Review: Predator: Badlands

Synopsis

“Predator: Badlands,” which stars Elle Fanning and Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, is set in the future on a remote planet, where a young Predator (Schuster-Koloamatangi), outcast from his clan, finds an unlikely ally in Thia (Fanning) and embarks on a treacherous journey in search of the ultimate adversary.

TL:DR

A perfectly fun and inventive action film that is just shy of hitting for me as a Predator franchise installment. 7/10

Review

Predator: Badlands is the latest in the Predator franchise and is the second helmed by director Dan Trachtenberg. He also directed Hulu’s Prey, which in my opinion put the franchise back on the map. It was a serious refresh and it restored some faith in the IP as a whole. 

Now I am not the biggest fan of the franchise, nor have I ever claimed to be, but I did just watch through them all following a rewatch of the Alien franchise, so this one was of course a must see in theaters. It was also the first theatrical release since Disney took over ownership so I was tentatively interested in seeing how things held up…especially after the promo issue with the “child Predator” mishap. 

For one, this film certainly delivered on lore and backstory. Other than glimpses of skulls and some one liners, I really never got the gist of what they were, where they were from, and why were they after whatever they could kill. Although I will say the “no friends” credo while the movie is a family drama felt a little too Dominic Toretto for me personally. We see where a clan of Yautja are from and we see them uphold their values at great costs. I thought this was cool, albeit a bit heavy handed in this movie, especially as a low level fan. We went from little drops or easter eggs of info to being bashed over the head with it. 

The Predator in this one is the runt of the group. I did not know they had runts until this trailer released, but here we are. He accepts a mission to prove his worth even though his father and clan leader would rather cull the weak. Dek must kill the infamous Kalisk, a creature that even his father fears. During his journey on the planet Genna, which is home to an entire ecosystem hellbent on killing everything, he somehow finds friends. 

As the Predator doesn’t speak english or have a face that isn’t CGI (well sometimes it’s not…) it’s kind of hard to place how the performance was, but it was at least believable. I can’t say I’m sold on the character design and talking, especially because the franchise is built around such cool masks and this one is without one, but it wasn’t terrible to be sure (although the Feral from Prey is so much cooler IMO). Ellie Fanning, as the Weyland-Yutani synths, on the other hand, was great. Humorous, interesting, and a nice change of pace as the film was allowed some English translation. 

The creature and world design otherwise was awesome. Unique and brutal, this is somewhere I’d never like to end up. The action is also pretty solid, especially for the PG-13 rating, the lack of humans and red blood allowed them to get away with a decent amount. And for a movie with less gadgets, there are still some interesting kills. 

The real problem for me is that these never really coalesced into something that felt like the Predator franchise. It is a good and enjoyable movie, no doubt, but it is also the latest film in a franchise and should feel as such. As a Predator movie I don’t think the humor lands. I did not need a buddy cop movie. And I actually think the lack of humans fundamentally takes away from the action film-style we have come to expect. Points for being different of course, but I’m still going back and forth on it. I’m iffy. As someone that’s not a huge stan of this franchise I’m not mad, but I guess I still see the flaws? 

Also, the elephant in the film? (Although for this film I guess an elephant would be small-ish?). I’ve seen it debated online about the true ‘canon’ connection between the franchises since the two AVP movies, and of course when I realized Disney now owned both I kind of expected it. Then of course I saw the trailer and I was proven right. I know people online argue that the two crossover movies are canon for Predator but not Alien, but then this truly had so much in depth use and mentions of Weyland-Yutani that it’s almost more of an Alien installation? We have synths…a lot, a research center, MU/TH/UR sharing communications, a HUGE hauler that is practically cut and pasted from Aliens (just larger)…I mean hell, I was waiting to see a Xenomorph or something… Truly, Alien is my preferred franchise, so it’s not like I’m mad, this one’s kind of just weird.