After a detour on Hulu, with two entries that streamed exclusively on the platform, the Predator franchise is back on the big screen for the first time since the 2018 dud The Predator. Those direct-to-Hulu movies, Prey and Predator: Killer Of Killers, and this latest theatrical release, Predator: Badlands, are all headed up by 10 Cloverfield Lane director Dan Trachtenberg, who has effectively taken over the series for 20th Century Studios. Reteaming with his Prey scribe Patrick Aison, Trachtenberg continues to delve deeper into this treacherous universe and reconsider what a Predator movie can even be. This particular chapter explores more about the Yautja extraterrestrial species, who typically act as the “Predator” villains in most of the other films but essentially serve as the main characters this time out.
On the planet Yautja Prime, we meet the brothers Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) and Kwei (Mike Homik) as they spar to train and prove themselves to their bloodthirsty tribe. As the runt of their clan, Dek is even most desperate to assert his dominance and ventures to the deadly planet Genna in order to win the respect of his father Njohrr (Reuben de Jong). There, he intends to hunt the “unkillable” Kalisk creature and bring it back as a trophy, as their kind is wont to do. On other planets, the Yautja may be considered “predators” but on Genna, they’re lower down on the food chain and about as vulnerable as the humans were in the original ’80s actioner that kicked things off 38 years ago. Fortunately, Dek finds help in the form of Thia (Elle Fanning), a bisected android whose knowledge of Genna and its perils can help Dek on his mission.
Reframing a Predator movie as one where the titular creature is on the run as opposed to running things lends itself to a hero’s journey and Badlands makes a proper protagonist out of Dek. Thanks to stellar motion-capture work by Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, this is the most expressive and vulnerable a Yautja alien has looked in the franchise thus far. Sure, they may not be much more glamorous than how Arnold memorably described them in Predator, but Dek’s eyes adequately convey the emotions we need to relate to his struggles. There are other tweaks to the design that help too, like leaving Dek without the typical Yautja armor and giving him one tooth that’s shorter than the other three to drive home his underdog state. As his peppy sidekick, Elle Fanning sometimes lays it on a bit thick but Thia’s wide-eyed optimism generally plays well against Dek’s fierce determination.
Predator: Badlands is rated PG-13 but it certainly doesn’t skimp on the sci-fi action that we’ve come to expect from these movies; apparently the MPA goes easier on bloodletting when the blood in question is bright green. Thia isn’t exaggerating when she tells Dek that everything on the planet is designed with death in mind. Not two minutes after crash landing on Genna, branch monsters are out to kill the new visiting Yautja. With spontaneously exploding caterpillars and fields of grass so sharp that it can cut flesh just by grazing it, this is clearly a planet that woke up and chose violence. The ways that Dek and Thia battle back implement creative creature design and inventive choreography, as when Dek first tangos with the Kalisk to find that it can regenerate limbs at an alarming rate. Another terrific fight scene finds Thia’s disconnected top half and bottom half simultaneously duking it out with fellow Weyland-Yutani synthetic robots.
In attempting to expand this universe, Trachtenberg and his team have dug deeper into the mythology behind the Yautja creatures and have woven themes about how they live into Predator: Badlands. “The Yautja are prey to no one, friend to no one and predator to all,” an opening card reads, but Dek’s tale of rugged determination intentionally calls these core tenets into question. It turns out the lone wolf strategy doesn’t work so well when you’re this far away from home field advantage and, as Thia reminds Dek, the alpha wolf isn’t necessarily the strongest but the one who best protects the pack. It’s a long way from macho contras getting picked off one by one in a Central American rainforest but, perhaps improbably, Trachtenberg is 3 for 3 in telling unique stories from this initially myopic Predator world.
Score – 3.5/5
New movies coming this weekend:
Coming to theaters is Wicked: For Good, a fantasy musical starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, continuing the tale of Oz citizens Elphaba and Glinda as they embrace their new identities of Wicked Witch Of The West and Glinda The Good.
Also playing in theaters is Rental Family, a family dramedy starring Brendan Fraser and Takehiro Hira, centering around an American actor living in Tokyo who starts working for a Japanese “rental family” service to play stand-in roles in other people’s lives.
Premiering on Netflix is Train Dreams, a period drama starring Joel Edgerton and Felicity Jones, following a logger who works to develop the railroad system across the US, causing him to spend time away from his family as he struggles with his place in a changing world.
Reprinted by permission of Whatzup