I've waited for this movie to come out for a long time. I also understand that it was in the development hell equally long time, and at one point it almost became a series. What is also notable is that all major critics has been singing praises for this film, as the next best one after the original. Let's see if we agree... but one thing I have to say the synopsis in the original post could have been one of their shorter one, only saying, "A young native hunter meets a prey that's too thought for her to handle, without her ever realizing it is not from this world," or something along that line.
I loved seeing the Native lands in their native glory as the nature intended, with no machines, buildings or vapour trails criss-crossing on the sky. Their village and people immediately felt real, but Naru started striking different from the moment she took a tomahawk in her hand. She very capable of handling the tools on her nation, and I like it just like I liked that the film turned scifi 3 minutes into the runtime, with the sound of something hurling through the atmosphere.
She doesn't think about it. Doesn't react to it other than it making her curious about the whole thing. Then again, the Native people folk lore in full of stories of the sky people coming to visit. Only she believes it's a thunderbird, and not aliens.
You almost want to scream at her to be careful as the tension starts to build up with our foreknowledge about how deadly predators can be. And she's armed with weapons that are clearly outmatched with tool from the Predator arsenal. As Naru voices her wish to commit to the rites of
kuhtaamia, her brother asks, "You wanna hunt something that's hunting you?"
Naru didn't answer. She just smiled as if she was lured by the nature of the game, even though the challenge has been announced to be most likely deadly. It is part of her being a warrior and not one of normal ladies. Even her mother notices it, and she says, "My girl, you are good at so many other things. Why do you want to hunt?"
"Because you all think that I can't."
There is no argument there, not from the mother and certainly not from the audience, as she hasn't proved herself. But we all know that's coming, and the challenge is bigger than she has ever anticipated.
The predator comes into the play very early, at around 14 minute mark, where he shows being able to remain calm and composed even though the Comanche hunters are standing literarily next to it. Meaning that his adaptive camouflage cloak is even better than what we saw in the original film.
I love seeing his PoV and how fearless he is for knowing that he's on top of the food chain and there's really nothing that can harm him in the Native America. You can feel him observing Comanche's surviving in the nature. It is almost as if he's judging who is the top mark, who's easy prey?
We don't really know what makes them to tick, but we do know that they are the top dogs in the galaxy as they too hunt the deadliest alien known in the SF film history. And liked that the boys weren't listening when Naru was speaking about the nature of premonitions. Predator hunts in the Cameron's Alien at Earth are rare and far in between, but we know they've happened, and they've taken the best survivors with them on a journey. And most often as a prey.
But this one waited patiently, like a proper hunter, for the Native's to show who's the champion. We know it's Naru, even though it's his brother who brings back the mountain lion, and her head.
I wonder if the act of taking trophies is the trigger that makes the Predators to choose their prey, but it certainly felt that way. Although the whole trip accepts the great hunter in Naru's brother, it's her that's doubting the whole thing, without ever voicing aliens.
Some people have unparallel intuition as their blessing, while a whole lot of simple don't. We never practice it, and Naru's brother certainly don't see it in the girl, but it's there. In the fabric of her nature as her gift and blessing. It is what makes her to hunt the hunter. To understand the danger that the whole tribe faces. The patient hunter who only seemed to off only those who try to hurt him.
It is also intriguing to see that those too ends up as predator's trophies, not making them psycho's but actually as calculating hunters, with a shared obsession for taking trophies from their hunts.
When Naru comes across the plain full of slaughtered buffaloes, it's easy to place the blame on the predator and not on the white man. But the similarity is there to the obsession of the predator's. Only thing is that the predator doesn't waste meat. It only takes what it needs. White man, what it can. So, it is not a big thing that the predator goes after the trophy hunter as if he's been challenged by the act, while Naru sees him as a threat.
It is around the halfway mark, where we meet the scarred bear that showed in the trailer. But we never saw it actually having a fight the cloaked predator. The bear gave zero sh1ts about the cloak as he went in with all his fury and won the first round, fair and square. It's just he didn't finish the match as there is no double tapping in the bear's tool kit, when mauling the opponent usually does the business.
Second round, 350 kilos of bear on his face, taking count from a smack on his face. When Naru sees him showing his power by lifting the bear above his head and drenching himself in blood, she understands that the danger they're facing ain't nothing ordinary. She calls it
mupitsl, a monster from the native tales.
The predator changes his nature when the native boys capture Naru, under the brother's order to more towards the protector than a hunter. It is as if the kidnapping doesn't sit well with him. So out comes the plasma caster and predator tools, taking the game immediately to a level that the Comanche warriors cannot match.
This show of power, a shock and awe tactics made me giggle. Yet, even though he could have used his tools to make easy kills, it was the challenge of a fight that he wanted. But that doesn't sit well with Naru as sees her tribesmen killed and not him as the champion-coming-to-rescue. So the only thing she could was to run, because going down on her knees and worshipping the monters wasn't in her nature.
After all, the predator could be the one that slaughtered the buffaloes. But when the French trappers showed up to find Naru in one of their traps, she finally started to understand how the predator was trying to protect her. It's just he cannot act, because there's so, so many of them.
You can feel that he's watching and getting healed, while Naru is trapped in a wooden cage. The trapper's asks about the nature of the beast. But she doesn't reveal anything that the trappers would understand.
It is her brother that speaks against the predator's nature by uttering the immortal words on the bait tree, "If it bleeds, we can kill it."
The surprise comes with the twist as the hunter steps into the trappers trap and gets downed. The predator makes it a fair fight, even though the French do their upmost to get him down. He even gives the hunters a chance to reload their muskets.
I loved the fight. It was so much better than the original one.
It was the second match that riled me, because the predator arrived in the trappers camp, following Naru's trail, only to get attacked by his brother. I can understand that both were acting as protectors, and when the brother took a stand, Naru had to follow the case instead of understanding the nature of the case of her protector.
Why is it that she chose to fight the beast at the end? Challenge or revenge?
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I agree with the other critics with a twist. This is THE BEST predator movie!
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