So what am I doing watching the fifth installment of a popular action movie franchise? Because it’s that good that’s why. This newest entry of the Predator franchise is perfectly named and given that it takes place in 1719 is technically a prequel to all the others. By now female protagonists of action movies aren’t rare and they even fall into familiar tropes. What blows me away is that the heroine here, Naru, wins not by being stronger, or more skilled, or faster, but by carefully observing what the enemy can do and being smarter. On top of that it makes great use of its historical setting and the action choreography is fantastic. It’s one of the best action movies I’ve watched, absolutely.

Naru is a young woman in the Comanche tribe who wants to be acknowledged as a hunter like her elder brother Taabe. She follows a hunting party when one of their tribe’s members is taken by a cougar. Along the way, she and her faithful dog companion Sarii notice signs that an unknown and far more dangerous predator is nearby but the others don’t believe her. During a confrontation between Naru and the cougar, she is knocked out and has to be carried home by Taabe. He later returns with the corpse of the cougar and is proclaimed war chief by the tribe. Naru is unsatisfied and sets out on her own with only Sarii as company to find this strange creature. She comes across a large herd of slaughtered bison and is attacked by a grizzly bear. But then the predator intervenes and she witnesses the predator killing the bear. The predator seemingly does not consider her to be a threat worth hunting and she escapes. She runs into a group of hunters from her own tribe who has been sent out to retrieve her. When she refuses to return, they take her prisoner but naturally the predator finds them first.

Female action heroes are a familiar staple by now and just featuring one isn’t enough to make a film stand out. The MCU films usually handle them in the worst possible way: their female heroes are always stronger, tougher and more powerful than the male heroes no matter how little sense this makes given their respective powersets. So it’s a pleasant surprise to see how balanced the portrayal of Naru here is. As much as she wishes it were otherwise, her brother Taabe is more skilled, stronger and faster than she is. It’s amazing to see Taabe being able to go toe-to-toe in melee with a Predator if only for a little while. Director Dan Trachtenberg demonstrates here that you don’t need to implausibly make other characters weaker to showcase your protagonist. Instead Naru takes advantage of the Predator not seeing her as a threat to carefully observe its techniques, capabilities and technology. Little by little, at the cost of the lives of her friends as well as the French fur trappers she meets, she understands how the Predator fights and is smart enough to turn its own weapons and techniques against it. The result is one of the most satisfying action movies I’ve ever watched as you can see for yourself how a Native American girl from the early 18th-century can realistically take down even a Predator equipped with advanced technology.

Apart from the superb action, the film also gets many other things right. It casts Native Americans as the Comanche tribe members which goes a long way in making it feel more authentic. In order to portray the French fur trappers as the invaders, it has them all speak French without translation. Meanwhile the Comanche speak English with what I assume are Native American phrases sprinkled here and there. It’s a novel and clever stylistic choice that makes you think about the familiar and the other. Even the relationship between Naru and Taabe is both healthy and plausible. Taabe is at times skeptical of Naru wanting to be a hunter yet remains a supportive elder brother and acknowledges her strong points. There’s still the requisite bully who denigrates her at every turn and is predictably killed at the first opportunity but the other tribe members work together fairly well against an enemy who completely outmatches them. It’s so good to watch an action film in which the characters we care about aren’t just disposable chumps.

I could go on, such as how this film references the very first film in the franchise yet never directly copies what it does, or the video game-like way in which Naru methodically degrades the Predator’s tools and capabilities one by one, but you get the idea. As far as I’m concerned this is a perfect action movie and it’s even the perfect length, at just slightly over an hour and a half. This is a must watch!