her competency feels earned because we watch her fail, adjust, and map out her surroundings. The visual design of the Feral Predator is fantastic — stripping down the classic bio helmet for a bone mask look made it feel terrifyingly primitive yet advanced. Trachtenberg's use of natural lighting and wide, sweeping landscapes gives the movie an atmospheric, cinematic weight that makes me genuinely furious Disney dumped this straight to Hulu. Knocked half a star off because the CGI animals (that bear fight, specifically) look a bit rubbery and take you out of the naturalistic texture of the environment. But once the third act hits and the traps are set, this is easily the best the franchise has been since Arnold smoked a cigar in the jungle.