Simple its message and packed full of solid sci-fi action, Predator: Badlands is an awful lot of fun.
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In 2022, Dan Trachtenberg did the unthinkable. He made the Predator franchise relevant again. How did he do that? We went back to basics and pitted the titular alien hunter against a different kind of warrior in a different time, Amber Midthunder's Naru. The end result was a movie that critics and audiences loved, and apparently gave Fox enough confident in Trachtenberg to give him the reigns to the franchise moving forward. Cut to three years later and Trachtenberg is doing what no one expected him to do: expand the Predator world and mythos. First with Predator: Killer of Killers, a dynamite animated movie that delivers on the "give us a bunch of different historical warriors facing off against a Predator" gimmick people were keen on, while delivering a surprising twist of the theatrical release. A PG-13 movie featuring a Predator as the lead.
The Setup
The movie follows a young Predator named Dek, a perceived weakling whose is hellbent on reclaiming his honor. To do so, he'll wade through a harsh new world before facing up against a legendary adversary. But as the hostile world throws everything is has at Dek, the young warrior will have to grapple with the lessons he's been taught vs. what he believes is right.
So far I'd argue that there are 3 good Predator movies and one fun one. For those curious I think the three good ones are the original, Prey, and Badlands and the fun one is Predators.
The original works because it's an inversion of the expectation. We got the biggest action star of the era, gave him a team of bad-asses loaded for bear, and they come up against a being so technologically advanced and strong, that it makes men like Arnold and Jesse "the Body" Ventura look like lambs to the slaughter. We even give our bad-asses a scene of standard eighties action cheese to make their bad-assery not just assumed, but readily apparent before the Predator starts picking them off one by one.
Prey works because it intentionally makes our hero an inversion of Arnold's Dutch. An unproven warrior woman who still hasn't proven her hunting mettle to her tribe, who then exceeds audience expectations and her own tribe's by fending off a technologically superior foe the era's greatest warriors have trouble even wounding.
And Badlands works because it's a takedown of toxic masculinity, while looking and feeling a lot like a standard Predator movie, in particular, Prey. Because disempowerment is the name of the game.
Something I like so much about the introduction of Predator and Dek's personality when we first meet him is that it perfectly encapsulates the death spiral of warrior ethos nations and cultures. Either a young man proves himself in violent combat to maintain a sense of family honor, is killed in the process of seeking honor, or is killed off for being deemed too week to participate in the society in the first place.
So while Dek views this entire mission as a means of meeting his society's expectations, it's actually a journey of personal growth as he learns that things besides being a lone wolf hunter can not only help you survive, it can also give you a greater sense of purpose beyond collecting empty trophies.
Connection and empathy is this movie isn't a weakness, it's a strength that might have the potential to save your life.
This is not so subtly conveyed through Elle Fanning's Thia, a sympathetic synthetic who constantly challenges Dek's solo glory obsessed perspective, even as it appears to clash with the world she exists in as well. All of which is pushing towards the idea of what actually makes a supportive family or society.
Fanning is such a delight in this movie. She's doing a ton of the heavy-lifting here because Dek is not speaking English, so it relies heavily on her to delivery exposition and jokes, and she does all of this exceptionally well. She really has this "oh my" kind of expression to everything whether it's talking about how she was torn in half or delighting in seeing an unexpected behavior from a nearby animal.
But just because the movie is a takedown of death spiral societies, doesn't mean that it forgoes over-the-top sci-fi action.
The kick here is that we've got a naturally strong warrior/Predator going against creatures that feel fully capable of killing a Predator in a few blows. And because this world is new to Dek and the audience, each creature encounter becomes a game of figuring out the weak spot or using some ingenuity to escape the situation unscathed.
Because the Predator's signature cloaking device is something that Dek apparently has not earned according to his father, Dek is more or less fighting with a suped-up sword and that's about it. Which means instead of a giant fire power battle, each bout plays more like a furious melee.
And as much as folks might malign the PG-13 rating, you probably won't notice. Because in case you weren't aware, alien blood and guts don't count as blood and guts to the MPAA. This is one of the strangest oddities of the rating system, but Tratechneberg and company seemed to understand this rule, and to ensure a PG-13 ensured that their characters are aliens with neon colored blood that would be more at home at a Nickeleodeon studio in the 90s or androids who either spark or spew white fluid that also wouldn't be mistaken for blood.
So in case you were worried that a Predator movie wasn't going to be gross, rest assured, Badlands is.
The complaints I have are all pretty nit-picky. The overlap with the Alien franchise seems to mostly exist to callback certain moments and elements from the franchise versus adding to it, and I was aching for a new piece of tech. And as it's been pointed out, because the Predator is our main character, the movie shifts away from the horror aspect of the sci-fi action horror label.
But in terms of back to basics action filmmaking and being a fun time at the movies, this gets the job done and makes me excited to see where the franchise goes from here.
The Verdict: Another Pleasant Surprise
Simple its message and packed full of solid sci-fi action, Predator: Badlands is an awful lot of fun. 8/10
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