PLOT: Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is a Predator (or Yautja), the runt of his clan, cast out by his father. Eager to prove himself, he travels to Genna, a legendarily deadly planet whose prey, the Kalisk, has long eluded his species. He teams up with a synthetic humanoid, Thia (Elle Fanning), who’s immobile after losing her legs, in order to survive the hostile environment and collect his trophy — but there may, in fact, be even deadlier prey at hand.
REVIEW: I’ve been fairly outspoken here on the site about my distaste for the new direction of the Predator franchise under Dan Trachtenberg. I loved Prey, which to me was a classic Predator flick, but I never understood the need to build a whole mythology around the creatures. Ridley Scott did that for Alien and the Xenomorphs, and to me, it never really worked. Then the news dropped that Predator: Badlands would be PG-13. Surely this was going to spell disaster for the franchise? Despite the good buzz, I went into Predator: Badlands expecting the worst. To my surprise, though, I had a good time watching it — with some caveats.
For one thing — this ain’t your father’s Predator. The scary thing about those movies was how you never really found out much about the Predators. They were just unstoppable killers that pushed their heroes to their limits. They didn’t need a mythology. But nowadays, audiences seem to want a lot of world-building, so Trachtenberg and Disney — no doubt hoping for a big franchise — have given the Predators a language and a culture of their own. It’s not my idea of Predator, but if you accept it as something new — as I did — you’ll have a good time with it.
Visually, the film is cool, with Genna being a neat-looking planet where even the flora and fauna want to kill you. Dek is a likable hero, with the CGI used to give him an expressive face done well. At times, this almost felt like an Avatar movie — which, again, isn’t really Predator, but it worked in the context of what they’re doing. The Alien DNA has always (or at least since the second movie) been mixed into the franchise, and the appearance of Weyland-Yutani synthetics paves the way for another Alien vs. Predator movie — which will hopefully be a lot better than the rather terrible ones we got back in the day.
Elle Fanning is a lot of fun in a dual role. Her Thia is a sweet-natured, good-hearted synthetic yearning for some sense of individuality, which is nicely contrasted by the other part she plays in the movie — the more cold-blooded Tessa. As far as synthetics go, Thia is the Bishop to Tessa’s David or Ash, and Fanning is great in both parts.
As for the PG-13 rating — as much as critics who are all aboard with the new direction will say it “feels” like an R-rated movie because there’s lots of alien gore, I beg to differ. This was clearly conceived as a movie for a younger audience, with them even giving Dek and Thia a cute sidekick animal they name Bud to tag along. It’s certainly a well-done PG-13, but it’s definitely not a movie targeted at the older Predator audience (unlike Prey, which was still pretty gnarly).
Whether or not you enjoy Predator: Badlands really depends on how tied you are to the OG franchise — which, I’ll admit, is inconsistent at best. Given how limited the audience has been for pretty much every Predator movie that didn’t star Arnold Schwarzenegger, I get them trying something new. I was able to go with it and had a blast. It’s a new direction for the franchise, and while it’s certainly different, it’s not bad either.
