PREDATOR: BADLANDS Is the Best Alien/Robot Team-Up Ever (Review) Eric Diaz | usagoldmines.com

Director Dan Trachtenberg is now officially three for three with the Predator franchise. His amazing 2022 film Prey was a fresh take on the basic Predator tropes, only with a different time period and protagonist. His animated anthology, Killer of Killers, was another breath of fresh air into a tired series. But with Predator: Badlands, Trachtenberg proves there’s just about no one better equipped to handle this franchise. And in many ways, Badlands reinvents the franchise more than any other movie before it. The final result is another winner in a series many had written off years ago.

The reinvention comes in the form of our lead hero. Badlands does what none of the previous films in the series ever did before — they made the Predator the protagonist. On paper, this sounds like a terrible idea. Why make one of the scariest monsters in cinema history into a good guy? Sure, sometimes it works (Godzilla, for example), but we usually like our monsters to stay monstrous. But after five films with the Predator as the antagonist, and only a couple of them being any good, what else was there left to do but switch things up to the Predator’s POV? Shockingly, it works incredibly well.

The movie has a fairly basic premise. We’re introduced to Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi), a member of the Yautja species, who are an entire alien race dedicated to big game hunting. This part we’ve known since 1987, but thanks to Badlands, we now know they have a complex culture, one where “runts” like Dek are meant to be culled from the tribe for weakness. Dek has a cruel father and an also cruel (but understanding) brother. Dek desperately wants to prove himself as a great warrior to his family. After a tragic set of circumstances, he sets out for the most dangerous planet in the galaxy, to kill its most dangerous beast, the Kalisk. No Yautja has ever brought a Kalisk trophy home, and Dek is aiming to be the first.

While a metric ton of flora and fauna try to kill Dek on Genna, he makes an unusual friend, a half-destroyed synthetic android named Thia (Elle Fanning), produced by the Weyland-Yutani corporation. Yes, the same Weyland-Yutani that factors so heavily into the Alien franchise. The company, as they are known, sent out several synths to Genna, a world so dangerous that no biological human could survive it. Their goal is the same as Dek’s, to capture the planet’s apex predator, the Kalisk. Only Dek wants to kill it to prove his worth as a warrior, and the Company wants it for their weapons division. Sound familiar? It’s the main plot of nearly every Alien movie. Only now, with a twist.

We should maybe get it out of the way here, given the Weyland-Yutani of it all. The Xenomorph does not appear in this film. However, given the massive importance of the Weyland synths in this movie, in many ways this is just as much an Alien film as it is a Predator film. Yes, we dare say even more than the dreadful AvP movies. In this film, the faceless evil is once again the sinister “company,” meaning this movie could have been called Alien’s Real Villains vs. Predator. We are not sure where it falls into the overall Alien timeline, besides far in the future, but it certainly is part of that universe in a meaningful way.

Needing Thia’s help to survive, Dek sets out to find the Kalisk, kill it, and prove himself to his father. Eventually, the pair form an unlikely bond, and Elle Fanning steals every scene she’s in as the universe’s most chipper android. She’s that perfect blend of annoying and endearing. Despite Dek reluctantly using her as merely a “tool” for his big hunt, he comes to trust Thia, and the pair form a great onscreen duo. Especially when strapped to his back like C-3PO with Chewie. There’s a twist with Thia that we won’t spoil here. But, needless to say, this movie really lets Elle Fanning deliver several great performances.

Eventually, Thia and Dek make another unlikely ally, in the form of a tiny, cute native creature they nickname Bud. The notion of a Predator, an android, and their adorable alien sidekick shouldn’t work. But we have to give credit to Trachtenberg here, he somehow makes this new little found-family sing. In lesser hands, this would have been cloying and annoying. In some ways, they feel like the main characters on a ’90s cartoon show based on The Predator franchise. But the combination of great actors and fun dialogue can’t help but make us root for this trio.

Predator: Badlands reminds us a lot of Alien: Romulus. Like that film, it doesn’t deliver that much that’s shockingly new. It “plays the hits,” so to speak. And yes, you’ll see elements from other films and TV shows too. There’s some Klingon culture from Star Trek. In fact, the Yautja makes this feel like the Klingon movie Paramount will never make. Then, there’s a fair share of aliens trapped together for survival from Enemy Mine. There’s even a bit of The Mandalorian. Somehow, Trachtenberg makes it all work. The action scenes are fun and inventive, and delightfully brutal. This despite the PG-13. And at less than two hours, this movie does not overstay its welcome. Dan Trachtenberg has said that Badlands is only the second of three Predator movies he has planned. After this movie, we honestly can’t wait for the next one.

Predator: Badlands hits theaters everywhere on November 7.

⭐ (3.5 of 5)